Why do I need Roon?

I looked for a long time for a useable way to access the digital portion of my music library. Before Roon, the nicest software I found was the Aurender, which required a sizable investment in hardware. I really did not want to commit to a closed system. The Aurender hardware is very, very good, but I hope DACs and streamers continue to evolve. Roon allowed me to not only find my music, but to grow from a NAS, to an old PC laptop, to a Nucleus at the front end, feeding my DAC. To my very great surprise, the Nucleus, as endpoint, feeding my Ayre DAC, has world class sound quality! In my estimation, I'd need to spend $5750 for a DCS Network Bridge, to improve the sound quality of my streamer.

Roon provides features that would be hard for other vendors to implement for a free app. If you pay for an app specifically rather than a part of a product, you have the luxury of hiring more software developers that can tackle more features.

I used to use amarra, pure music, and lastly audirvana. Roon surpasses them all for functionality and SQ. DS Lightning from Auralic and the LUMIN software would come in 2 and 3 behind Roon.
Roon provides such features that would, behard 

I have been using Plex for several years.   It also now has Tidal integration and 30 day free trial.

We do the yearly
i find value

It’s a free trial. See if you like it. Me? I love the integration of Roon with Tidal and I’m interested to see how Qobuz compares. Rich metadata, bios, lyrics, DSP if you want it, and cool “radio” function to create playlists. $10 a month or $500 lifetime? I’ve easily wasted that in ill-advised music purchases. The integration with Tidal is excellent. 

The main reason I enjoy Roon is the ability to merge my music library with Tidal (and Qobuz). 

In Audirvana I can play from Tidal (and Qobuz) OR from my music library, but playlist can only be from one or the other, not combined. 

It is also nice to look at and has tons of info although I can see why this might not be of interest to some. 

I use the player that delivers the best SQ, and currently, that’s not Roon. You can stream Tidal and Qobuz with other player software that’s free and better IME.

Roon is the current darling, but remember Amarra….

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

I am skeptical about the value these days of purchasing "lifetime" packages on anything in the digital music platform arena. With the rapid development of platforms and such, even 5 years can make generational improvements and changes in how services can be delivered and features that come available. Just look how quickly streaming alone took over. I doubt 20 years (or way less) from now that Roon will rule this space with little competition providing similar offerings. In fact I'd be willing to wager that what they provide now will soon become free from others as new features and services hit the markets.

For $500 you will gain a "lifetime" subscription to extraordinary metadata and an integrated library consisting of your own music and Tidal/Qobuz. I use Google and manage my own library and services. 

Nobody “needs” Roon.  It’s a bell and whistle that you may or may not find really fun.  I listen to Classical Music and I didn’t find that it did much to enhance my enjoyment, but many people like the type of links that it provides between musicians and albums and such.
They offer a free trial so you can try it yourself