Samsung is buying hi-fi multi-room service Roon, and Sonos ought to be careful

Roon, a preferred multi-devidce and multi-room audio expertise platform has been purchased by Harman, an organization that itself was purchased by Samsung again in 2017 for a cool $8 billion. There isn’t any phrase on how a lot cash modified arms for Harman to choose up Roon, however the extra fascinating query revolves round what the plans might be transferring ahead.

To this point Harman and Samsung have sought to assuage fears that the Roon system will likely be rolled into one among its new mother or father firms by saying the corporate will stay autonomous, however the buyout occurred for a motive. That motive may not be public simply but however Sonos will little question be one of many firms watching on with curiosity.

What comes subsequent and what does this imply for Sonos?

To know what all of this implies we first have to know what Roon is, as a result of it is not a music streaming service like Spotify, Apple Music, or Tidal however quite an aggregation app and server that takes hi-fi audio and pipes it to different gadgets round your property. Roon server can run on a pc or different gadget after which act because the brains of the outfit, taking music from your personal recordsdata or hi-fi streaming companies like Tital or Qobuz. It may well then be despatched to different gadgets together with greater than 1,000 completely different merchandise. AirPlay and Chromecast are supported, as are wired choices relying on what gadget is appearing because the Roon server. With us to date?

That each one provides a littlec ontext to the information that Harman is shopping for Roon, as confirmed by a Samsung press release. And Harmon’s very glad about it.

“At HARMAN we take nice pleasure in our potential to create distinctive audio experiences for our companions and customers world wide,” Dave Rogers president of the life-style division at Harman mentioned through that press launch. “The workforce at Roon shares our ardour in bringing distinctive sound and connectivity to music lovers as they browse, uncover, and hear at residence and on the go. We’re wanting ahead to welcoming Roon, whose spectacular expertise will be a part of the HARMAN household and bolster our already strong engineering capabilities.”

The apparent factor right here can be for Samsung to begin rolling Roon into its personal gadgets and take away help for these from different manufacturers, however that is not going to occur, it appears. “Aligned with its ‘work with all’ technique, HARMAN is dedicated to rising Roon’s open gadget ecosystem which incorporates collaborating with greater than 160 different audio manufacturers, delivering audio to greater than 1000 high-performance gadgets,” the press launch continues. “Roon’s dedication to its loyal group and its distinctive UI/UX design experience will proceed to increase and flourish with the acquisition.”

The hi-fi audio streaming recreation, particularly whenever you begin streaming that audio across the residence and throughout a number of audio system, has traditionally been one thing many have turned to Sonos for. Sonos has been streaming hi-res audio via Qobuz since 2021, and the speaker firm has lengthy been the go-to for high-end audio followers who wish to get a multi-room expertise like no different. Apple’s AirPlay 2 is able to doing one thing related in fact, and each Sonos and Roon embody help for Apple’s wirleess protocol. But when Harman can increase the usage of Roon Prepared, Roon’s system for bringing gadgets from different producers underneath its wing, we are able to anticipate Sonos to return underneath growing stress. And at a time when Sonos is looking to new categories like headphones to compensate for slowing speaker gross sales, this could not have come at a worse time.