Audio Video News

Harman, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., today announced the acquisition of Roon, the company behind the subscription-based music management and streaming platform embraced by music enthusiasts.

Roon will operate with its existing team as a standalone Harman business unit, according to the official press release Harman issued today. The announcement went on to say: “All Roon operations will stay in place and continue to be dedicated to serving and growing Roon's community of device partners and customers, under a joint mission to deliver engaging and personalized audio experiences across a universe of products and platforms.”

Harman says it is committed to growing Roon's open device ecosystem, which includes collaborating with more than 160 audio brands, delivering music to 1,000-plus high-performance devices.

"At Harman we take great pride in our ability to create exceptional audio experiences for our partners and consumers around the world," said Dave Rogers, president of the company’s Lifestyle Division. "The team at Roon shares our passion in bringing exceptional sound and connectivity to music lovers as they browse, discover, and listen at home and on the go. We are looking forward to welcoming Roon, whose impressive talent will join the Harman family and bolster our already robust engineering capabilities."

Roon CEO Enno Vandermeer said, “Our team is ecstatic to join Harman, a visionary company that has been leading the audio industry forward for decades. By combining forces with Harman, Roon gains the incredible scale, resources, and reach of a global technology leader, while maintaining our independence to invest in the business's growth and future. We look forward to continuing to bring our advanced data management, SaaS expertise, and consumer engagement capabilities to our broad ecosystem of partners, as we join forces with Harman to deliver even greater audio experiences to our customers."

The Roon platform features a rich interface for browsing and discovering music, compatibility with almost any audio device, and a playback engine designed to deliver the audiophile quality sound; the software is available for all popular operating systems. Roon also manufactures a line of hardware server appliances called Nucleus.