The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.

[MikeH]

Thanks!

Are hi-res files purchased & downloaded from Tidal, Apple Music or Qobuz DRM-free?

Roon looks awesome, but I'd like to keep using iTunes (or I guess it's just called Music now on the Macs) to manage & play my local library since it's still the only reliable system to sync to mobile devices and maintain playcounts & ratings. I've got at least 10 years worth of playcount info, ratings and smart playlists in there. Also, I probably won't subscribe to any hi-res streaming services for now, so that negates another advantage of Roon. I'm stubborn, I still prefer playing from my local library. I share a family plan Spotify account with my sister, so I usually use that to check out new music, but then I seek out digital copies of stuff I like.

I'm currently using an Airport Express connected to my main setup to Airplay to from my iMac, but Airplay is limited to 16/44. In my new setup, I'll have a dedicated audio/entertainment room, so I'll just hardwire my iMac to my main setup through a DAC so I can play hi-res audio there. Then I can just Airplay to my Sonos speakers in the living areas where 16/44 is sufficient.

High res Music purchased from Qobuz is DRM-free and I believe you can download in a variety of formats. I’ve never purchased from them though. Steamed music/download for offline listening is obviously not DRM free on any of those platforms.

My office is a similar setup to what you’re eventually doing. My computer is plugged directly into my amp via USB and it uses the amp’s DAC. I’ll eventually get a separate DAC for there. My music is all stored on a NUC which has Roon’s OS installed on it to act as my Roon core so I still stream from Roon as the software.

mobile listening is a good point—I have Apple Music for the car and used to use it on my commute. Can’t use Roon outside of your house. But can obviously use Qobuz on your phone and set it to be lower res if you’re on data vs higher res on WiFi. Luckily I never got into play counts or anything like that.

 

[MikeH]

I remember trying to figure out how to get an invite to what.cd a long time ago, and giving up

I still use soulseek, but its P2P, so it has nowhere near the reliability in quality as something like what.cd. It's awesome for occasionally finding one random person who has something like old mixtapes from the late 90s, early 00's that I can't find anywhere else. Most of the hi-res stuff I find on there are vinyl rips though - any other hi-res files I don't trust the source - it could've been someone upsampling a CD rip.

My buddy got me a what invite then someone else on the old VMP forum got me a redacted invite. Very similar to what.cd!

 

[Andy]

Roon is definitely the best, but must admit I canceled my sub & used the money to buy a Node2i. I wasn't using it that much, and was hoping someone else would develop something similar. The software really is important in the digital chain, it still surprises me how complicated and poor streaming capability is generally for hifi.

Anyone see any discounts on Roon? Anyone decide to stump up the cost of a lifetime membership?

 

[jamieanderson1968]

Roon is definitely the best, but must admit I canceled my sub & used the money to buy a Node2i. I wasn't using it that much, and was hoping someone else would develop something similar. The software really is important in the digital chain, it still surprises me how complicated and poor streaming capability is generally for hifi.

Anyone see any discounts on Roon? Anyone decide to stump up the cost of a lifetime membership?

I love Roon, but it definitely is a perk for me. This is partly why I dropped Tidal. We are an Apple house and when we bundled all our services together, adding in Apple Music for myself and my wife was only a couple bucks more.

Roon truly is in a class by itself for my usage, even without incorporating a streaming service.

 

[JohnnyCashFan]

Audirvana WAS my go to for streaming and my own files but they recently went to subscription model and pissed off all the Legacy owners including me that had paid for a "lifetime" license. Many of us continue to use the last non sub version for now. I think we are all on the outlook for other streaming/playback software platforms to come along that makes more sense.

 

[Joe Mac]

Roon is definitely the best, but must admit I canceled my sub & used the money to buy a Node2i. I wasn't using it that much, and was hoping someone else would develop something similar. The software really is important in the digital chain, it still surprises me how complicated and poor streaming capability is generally for hifi.

Anyone see any discounts on Roon? Anyone decide to stump up the cost of a lifetime membership?

I’m quite confident in saying that’s you’ve more chance of landing Moby Dick that getting a Roon discount just because the only discounts I’ve ever seen have come with gear purchases!

I was saving for the lifetime when it was $500 but it went up halfway through that year and the current price is a bit too steep for my blood.

 

[MikeH]

I was saving for the lifetime when it was $500 but it went up halfway through that year and the current price is a bit too steep for my blood.

I had just started out on my first year with Roon and considered the lifetime membership. After a year I decided I loved it and went to get the lifetime and the price had gone up $200 or something. $700 is so steep…that’s like a nice new piece of equipment haha.

 

[Joe Mac]

I had just started out on my first year with Roon and considered the lifetime membership. After a year I decided I loved it and went to get the lifetime and the price had gone up $200 or something. $700 is so steep…that’s like a nice new piece of equipment haha.

Yeah we must have joined at a similar time because snap!

To be fair they wrote a big piece at the time justifying it. Normal subscriptions fund their business and if they only sold lifetimes they would end up reaching a point where they couldn’t fund their continual development because the income stream would slow down too much. From a business point of view they’d like to ditch lifetime but in the end decided from a customer satisfaction view they would still keep it for people who saw themselves as “forever Roon” and had the money upfront but at a price that would make most people think twice.

 

[MikeH]

Audirvana WAS my go to for streaming and my own files but they recently went to subscription model and pissed off all the Legacy owners including me that had paid for a "lifetime" license. Many of us continue to use the last non sub version for now. I think we are all on the outlook for other streaming/playback software platforms to come along that makes more sense.

