As a subscription apologist I’d like to throw five cents on the table.
Nobody is forced to subscribe.
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As a capitalist, I can only reiterate that the law of supply and demand cannot be superseded by an artificial push towards subscription, or an assumption that consumers are supposed to “support” a company - just look at the results of the poll above and let me know how any sane business executive should respond.
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I think that subscription is not an appropriate model for a music player.
Nevertheless, I don’t say no to subscription to AS, until I can evaluate AS once the SysOp bug is fixed.
Until that happens, I don’t use AS at all.
Nobody likes subscriptions because usually it means higher cost. If you asked Adobe customers if they like subscriptions, they would have most certainly replied with no. Same goes for Roon customers. Do you think that (partially) curated metadata is sufficient to justify a subscription. You get most of the value related to that functionality with the MusicBrainz integration.
Reality is that Audirvana is a product that required constant attention. It’s not that they just release a version an go on holiday. There is shifting OS landscape, changing APIs of streaming services. There is a list of features to implement and bugs to fix. Definitely it’s not an app you publish on app store and just collect revenue.
There are many ways to run a business other than subscription or sell of life-time licenses.
Take BRIO (the player that was supported by Neil Young).
It’s a server based application, and supports Chromcast. It comes with a remote.
The sound is good, and the library has all the functionalities one may expect from an audiophile player.
For PCM files it is limited to 24/192 tracks.
It plays DSD (I tried it with up to DSD256).
It has a powerful feature to increase SQ: it can convert on the fly the bits of PCM tracks to DSD flux sent to the DAC.
And you get all that for FREE.
You can use it with your local files without any restriction. Not only you pay nothing, you get in addition 25 GB of cloud storage for the music files that you choose to upload.
How the developer makes money out of this?
He offers you additional cloud storage and additional features if you subscribe to one of the paid offers.
Yes, and it failed miserably. Not much of a business advice, isn’t it?
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What do you mean by it failed?
It functions very well.
It’s a valid option for people who need a server based player with a single end point. Why should they pay a subscription to Roon, for instance, if they don’t need multi-room?
At this point and given the overwhelming poll response above, I would say that @Antoine has received sufficient intelligence to see that the original subscription proposal is not appropriate; at the very least, he should make available a lifetime option that could provide for a good deal of upfront financial sustainability per user (say, equivalent to three, four or five years of annual licensing fees, but never as expensive as Roon).
It’s really that simple, and will ensure that existing customers remain faithful to the platform.
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There should have been a 5th option in the poll, along the lines of “will you still subscribe even though unhappy?”
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It would be nice to have at least a cheaper option for users that only play local content.
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Brio is hardly a blip on the audiophile radar. It’s designed for a different use case, as it’s geared to be a stream from cloud solution with your own content.
Yes, I got that suggestion earlier on; but unfortunately polls can’t be edited after a few minutes of their original publication.
There are so many views and ideas for alternative charging options. In the end all we can do is see what happens.
Popularity does not equal right or best. There are too many examples to quote.
I like the idea of $200 purchase and buy or subscribe for updates or add-ons.
Many thanks for organising this poll.
Perhaps another poll, with the question:
‘If Audirvana Studio were to become subscription based tomorrow in it’s current form, would you subscribe’?
A simple Yes or No answer.
This may assist Damien in understanding what the likeley level of subscription will be, if only amongst those that post on here.
I’m reasonably certain that even some of those vehemently AGAINST the subscrition model who voted in the poll above will still subscribe, especially if they’ve managed to get Studio to actually work.
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Many people play only their own content.
Personally, I do not need Tidal or Qobuz, and do not care about internet radios. I have a massive music collection that I own.
I can tell you that the sound quality of Brio is good, especially when your PCM tracks are converted on the fly to DSD when sent to the DAC. And the fact that Brio is free is a very strong argument.
I will compare SA to Brio when the SysOp bug that unbdermines the SQ of SA is fixed. I will also compare SA to three other audiophile players for which I bought a license, one of them is Audirvana Plus 2.5. If the SQ of SA is clearly superior to these players, I may seriously consider subscription.
EDIT
I gave you Brio as example of how it is possible to run a business not only without renting the player but actually offering it for free.
The company makes money by subscription, not to the player, but to the services that it sells: cloud storage and the capability to stream your own music.
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I also play mostly my own collection, but it would cost me more than Audirvana if I put all my music in their cloud. If I look at their website, I could get an impression that it might disappear at any moment.
Don’t wait for the SysOp “fix”, I doubt there will be any changes. This has been around since I started using Audirvana. If you really care about SysOp, you need to address it like the others by changing the properties of the files. Anyway it doesn’t make any (appreciable) difference, so you may as well try AS.
You don’t know what you are talking about, and you don’t read what I am saying.
Brio is offered for free, and it plays your local files without any restriction. I can play my 7 TB of music with Brio in its local libarary without uploading a single track, and without paying anything for that.
I can not adress SysOp’s bug through permissions repairs, because the hacks that may have worked in the pass, do not work at the present. I tried it and others tried it. It’s not working for me, and it’s not working for many other Mac users that are in the same case as me. There’s a thread about it.
That’s strange, because BRIO seems to indicate that everything is server-based, including 25GB of free cloud service - so if this is the case, I would agree with @bitracer that this is far from being a safe solution (i.e. I do not want to upload my collection to any external server).
In any case, when trying to access their site the first thing they ask is for a login/sign-up; not even a clear page explaining what they are is available (other than a totally broken tutorial, at least on my iPhone).
As for the SysOp thing, I may suggest (perhaps unrelated) a solution that I found after a LOT of troubleshooting: “Integer Mode” for Mac does NOT work with many DACs under more recent MacOS versions - once I turned it off, all went butter smooth with no further crashes.
So it’s a freemium model? You’re suggesting that Audirvana should sell you overpriced cloud storage and offer the software for free?
I don’t suggest anything to Audirvana. The company is free to run its business as it wants.
I’m just saying that there are other ways to run a business than imitating Roon and renting a player.
I gave you an example of a company that offers its audiophile player for free, and make money with those customers who subscribe to additional services that it offers.
Unfortunately Audiravan does not offer any service with its subscription.