Looking back at my streaming spend over the past few months there is £600+ for a Roon lifetime subscription, £800+ for a Roon Rock NUC, £70+ to upgrade Qobuz to sublime, £450+ on buying downloads from Qobuz and about £150 on downloads from Sound Liaison. All triggered by upgrading to the 300 series!
So over 2 grand spent - I thought streaming would be cheap 
Streaming is cheap! None of the things you mention are actually necessary to do it, they are only (subjectively) nice things to have, if that’s what floats your boat.
Yes, entirely optional. The whole process of streaming via Qobuz, CD rips and downloads has been a fantastic way of discovering music I would not have otherwise listened to.
Some downloads have been purchased just in case Qobuz drops them at some point in the future. Another advantage of sublime is that the hi res recordings are often much cheaper than the CD version so a great way to increase my hi res library.
That is akin to buying records or CDs, so doesn’t count! Ditto if you subscribe to an online streaming service.
And you don’t have to have Roon (to me it wasn’t worth the money, offering nothing of significance more than other solutions, though of course some people find what it offers to be real added value to them).
Mine was £375 all in, what spec did you buy??
Think it was i5 with 1Gb internal storage. Nice fanless unit.
That’s a lot of cheese for streaming! I remarked elsewhere that I have replaced a $3000+ per year music purchase habit with a $179.99 per year Qobuz Sublime subscription. I’ve pretty much given up on vinyl, if only because my collection is small and I am not prepared to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a nice vinyl rig and hundreds of albums that I can stream for next-to-nothing.
The value proposition for streaming is amazing. I’m not sure what that may mean for compensating artists down the road, but somehow many of them are still making more money than I ever will!
I hope to invest the savings in better equipment for streaming sometime in the next year or two! I really like the New Classic boxes!
I have already spent money on improving my system and streaming is my only source - not interested in vinyl or CD.
I’m not complaining about the additional cost rather just mentioning that I have spent more in ensuring that I am set up properly. I really enjoy Roon and the NUC is so much more stable than running the core on my iMac. It really is just plug in and forget except for adding downloads to the internal drive.
Like your good self, I anticipate that the only costs moving forward should be my £179 a year sublime subscription.
There’s the absolute bargain if you decide to purchase more than a handful of hi-res downloads.
Suspect it paid for itself almost instantly with all those purchases.
Love Sublime.
Yes, I spent over £400 within a few days. I am not sure what my overall savings were but it must have been well over £100 - maybe quite close to the £179 annual sublime subscription! Very pleased.
The only niggle with the downloads is that the files are downloaded as ‘artist’/‘1’/‘album’. I have to cut the album from ‘1’, paste into ‘artist’ then delete ‘1’. The Roon NUC internal storage ‘sees through’ the ‘1’ folder but when adding to the drive attached to the 333, the Naim app on occasion classes the album as ‘1’ and artist as the album title. A small niggle.
Assume you’re using the Qobuz downloader app.
It seems to be designed with ‘multi CD/volume’ downloads in mind so if there were 3 ‘discs’ in a release for example it creates a folder for each. If there was only 1 disc it would ideally not create folder ‘1’.
The downloader app is months old but not perfect.
The old web download system was more versatile with more options for formats/resolution and ability to download tracks in a TAR file which would need to be uncompressed but worked quite well apart occasionally from massive compilations (usually classical/opera box set type stuff).
The current web download system is track by track and a faff with reduced format/resolution options though probably what most people wanted.
The BIG bonus of the web download interface is the artwork which is much better resolution when available eg 1400x1400 or more for many titles, so I always try to remember to download hi-res artwork.
Also the separate Qobuz desktop player app I find is excellent for viewing purchases and downloads can easily be queued (FLAC only from memory) but you don’t have the ‘1’ folder issue, or didn’t used to. If you use this be careful about changing the folder locations for storage - for non-purchased items it’ll delete downloads in the existing folder if you change it.
The purchased downloads folder should be fine for copying items to storage elsewhere/for backup.
Sorry @Alley_Cat , I do not know what you mean. I download the files into my download folder on my PC and then remove the ‘1’ folder. I then copy file to my NUC and the drive attached to my 333. This is obviously just purchased downloads. What do you mean non-purchased downloads?
I find the download app to work well on my PC. Not perfect but better than my memory of the old system with TAR files. I like the ability to select WAV or FLAC (the only 2 of interest to me) plus whatever resolution I like up to the version I have purchased (always the highest resolution).
I don’t do it myself but I like the fact that you can download as many times as you like in any resolution.
Incidental costs are your choice though, Amazon unlimited costs me 42 pounds UK per year. Bargain.
Buying music via downloads is always extra whether Quobuz or elsewhere.
Yes, indeed they are optional and a great way to own hi-res albums for a very reasonable price (cheaper than CD quality).
Every aspect of our great hobby is optional from systems through cables, speakers, networks etc.
I think I was pointing out that it isn’t just an incidental streaming cost. Buying or renting the source is always an on cost at whichever level we choose with whichever medium.
Will be stumping up that much to avoid advertisements in Prime soon!
Is that the hi-res tier or CD?
Gave up on Amazon Music after they messed up the selction included with Prime ‘more tracks’, but ads and can’t play an album through, only related things after one song you ‘might like’ but probably don’t want to listen to. 
Sorry, using Mac not PC but on the main page under ‘Our ecosystem’ you should see this for PC:
The Qobuz Application gives a nice browsing experience, easy access to a list of Purchases plus ability to download in various resolutions to a named folder. I prefer it to the Downloader app for this. I’m hoping they don’t get rid of download functionality in this Qobuz app or replace it by lining to the separate Downloader app.
As I don’t use Windows often I don’t know if any of these app are better on one platform or another.
Unlimited is hi res- or the highest they have. I have Amazon prime and adding the Unlimited is cheaper that way than having it alone. I have listened to more new stuff and older stuff that I wouldn’t have bought or taken a chance on. Well worth it to me.
Very similar on pc. I was actually questioning your phrase ‘for non-purchased’. I assumed that you could only download purchased items.
One drawback of Amazon is that much of the unlimited hires content is only available to stream- not to buy where it is just cd quality.
