Victor Martell
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2018
- Messages
- 200
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- 232
So,
Roon started offering a month-to-month tier - call me silly but for some reason I found that preferable to yearly... yeah part psychological, I know but there is also a practical part - $13 bucks a month - I used to spend more than that on lattes before the lockdown. So in my brain, kind of works... so I jumped in.
I have always been skeptical of Roon - the high price, their claims of "solving" library management, specially Classical Music ( they did not), their support of MQA, etc... that said, I always liked the architecture. The separation of concerns ( Core/Bridge/Remote ) appealed to my IT heart and it makes it easy to implement multi-room/multi endpoint setups. Indeed, my jump to Roon started with my desire to setup a listening station on my WFH desk. Now I can even credit Roon with helping my marriage! - it made it easy to setup a listening station on my nightstand - therefore I can listen to music while being (physically) present where my darling wife is - less issues re: the time spent in the music room. - Yes, a similar result can be achieved with other products... even open source... but well, they make it easy... and it looks pretty.
So off I go to the Roon Community.. Everything OK until I decided to participate in a discussion re: the Nucleus, which is Roon's hardware offering - basically a NUC preconfigured, pre-installed with Roon's appliance software, their Core plus some management stuff. Definitely aimed at beginners who wants no hassles, not dealing with computers. I get that. Of COURSE you can do better with a bit of knowledge and research.. but that's fine.. I get it... and is not too overpriced. So the discussion was about the needs of beginners, the hiding of complexity and yes, the price tag that comes with that.
I used the Rendu as an example of a computer product for non-computer people. I made a comment re the fact that the USB port was labeled "USB Audio" - I theorized that even in labeling they were trying to hide "computer-ese" - after all a USB port is a data port, not an audio port. So a good example of a beginners/non-computer people product.
Then things went sideways.
Someone replied re: the Rendu's capabilities, price and somehow in replying, my ASR heart got the best of me and kind of mocked the Rendu for being essentially ( or more like functionally ) a Raspberry Pi 4 with ropieee. Oops and Oh boy - that was a mistake.
Stripping out THE CONTEXT (which was the discussion of products for beginners/non computer people) a moderator @andybob moved my comments to its own thread... AT THE RENDU FORUM. He added a contentious title ( "Criticism of Rendu" ). WOW. It was like being kidnapped from Kansas and being dropped at the flying monkey barracks without the chance to grab my ruby slippers...
Some kind hearts, who I think are in this forum defended me - and from them I learned that the moderator is a Rendu owner and fan. WOW. It's obvious to me that he got upset at my comments and decided to teach me a lesson... ah well
Apologies for the long post - in a sense I am unloading because I got really upset at the situation... moderator behaved unprofessionally... well, I don't think they are paid... so I would change that to with partiality toward defending Rendu from criticism - a no-no for a moderator.. and nothing happened after his behaviour was flagged. When I saw that a big person - the CEO maybe? - at Rendu also was in the forum and contributed to the pile up.... well, decided to leave it at that... but the frustration and upset at this situation is making me unload here - apologies.
Because yes, the subject was a good one!
1) Sure, hiding complexity for those who don't want to deal with it has value. I agree. How high should be the price for that?
2) In sense is somewhat unfair that part of the market for that is beginners - it raises the entry cost ! Not only that, how about capabilities - sometimes the cost of not dealing with complexity is not only money but capability
3) Has Amir measured the Rendu? How about comparing it to the Pi 4? Could not find it - but maybe I did not search correctly...
4) Is the solution more education? How-TOs, FAQs and Guides... or is it a moot point? That is, is the majority of this market resolute in using computer technology without dealing with computers?
Thnx for listening!
v
Roon started offering a month-to-month tier - call me silly but for some reason I found that preferable to yearly... yeah part psychological, I know but there is also a practical part - $13 bucks a month - I used to spend more than that on lattes before the lockdown. So in my brain, kind of works... so I jumped in.
I have always been skeptical of Roon - the high price, their claims of "solving" library management, specially Classical Music ( they did not), their support of MQA, etc... that said, I always liked the architecture. The separation of concerns ( Core/Bridge/Remote ) appealed to my IT heart and it makes it easy to implement multi-room/multi endpoint setups. Indeed, my jump to Roon started with my desire to setup a listening station on my WFH desk. Now I can even credit Roon with helping my marriage! - it made it easy to setup a listening station on my nightstand - therefore I can listen to music while being (physically) present where my darling wife is - less issues re: the time spent in the music room. - Yes, a similar result can be achieved with other products... even open source... but well, they make it easy... and it looks pretty.
So off I go to the Roon Community.. Everything OK until I decided to participate in a discussion re: the Nucleus, which is Roon's hardware offering - basically a NUC preconfigured, pre-installed with Roon's appliance software, their Core plus some management stuff. Definitely aimed at beginners who wants no hassles, not dealing with computers. I get that. Of COURSE you can do better with a bit of knowledge and research.. but that's fine.. I get it... and is not too overpriced. So the discussion was about the needs of beginners, the hiding of complexity and yes, the price tag that comes with that.
I used the Rendu as an example of a computer product for non-computer people. I made a comment re the fact that the USB port was labeled "USB Audio" - I theorized that even in labeling they were trying to hide "computer-ese" - after all a USB port is a data port, not an audio port. So a good example of a beginners/non-computer people product.
Then things went sideways.
Someone replied re: the Rendu's capabilities, price and somehow in replying, my ASR heart got the best of me and kind of mocked the Rendu for being essentially ( or more like functionally ) a Raspberry Pi 4 with ropieee. Oops and Oh boy - that was a mistake.
Stripping out THE CONTEXT (which was the discussion of products for beginners/non computer people) a moderator @andybob moved my comments to its own thread... AT THE RENDU FORUM. He added a contentious title ( "Criticism of Rendu" ). WOW. It was like being kidnapped from Kansas and being dropped at the flying monkey barracks without the chance to grab my ruby slippers...
Some kind hearts, who I think are in this forum defended me - and from them I learned that the moderator is a Rendu owner and fan. WOW. It's obvious to me that he got upset at my comments and decided to teach me a lesson... ah well
Apologies for the long post - in a sense I am unloading because I got really upset at the situation... moderator behaved unprofessionally... well, I don't think they are paid... so I would change that to with partiality toward defending Rendu from criticism - a no-no for a moderator.. and nothing happened after his behaviour was flagged. When I saw that a big person - the CEO maybe? - at Rendu also was in the forum and contributed to the pile up.... well, decided to leave it at that... but the frustration and upset at this situation is making me unload here - apologies.
Because yes, the subject was a good one!
1) Sure, hiding complexity for those who don't want to deal with it has value. I agree. How high should be the price for that?
2) In sense is somewhat unfair that part of the market for that is beginners - it raises the entry cost ! Not only that, how about capabilities - sometimes the cost of not dealing with complexity is not only money but capability
3) Has Amir measured the Rendu? How about comparing it to the Pi 4? Could not find it - but maybe I did not search correctly...
4) Is the solution more education? How-TOs, FAQs and Guides... or is it a moot point? That is, is the majority of this market resolute in using computer technology without dealing with computers?
Thnx for listening!
v