Roon HARMAN Acquires Roon

[castalla]

Simply absurd.

Roon Labs and Harman International Unveil Groundbreaking Nucleus Titan at CES 2024 - Roon Labs

Nucleus Titan melds cutting-edge performance with breathtaking aesthetics, delivering the ultimate platform for Roon music software. LAS VEGAS, NEVADA (January 9th, 2024) - Roon, the world's most innovative listening experience for music lovers, in conjunction with Harman International, is...

blog.roonlabs.com

Let's hope the wood is FSC certified. At least, they didn't use ivory.

 

[Balthazar B]

Simply absurd.

Roon Labs and Harman International Unveil Groundbreaking Nucleus Titan at CES 2024 - Roon Labs

Nucleus Titan melds cutting-edge performance with breathtaking aesthetics, delivering the ultimate platform for Roon music software. LAS VEGAS, NEVADA (January 9th, 2024) - Roon, the world's most innovative listening experience for music lovers, in conjunction with Harman International, is...

blog.roonlabs.com

What'll be more absurd is if some thingamabobs from Harman/Samsung become the only supported server platforms for Roon in the future, and there's some kind of cloud service one is required to have active for anything to work at all.

 

[castalla]

What'll be more absurd is if some thingamabobs from Harman/Samsung become the only supported server platforms for Roon in the future, and there's some kind of cloud service one is required to have active for anything to work at all.

Despite holding corporates in disdain, I doubt they'd make Roon so dependent on their hardware (at rip-off prices, too), even though they probably would like to.

 

[Balthazar B]

Despite holding corporates in disdain, I doubt they'd make Roon so dependent on their hardware (at rip-off prices, too), even though they probably would like to.

Hard to predict. They own the product, service, and engineering lock, stock, and barrel. Which they probably got for a song. And they can afford to play the long game, whatever their long game is.

Clearly something about Roon's business model/execution was seriously not working, else they would not have sold out. But what long-term changes Harman will make to monetize their acquisition has yet to be revealed.

 

[BrooklynNick]

Clearly something about Roon's business model/execution was seriously not working, else they would not have sold out. But what long-term changes Harman will make to monetize their acquisition has yet to be revealed.

I'm fairly certain that is not true. Roon was a startup. Like most modern tech startups, founders plan for an exit strategy from Day 1. Since Roon was unlikely to ever go public, an acquisition was always the plan. None of us know what Harman paid, but there is no reason to think that they got Roon cheaply. Roon has over 300K paying users and is growing.

 

[d6jg]

I'm fairly certain that is not true. Roon was a startup. Like most modern tech startups, founders plan for an exit strategy from Day 1. Since Roon was unlikely to ever go public, an acquisition was always the plan. None of us know what Harman paid, but there is no reason to think that they got Roon cheaply. Roon has over 300K paying users and is growing.

Can you tell us where you get the 300k users figure from? The Roon marketing still says “over 100k”.

 

[BrooklynNick]

Can you tell us where you get the 300k users figure from? The Roon marketing still says “over 100k”.

Per one of the founders, they were close to 300K in Sept 2022.

Roon 2.0 and internet connectivity [it's just like 1.8 now]

it’s close to 300k now. I never gave these numbers, you are guessing… but your guess is pretty damn good! So far, out of ~300k users, 40% are using 2.0 already. About 200 users are on legacy 1.8, and most are running old Macs or PCs that can’t take the 2.0 update due to minimum OS version...

community.roonlabs.com

 

[d6jg]

Per one of the founders, they were close to 300K in Sept 2022.

Roon 2.0 and internet connectivity [it's just like 1.8 now]

it’s close to 300k now. I never gave these numbers, you are guessing… but your guess is pretty damn good! So far, out of ~300k users, 40% are using 2.0 already. About 200 users are on legacy 1.8, and most are running old Macs or PCs that can’t take the 2.0 update due to minimum OS version...

community.roonlabs.com

Interesting. One then wonders why the marketing claim isn’t higher?