The subscription model is annoying but most software is going that route. I use Adobe creative cloud for work and everybody hated when it went subscription. Now I don’t think twice about it. It will be interesting to see if another Roon comes along, especially one that’s cheaper. Maybe as high res streaming becomes more prominent? For $10/month I more than get my use out of it and no other music software has come close for me in terms of what it offers and how user friendly it is to use.

 

[JohnnyCashFan]

The subscription model is annoying but most software is going that route. I use Adobe creative cloud for work and everybody hated when it went subscription. Now I don’t think twice about it. It will be interesting to see if another Roon comes along, especially one that’s cheaper. Maybe as high res streaming becomes more prominent? For $10/month I more than get my use out of it and no other music software has come close for me in terms of what it offers and how user friendly it is to use.

yah, but your work pays for the Adobe sub Mike!

To have to pay for a streaming software AND a streaming service is a bummer to most on limited music budgets. Like I said for now I do not have to do both but when the older macs/o.s. stop working will have to.

I'm sure we will see some kind of community developed music streaming shareware eventually like VLC, Firefox, Handbrake, etc for example come along.

 

[MikeH]

yah, but your work pays for the Adobe sub Mike!

To have to pay for for a streaming software AND a streaming service is a bummer to most on limited music budgets. Like I said for now I do not have to do both but when the older macs/o.s. stop working will have to.

I'm sure we will see some kind of community developed music streaming shareware eventually like VLC, Firefox, Handbrake, etc come along

I pay for the adobe subscription since I have my own company

I hear ya on paying for Roon + a high-res streaming service though. It took me a bit to get over but I really do use it every day. I figure that Roon + Qobuz is about the price of 1 record per month. Do I buy one less record a month? ......no......but that's just how I think about it! haha

 

[jamieanderson1968]

Sadly I think it is a pretty niche market, I really can's see another jumping in. I really only think about it when my annual renewal notice and then quickly forget about the subscription.

As I get back more into photography again, I am going to probably get an Adobe subscription as well. I love Lightroom, but damn that will hurt giving a little bit of $ to Adobe each month, just on principle.

 

[JohnnyCashFan]

Sadly I think it is a pretty niche market, I really can's see another jumping in. I really only think about it when my annual renewal notice and then quickly forget about the subscription.

As I get back more into photography again, I am going to probably get an Adobe subscription as well. I love Lightroom, but damn that will hurt giving a little bit of $ to Adobe each month, just on principle.

I know many Protools users have given up on the sub model.

 

[MikeH]

I know many Protools users have given up on the sub model.

I just think it's not worth fighting it. Every software company is going to go towards it or charge thousands and thousands of dollars to buy the software outright. At least with the subscription costs, you get endless upgrades on a lot of them and don't have to worry about buying a new expensive version each time there's an update. It is annoying though but most apps are going to do it if they haven't already. Hell...I was using a new email app and they even recently updated to a subscription model. I'm not paying for that one though!

 

[Joe Mac]

I just think it's not worth fighting it. Every software company is going to go towards it or charge thousands and thousands of dollars to buy the software outright. At least with the subscription costs, you get endless upgrades on a lot of them and don't have to worry about buying a new expensive version each time there's an update. It is annoying though but most apps are going to do it if they haven't already. Hell...I was using a new email app and they even recently updated to a subscription model. I'm not paying for that one though!

Yeah even my damn password manager app has a subscription now! That said its something like €2 a month, is super secure and stops me being defrauded so perhaps thats not the one to complain about

 

[jamieanderson1968]

I just think it's not worth fighting it. Every software company is going to go towards it or charge thousands and thousands of dollars to buy the software outright. At least with the subscription costs, you get endless upgrades on a lot of them and don't have to worry about buying a new expensive version each time there's an update. It is annoying though but most apps are going to do it if they haven't already. Hell...I was using a new email app and they even recently updated to a subscription model. I'm not paying for that one though!

Recently downloaded a new camera app for my iPhone (ProCamera) and it has a basic price and then a subscription price for some extra features. At least the extras are much more pro level so 95% of users of the app would not miss them (lens correction etc)

 

[Andy]

Yeah we must have joined at a similar time because snap!

To be fair they wrote a big piece at the time justifying it. Normal subscriptions fund their business and if they only sold lifetimes they would end up reaching a point where they couldn’t fund their continual development because the income stream would slow down too much. From a business point of view they’d like to ditch lifetime but in the end decided from a customer satisfaction view they would still keep it for people who saw themselves as “forever Roon” and had the money upfront but at a price that would make most people think twice.

I cancelled because of this. I was working away a lot & would have considered the lifetime membership, but couldn't justify £125 for the weekends when I didn't just listen to some vinyl. I always thought at least one of the hardware manufacturers would get their act together and develop some decent software, but I don't think anything compares.

I'm still not sure I can justify the subscription. If the had an app that worked away from the house then maybe.

 

[jamieanderson1968]

If the had an app that worked away from the house then maybe.

That was my holy grail but never found a good way to do this.

I think Plex (not free version) will allow you to do this. I have not messed with it but I think you can stream from your home network to yourself anywhere as long as you are on wifi

 

[Andy]

That was my holy grail but never found a good way to do this.

I think Plex (not free version) will allow you to do this. I have not messed with it but I think you can stream from your home network to yourself anywhere as long as you are on wifi

I think you're right. I got it working on movies from hotels when I sued to travel but had problems with my NAS, which I could never resolve remotely. At some point I'll upgrade the Nas and maybe get Roon, for now I'll stick with the vinyl

 

[Mather]

I understand why they do it, but I'll be damned if I'm paying a monthly fee so that my home stereo system works properly. No Roon for me.