Roon sold to Harman. Implications?

[mikehughescq]

No idea. Nothing in the press release but then press releases are not intended to contain facts.

[Maury_Finkle]

All for naught then. Management teams, boards, etc, don’t approve deals without business cases. And if there’s no mention of the price, it’s a little hard to speculate what Harman’s intention is.

[Martinzero]

Implications? Easy. Money. Just like Naim being bought.
Martin

[garyi]

Its only ever money lol.

[Maury_Finkle]

you wonder if they’re thinking about making a move into car / portable audio solutions. an oem like Ford, Toyota, etc. paying a license fee for Roon in a car could be big

[Innocent_Bystander]

I can see various possibilities, including your scenarios. It will be interesting to see what happens - but that is only as an observer. Committed Roon users will either like the future development, or curse it. I hope for the sake of those with lifetime subscriptions it is the former.

[sean86]

@Maury_Finkle

an oem like Ford, Toyota, etc. paying a license fee for Roon in a car could be big

You wish! Too late in the game with Carplay, Airplay for mass consumption, and the technology & sound quality get better and better by huge Apple R&D fund.

[mikehughescq]

Interesting how so much is given away unintentionally. On the one hand Harman present that they’re giving Roon a helping hand to go large whilst remaining independent of them.

On the other you have Kirkland and Ellis who advised on the acquisition and there’s none of that talk there. There the talk is rather different.

What to believe eh. The PR or the legal and financial beagles.

[Bart]

@Maury_Finkle

you wonder if they’re thinking about making a move into car / portable audio solutions. an oem like Ford, Toyota, etc. paying a license fee for Roon in a car could be big

Displacing Apple / CarPlay would be difficult.

[sean86]

@mikehughescq

What to believe eh. The PR or the legal and financial beagles.

At least not from the Roon staff themselves, they deleted my queries about the lack of Roon support of the Linn streamers on the official Roon community forum, I do not see any reason why unless they want to hide something.

[Bart]

@Innocent_Bystander

I hope for the sake of those with lifetime subscriptions it is the former.

I’ve had the lifetime deal long enough that I’ve pretty much broken even vs. monthly and yearly plans, so Im not overly concerned. Back when I paid, “lifetime” was less than it is now.

[Maury_Finkle]

I don’t think it’s about displacing them - it’s about Roon working inside them

[Bart]

Roon on mobile . . . is the use case to use it to merely replace the UI of an existing streaming app, or to integrate a home server’s contents via Roon Arc along with the contents of a streaming platform?

As much as I like Roon at home, I don’t use it when mobile. I am happy to just use the Qobuz app. I’m far less picky what I listen to when mobile and don’t care about access to my home server’s library when I’m mobile. Others probably have different use cases for Roon, but in any event I’m one person who doesn’t use it in the car or elsewhere outside of my home.

If I didn’t already have a Qobuz subscription, it’d be different for me. But despite having 2tb of music on a home server, I find Qobuz worthwhile.

[Alley_Cat]

@Innocent_Bystander

@n-lot

I think what’s holding back its appeal is (the cost and hassle of) the additional server required, not the subscription cost.

Whilst I can’t say you’re wrong, there have certainly been a number of people on this forum who have indicated that [to them] it is not worth the cost.

I think it’s potentially both.

When I got the M1 Mac Mini with less RAM, Roon wasn’t viable as it was so memory hungry, didn’t use it for about 5 months so didn’t renew. I could have run it on an older Mac Mini but that was wasting electricity unless I used it often. I never did.

A few days ago I got a Black Friday 3 month subscription offer which was good, forgot to click on the link in time so missed it. Probably saved some money in the long run as I’d probably have left the subscription run after 3 months even if I hadn’t used it much.

The always internet connected thing they introduced also turned me off.

As for having a NAS/home based servers I was looking at a few options for an unused Raspberry Pi some weeks ago and of a few Moode happened to work best on initial attempts so it’s been running in the bedroom since then, my plan being to test the other solutions when I had more time. The fact is Moode has been stable since installation but I’ve barely used it, and certainly not for several weeks.

[Naim_The_Dragon]

Bad day in the office?!

[Maury_Finkle]

Any day in the office not trolling hi-fi message boards, looking for excellent used audio gear, sitting on your sofa listening to music - is a bad day in the office.

[mikehughescq]

What’s an office? I’ve been hybrid working for three years and have stepped into my previous base maybe half a dozen times for the odd half day since then.

I presume @Naim_The_Dragon said something along the lines of me or @jmtennapel having a bad day at the office?If only they’d not been on ignore for so long because of similar snipes eh.

@Bart

As much as I like Roon at home, I don’t use it when mobile. I am happy to just use the Qobuz app. I’m far less picky what I listen to when mobile and don’t care about access to my home server’s library when I’m mobile. Others probably have different use cases for Roon, but in any event I’m one person who doesn’t use it in the car or elsewhere outside of my home.

Another good point.

The launch of Arc has likely demonstrated firstly that, whilst Roon’s initial offer gained great traction because it was first to market, most of what they’ve done since actually hasn’t been very good. Secondly, they have a pattern of adding or creating stuff for which there isn’t actually that much demand. None of this adds up to a compelling future no matter who is in charge. Add in the squeeze from the app functionality of other manufacturers not owned by Samsung and I remain inclined to go with their advisers take rather than the PR.

[Maury_Finkle]

@mikehughescq

What’s an office? I’ve been hybrid working for three years and have stepped into my previous base maybe half a dozen times for the odd half day since then.

you’re a lucky man then

[Ryder35]

No he’s always like,that😉

[mikehughescq]

Going OT but it has pros and cons like anything.