 

[spacegrass]

Agree with @BrooklynNick - perfectly likely Roon's founders wanted the payday of a buy out, and Harman saw compatible technology/market for their business. The whole "all big company buyouts of smaller audio outfits is bad and suspicious" attitude often expressed online strikes me as based on a lack of knowledge about how the business world works. For example, Qobuz is often lionized on this forum as a "music purist' company - but it was bought out some years ago by an entity that is part of a large business conglomerate (Xandrie SA) - and Xandrie makes no secret about their plans to buy up other audio outfits and technologies - just like Harman does: see xandrie.com "about us".

 

[adias]

Even if 300k subscribers, not a big business and fairly low revenue.

 

[BrooklynNick]

Even if 300k subscribers, not a big business and fairly low revenue.

I'm pretty sure that the majority of Roon users are monthly subscribers, but let's assume that half are and that all monthly subscribers pay annually (best price), and that Roon gets no revenue from its other products, certifications, or partners. Just to keep things simple and not be too optimistic.

150,000 x $149 = 22.4 million revenue annually, worst case. Compared to Harman (~11 billion revenue), Roon is a tiny company. Compared to others in the audio industry that cater to audiophiles, I would guess that makes them one of the big boys. More interesting to me would be to know if they were profitable, but that info is not publicly available AFAICT.

Roon - Pricing

roon.app

 

[adias]

I'm pretty sure that the majority of Roon users are monthly subscribers, but let's assume that half are and that all monthly subscribers pay annually (best price), and that Roon gets no revenue from its other products, certifications, or partners. Just to keep things simple and not be too optimistic.

150,000 x $149 = 22.4 million revenue annually, worst case. Compared to Harman (~11 billion revenue), Roon is a tiny company. Compared to others in the audio industry that cater to audiophiles, I would guess that makes them one of the big boys. More interesting to me would be to know if they were profitable, but that info is not publicly available AFAICT.

Roon - Pricing

roon.app

Right. That was my point - tiny revenue.

 

[BrooklynNick]

Right. That was my point - tiny revenue.

My low-ball back of the envelope revenue number makes them larger than more than 99% of American companies. But sure, they are not a billion dollar behemoth obviously. They probably sold for well over 100 million; maybe a lot more. I would bet the founders and early employees did quite well.

 

[Brantome]

A Message from the Roon Founders - Roon Labs

To everyone in the Roon community, Last November, Roon Labs was acquired by Harman International. This marks a new beginning for Roon, our industry partners, and our team. Today, we want to discuss what this means for us, for you, and for the future of Roon. These past few months have been...

blog.roonlabs.com

 

[Balthazar B]

A Message from the Roon Founders - Roon Labs

To everyone in the Roon community, Last November, Roon Labs was acquired by Harman International. This marks a new beginning for Roon, our industry partners, and our team. Today, we want to discuss what this means for us, for you, and for the future of Roon. These past few months have been...

blog.roonlabs.com

Well, I have to hand it to them that they're saying the right things. And getting rid of the miserable Internet connectivity requirement is a move in the right direction.

 

[castalla]

They are still alive and well. Just received a mail that my One is ready for pick up (and will hopefully find a smooth way through German customs!)

I watched a video review and setup looked supremely easy.
Does it have wireless?

 

[BowsAndArrows]

No, ethernet only. Which is more a pro as a con for me As I told you lately as soon it is running I come back too you!

if i understand correctly - you have to supply your own 2.5" SSD/HDD and there is no option for m.2 expansion, right?

 

[BowsAndArrows]

Yes, Sir. Its cheap.

how can you tell though? they haven't released details of the internals, have they??

i'm pretty sure you could cobble together a cheap custom build or even a cheap prebuilt intel nuc or similar that would outperform the nucleus at a better price.

it does look cool though. please send pics of the awesome grille on top when you get it

 

[BowsAndArrows]

yeh i'm not telling anyone what to do at all. none of what is shared from my standpoint is prescriptive, AT ALL. just pointing out the things that seem obvious to me...

in fact i'm glad that there are people out there that see value in things that i do not. if we all had the same perspective on things then there's no need for discussion or the exchange of ideas...

 

[castalla]

Doesn't the lack of WiFi limit where you can place the rather hefty black box? Thinking aesthetics, here