Tidal and most (all?) music streaming is a "failure" by normal business standards. But this is "The Internet" and "e-commerce" and as such these services have 9 lives and then some. Tidal was recently purchased
That said Roon, already being a niche product, is sort of stuck with only two streaming services willing to work with them -one of them being an MQA dead end and the other not working in every country, etc.
I don't see much commentary on it, but Tidal's main differentiator has vanished (lossless), MQA is visibly debunked, and Tidal's deals for new members seem increasingly desperate.
Folks have asked in the Roon forums about potential integrations with Spotify and/or Apple for their lossless services, but last I read the Roon team wasn't optimistic due to the deep integration required for Roon (vs. implementing Spotify Connect functionality for example).
Roon higher ups (such as "Danny" in the disintegrating Roon "community") have admitted that for years the answer from streaming services (other than Tidal/qobuz) has not just been no, but hell no.
And why would a streaming service work with Roon? allowing third party front end UI's like Roon is an admission that your just a commodity serving up the same thing as all everyone else
Your investors and management have to believe that your offering the market something "unique" that distinguishes you from the herd, and signing a contract with Roon is not how you keep up appearances...
For our part as consumers, we have signaled again and again that not only is streaming a commodity, but that it is a low value one - we can hardly get ourselves to pay more than 9.99, or 12.99 (or whatever). We know its a commidity and that Roon is for the 1% or .1% of audiophile fools who actualy vaule and pay (a little bit) more
Given all this I don't expect Roon to ever be more than a front end for Tidal/qobuz, until the day it isn't but that day is not right around the corner...
For me the larger value of Roon is playing to a streamer (Pi2AES in my case) without hassle. UPnP is such a clusterfuck that I'm willing to pay a monthly fee to Roon.
@crenca, @zonto thanks for the insights about Roon developers & community. It does make me think Roon is a product for renting, not buying.. Especially after being let down by Audirvana so recently.
@Woland For my home setup I gave up and just installed Ropiee. I still plan to use Volumio at an office if that ever happens again. In that case I will avoid UPnP and use Volumio to play Qobuz. The UI for that is wonky but still better than UPnP regularly f'ing up.
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