Music management platform Roon, was acquired this week by the Samsung owned Harman, with the big question among dealers is whether Melbourne based Busisoft who lost the Focal & Naim business this year but gained Cambridge Audio will lose the account.
Roon joins Arcam, JBL, Mark Levinson, AKG, Lexicon, Harman Kardon, Infinity, and Revel under the Harman umbrella with the real possibility that the business could be shifted to Sydney based Amber Technology who after acquiring Convoy International this year, are now the distributor of several Harman premium audio brands in Australia.
The move could also see Roon technology appearing in Samsung devices as they move to expand its reach on the streaming front.
A music management platform Roon is a music library platform that allows users to organise all of your streaming services, audio files and internet radio in one place.
Analysts believe that Roon technology will be quickly moved into Samsung’s lineup of smartphones and Harmans car audio systems which include Harman Kardon systems found in the likes of BMW cars?
The software has been increasingly popular in the hi-fi space, not only with users but also the industry; according to Roon, over 1000 devices from nearly 200 audio brands are compatible, including most of the major brands.
Ecoustic claims that they suspect that Samsung will also have the financial clout to push Spotify, Amazon Music, and other music streaming platforms onto Roon in the future.
Roon ARC (their mobile platform) was part of the Roon 2.0 update with the real possibility that the technology could be used on TV’s notebooks, tablets, and smartphones.
It’s also a way for Samsung to take on Google and their streaming ambitions.
“At Harman we take great pride in our ability to create exceptional audio experiences for our partners and consumers around the world,” said Dave Rogers, President, Lifestyle Division, Harman. “The team at Roon shares our passion in bringing exceptional sound and connectivity to music lovers as they browse, discover, and listen at home and on the go. We are looking forward to welcoming Roon, whose impressive talent will join the HARMAN family and bolster our already robust engineering capabilities.”
Roon will operate as a standalone Harman business with its existing team.
The team behind room first launched a product in 2006 called Sooloos, which was a high-end audio digital audio management and playback platform.
Sooloos was not inexpensive; the earliest versions of the platform ran into the thousands of dollars and the company was eventually sold to Meridian Audio who have been the leading force behind the adoption of MQA by the streaming services and hardware vendors such as LG who have adopted it for their devices.
The original Roon team moved onto Hewlett Packard to create HP Connected Music.
From there, the team decided to create their own music player software launching Roon in 2015. The goal was to create a music player that gave you more than just the track and album name, but actual context to your favourite artist and albums.
Roon uses metadata to display bios, album reviews, credits, concert dates, and lyrics. The entire experience was designed around your own musical tastes, but it also helps you discover new music much more easily.
Ecoustic claims that Roon’s GUI is second-to-none, on a computer screen, tablet, or smart phone. If your music server/laptop has an HDMI output, you can transmit the image to your HDTV and see your entire music library on a larger screen.
The Roon software also works with many streaming protocols including AirPlay, Sonos, Chromecast, iOS, Android, Mac, PC, and Roon Ready. Y
None of this would be very useful unless there was an app to control your Roon Core; either a computer, or dedicated music server like the Roon Nucleus.
The Roon app is a music player that utilizes metadata to organize your music and analyse each album and track automatically providing hi-res album art, hi-res artist art, artist bios, album reviews, album credits, lyrics, concert dates, and much more.
The integration of TIDAL and Qobuz allows you to control both streaming services via the app giving you access to millions of CD quality or high-res digital albums.
