Harman acquires Roon

[beeface]

I'm curious to see what Harman's business strategy is for this: moving boxes or moving subscriptions? Of course, Harman would want to do both, but I don't think a mainstream consumer could stomach the current subscription price after they've bought their JBL soundbar.

 

[stunta]

Roon is likely to have bad attrition after the retention period. People like these move on to start other companies and rarely stay long after acquisition. This is it, Roon will die. Need to find a different solution.

I think Harman wants the RAAT protocol..

Meanwhile, Roon's stability has been deteriorating for me over the last year so. Today, Roon has been crashing on launch. Not sure if they even generate or look at crash reports.

 

[darrellc]

Curious to eventually learn why they bought Roon -

For Samsung phones? Just as the Samsung Music app abstracts from Spotify and integrates other music services in, maybe they want to try to use Roon as a way to abstract Samsung users from other music services and make Samsung mobile phones the best platform for managing music end to end, from discovery, integrating multiple sources, integrating with playback devices, etc.

Samsung always wants to compete with Google, so maybe this is their Samsung play vs. Chromecast. And Airplay.

Sonos compete is another interesting angle.

They certainly didn't buy it for integration with your personal music collection ripped to NAS or any of the niche audiophile features. Has to be a broader consumer opportunity they're going after. So I wouldn't be surprised to see those features fade away with minimal investment.

 

[JSmith]

I mean Ronn is not quite 10yrs old

Who's Ronn?

JSmith

 

[mhardy6647]

Harman (to wit, harman/kardon, i.e., pre-Harman International) was at one time fairly innovative indeed.

The first integrated hifi (mono) receiver -- it is said.

1955 Allied Radio Catalog

Flip-through every page of this 1955 Allied Radio Catalog containing vintage radios, phonographs, amplifiers, amateur / short wave radios, knight kits & electronic parts.

www.alliedcatalogs.com

 

[Galliardist]

Curious to eventually learn why they bought Roon -

For Samsung phones? Just as the Samsung Music app abstracts from Spotify and integrates other music services in, maybe they want to try to use Roon as a way to abstract Samsung users from other music services and make Samsung mobile phones the best platform for managing music end to end, from discovery, integrating multiple sources, integrating with playback devices, etc.

Samsung always wants to compete with Google, so maybe this is their Samsung play vs. Chromecast. And Airplay.

Sonos compete is another interesting angle.

They certainly didn't buy it for integration with your personal music collection ripped to NAS or any of the niche audiophile features. Has to be a broader consumer opportunity they're going after. So I wouldn't be surprised to see those features fade away with minimal investment.

The current Roon product is way too complex for any of those things. It's also awkward.

I don't know about their own devices, but it took me ages just to get Remote to work with the app on Windows - firewall provision on multiple applications before it ran. It looks like it is no easier on Mac or Linux just to get that far. It took several restarts for it to realise my DAC was set to exclusive mode. It's crashed a couple of times, and it's the first time I've had extensive stuttering from Qobuz as well (but our internet is intermittently dodgy which may be the cause of that).

Much of the feature set requires further tinkering and some knowledge. It's not really a mass market product, and I don't see Harman popping it in a corner as a niche application, so something will change. Given the potential capabilities locked in there, the change could be for the better. The thing I do see it being is expensive, at least for existing users to change to the next product.

II could see the software product getting a makeover similar to Final Cut Pro X - so the lifetimers get their product, but with far fewer features, unless they switch to a Harman hardware server (offered at a big discount perhaps?)

 

[Mr. Widget]

Harman (to wit, harman/kardon, i.e., pre-Harman International) was at one time fairly innovative indeed.

The first integrated hifi (mono) receiver -- it is said.

1955 Allied Radio Catalog

Flip-through every page of this 1955 Allied Radio Catalog containing vintage radios, phonographs, amplifiers, amateur / short wave radios, knight kits & electronic parts.

www.alliedcatalogs.com

Harman and virtually all of the companies they have acquired have impressive legacies. Unfortunately Harman has been actively trashing them starting 5-10 years before Samsung took the reins. The optimists had hoped that Samsung would right the ship... so far there is no evidence of that.

 

[jhaider]

Interesting. They must want to multi-room technology to take on Sonos/Bluesound and Wiim. I predict a lite version of Roon that will be free with Harman brand’s hardware and not require a physical core.

They’d need to make a less niche product first, though. Given that Roon currently can’t access Apple Music or even YouTube I’ve long found it irrelevant.

Perhaps the bet is Samsung’s deeper bench of in house and outside counsel (coupled with an FTC that has more life than at any time since Judge Robert Bork presided over the gutting of antitrust law) will convince Apple/Google/Amazon to play with Roon.

OTOH Harman’s (public) post acquisition targets haven’t generally made sense to me. Arcam, for example, was probably best known for lacking understanding of bass management, and tying the Harman AVR/P universe to their platforms has been…not smooth.

 

[GXAlan]

Harman’s (public) post acquisition targets haven’t generally made sense to me. Arcam, for example, was probably best known for lacking understanding of bass management, and tying the Harman AVR/P universe to their platforms has been…not smooth.

Samsung actually had a nice AVR with ICEamps prior to their Harman acquisition. Their NX APS-C mirrorless cameras were awesome and years ahead of the competition. Their high gloss black laser printers looked really cool too.

Samsung has an even worse track record than Sony for abandoning their products.

Along those same lines, I feel as if Harman Kardon AVRs died after the 5.1 era and Lexicon/Proceed/Levinson also failed to progress in the HDMI/CEC era. JBL Synthesis processors were always rebadged _____.

Maybe Arcam was the only way to quickly acquire a company with any sort of HDMI expertise. Paradoxically, the older pre acquisition Arcam products are far more reliable than the current generation.

Look at the technical bulletins for the two different generations

Index of /Service/AVR850_AVR550_AVR390_SR250_AV860

Index of /Service/AVR10_20_30_40

 

[quattro98]

Along those same lines, I feel as if Harman Kardon AVRs died after the 5.1 era and Lexicon/Proceed/Levinson also failed to progress in the HDMI/CEC era. JBL Synthesis processors were always rebadged _____.

Maybe Arcam was the only way to quickly acquire a company with any sort of HDMI expertise. Paradoxically, the older pre acquisition Arcam products are far more reliable than the current generation.

I loved my Lexicon MC-12B. It would have been nice to have that updated and developed over time. Mark Levinson has a lot of brand equity. They could do a lot with that.

I had actually forgotten about Proceed. Sad.

A quick search turned up this article.

Madrigal Retiring Proceed Brand

Madrigal's Proceed line of high-end audio products will be phased out some time later this year, according to an April 3 press release.The company has decided to combine its top-tier products under the Mark Levinson brand name, with Proceed's best and most successful products—including the...

www.stereophile.com

 

[jhaider]

Paradoxically, the older pre acquisition Arcam products are far more reliable than the current generation.

Look at the technical bulletins for the two different generations

Index of /Service/AVR850_AVR550_AVR390_SR250_AV860

Index of /Service/AVR10_20_30_40

More reliable, perhaps - but that previous generation (there was also a Lexicon variant) is the one that put a bad taste in my mouth. Arcam put Dirac Live before bass management and spent a lot of wind justifying that clueless choice before finally getting the order of operations right.

The older Synthesis processors, IIRC, were either rebadged Lexicon (i.e. in house) and then rebadged Bryston (creme de la creme of the time in terms of analog performance).

 

[suttondesign]

Roon works so well for my headless mac mini files + tidal that i am very reluctant to change anything now.

also, tidal itself seems to be a sketchy solution for controlling a headless desktop from an ipad.

 

[Stokdoof]

I think Roon used a lot of resources on that unsecured ARC toy of theirs. This demanding to open a port on your router already fell like they were loosing it. Now this, Samsung buying Roon, proves that they did not believe in the idea behind Roon anymore. But who am I.

 

[Phorize]

Harman is a hardware manufacturing group, self installs are toast.

 

[Matt_Holland]

I think Roon used a lot of resources on that unsecured ARC toy of theirs. This demanding to open a port on your router already fell like they were loosing it. Now this, Samsung buying Roon, proves that they did not believe in the idea behind Roon anymore. But who am I.

I’m certain ARC will die first. Security issues are one thing, but a customer base of older people who still play music from stored files is not exactly the future.

Maybe Roon had something truly innovative up their sleeve and needed investment to make it happen.

 

[Liya]

From my perspective as one who loves Roon, this is potentially disastrous news. Especially so when you look at Harman's track record.
I'll be shocked if this doesn't ruin a wonderful product.

Perhaps Roon's ARC platform is why they bought Roon... If they limit their muddling to ARC, I'll be happy.

The ability to sync all my own music on the go is what I like the most from Roon.

 

[Galliardist]

I think Roon used a lot of resources on that unsecured ARC toy of theirs. This demanding to open a port on your router already fell like they were loosing it. Now this, Samsung buying Roon, proves that they did not believe in the idea behind Roon anymore. But who am I.

If ARC serves music to multiple playback devices inside and outside the home, then playing your disc “backups” and probably also licensed downloads would be in breach of copyright laws in many countries, at a guess from this non-lawyer.

Harman will have to assure themselves that it doesn’t, anyway.

 

[astr0b0y]

Easy for me to say now, but I always felt like Roon was made to be sold. When I purchase lifetime 8 years ago there was nothing else that gave a consistent and usable interface for remote devices. Happy with my now $5 per month investment but if I looked at my actual usage vs Plexamp, I don’t think I got my money‘s worth. My Roon journey included HQplayer, then discovering ASR, asking some questions and realising upsampling beyond 16/44 was worthless to me.

 

[Galliardist]

Easy for me to say now, but I always felt like Roon was made to be sold. When I purchase lifetime 8 years ago there was nothing else that gave a consistent and usable interface for remote devices. Happy with my now $5 per month investment but if I looked at my actual usage vs Plexamp, I don’t think I got my money‘s worth. My Roon journey included HQplayer, then discovering ASR, asking some questions and realising upsampling beyond 16/44 was worthless to me.

Made to be sold? Probably not. My thought though is that the current development team had done the "exciting" bits, and now needed to spend time tidying up, making a consistent product with improved setup and ease of use. My problems with just connecting Remote to the Windows product shows that such things haven't really been considered, or are left to the "community" to sort out (FWIW, every question asked about doing this in their Forum just fizzled out with no real answer).

For the experts that built what Roon is, quite honestly I wonder if that would be a bit boring, hence the decision to sell and get the opportunity to do more of the interesting stuff instead. Oh, and the money, of course.

Much of Roon's complexity is in the DSP engine and RAAT, and I wonder how many customers have ever been using those in a way that justifies the cost.

 

[AdrianusG]

We never had that problem with LPs. You could borrow 'em from the library, or buy 'em youself -- and they'd all play on the same record player.
Oh, oops. I guess I might've mistaken this for the "simplicity" thread.




Oooh, so many "O"s in those names! Sooloos... Roon...
Does this mean that, if Roon does well, the parent'll rebrand itself as Harmoon? Or maybe the grand pooh-bah will remoniker itself. How does Samsoooong sound in Korean?

Sorry, gang -- It's one of those short, short New England almost-winter days & I am feeling wry today.

View attachment 329884

Btw, Gary Larson is awesome, thanks for reminding me of that