Sound quality of Roon

@fastfreight 

You’re referring to this. Yes?

Yes I am familiar with that post @wsrrsw thanks.

I am talking about considering high end switches, like the M12, SR etc. 

I am looking hard at the M12.  Question: I see the special connections at the M12.

Their ethernet cords can have the M12 fitting on one end, and RJ45 on the other.

But what of the long run from my switch to my music rooms?  Is there an adapter, or do I use a female -female junction on the end of their (expensive) cable going to my standard cable.  Seems a downgrade in the path...Anyone have this?

@fastfreight 
 

¿SwitcheS yOu SaY? A lot  here, there and everywhere. 

Well there is a great topic:  Comparing better switches.

My system did not sound as good with the Regen in front of the ENO or Muon filter.  Get a good switch! 

Good Morning @wsrrsw ,

Speaking With ?Rich at Network Acoustics, he said many find the Ether Regen is not needed in front of the Muon Filter.  He said try it, but that many found that a simple switch (not fancy) in front of the filter was good.  I need the switch at my computer / modem / Nucleus / ethernet out to my stereo's and TV's and wifi system.  I use the modem ports for some of it and I use the SA Bonn 8 for the audio part.  Tell me what you like about the M12?  By removing the Ether Regen from my main system, I lost the extra A port that went to my Apple TV (old Samsung does not have Apple TV on it) so I may need to add a switch anyway.

@blisshifi I see from your awesome system you are all in on Synergistic Research. They make great stuff for sure. Hope they send you a Christmas card.

For moi self I have determined rightly or wrongly that using a switch and a filter is too much in the feed. Pick one. Not all ethernet set ups will allow for this. In a closet upstairs I have an enterprise (Ubiquity) switch feeding into the wall a cat five runs and one run to my "stereo closet" and then from the closet wall cat five into the EtherRegen. The EtherRegen will get moved to a whole house system (if that helps that low-mid fi system ??). I'm still on the fence as to what PSU will power the M12.

@fastfreight I'm in NoCal

Hey @wsrrsw ​​​​@blisshifi !  We should visit each other!  I've gone big in most areas, but limited my switch (ahem so far) to the Silent Angel Bonn 8. I power it off the 'other rail' of my  HDPlex (the other rail powers my Nucleus+).  I have seen and read on the Synergistic Switch.  I probably would be all over it, but I don't have anything SR.  I had not even heard of the M12 switch.  I went all in on the custom Power supply by Sean Jacobs for my Auralic streamer, and was not disappointed!

I have two systems.   In the 'better' one, (Aries G2.1 with custom power supply to stand alone Tambaqui, I found I did not need the EtherRegen so much in front of the Muon.  Upstairs, where I have ethernet input to Makua Preamp with internal Tambaqui and ethernet bridge (no separate streamer) I find the inclusion of an EtherRegen in front of the Muon beneficial.  I think it makes sense that the better streamer with better PSupply was fine without Ether Regen and OK with the Muon alone.

@fastfreight ​​​​@wsrrsw I switched switches myself (pun intended). Went from an EtherRegen powered by a Farad Super3 LPS to a Synergistic Research Ethernet Switch UEF and there was a notable improvement in difference of the palpability, smoothness, and body of the digital signal.

@fastfreight     So you switched from the ER to the Muon. I’m going to go whole hog in and get a M12 switch (let’s not tell my wife, Ok?). I’m just sorting what linear PSU to use. What a fun trip down the rabbit hole.

There’s an old saying that comes to mind with this hobby....."Every time I find it. it moves."

+1 @wsrrsw !

Have you tried a Network Acoustics Filter?  I have the Muon, and it made more of

an impact than the EtherRegen.

Great threat folks. I have reread several times.

One thing not mentioned is internet disruption. Simply put at times all internet service falters sending if you will a hick-up or quick pause in service. Obviously this will affect Roon and why it may go off/on. There’s only so much a buffer can guard against.

I live in a location with wretched internet service with 2 meg DSL or expensive 12-18 Meg dish being the norm. Fortunately we finally got Starlink and service on par with many other places. Point being you need a fast pipe as those in the business say.

I have gone back and forth countless times between the native Lumin app and  Roon and I can tell no difference in SQ. YMMV

What I did notice is an EtherRegen, clock, good cabling and serious linear PSU audibly improved SQ no matter what app was used. Clean up the noise floor and you shall be rewarded.

@SONICFANTASTIC:

Thanks again @blisshifi  for the explanation and the two factors you raise are imaging of the sound towards more life like and fatiguing peaks which I assume tends towards the higher end of the frequency response. Are others hearing these differences as a result of a streamer change and not related to dac or speakers? Or have you had the experience where the streamer does not not appear to make a difference? How expensive did your system need to be to hear this difference? Did you have lower cost systems before where you could not hear the difference?

 

I will state that the addition of a separate streamer (Auralic Aries G2.1) made an obvious (to me and my listening companions) improvement to the sound of my Tambaqui DAC.  Do you need a resolving system to hear this?  I suppose, but it was not subtle on my system.  For Fantastic Sonics :) it is needed.  I added the separate steamer (I have Roon Nucleus+ in separate room) in front of the DAC.

I can hear this.  I also heard the improvement with a Networks Acoustics Muon Filter and ethernet cable.

IME Roon can sound great - but SQ does vary with how you have it implemented, You won't get best SQ having Core and control on the same machine and connecting a generic computer via usb to your DAC.

I posted this in another thread but I think its relevant to this discussion:

I had been running a 2012 Mac mini, with Uptone JS2/MMK linear PS and fan mod, with Roon server for years.

I also use HQPlayer as the output renderer for Roon. Back in 2020 I bought an M1 mini to experiment with and tried various combinations including running Roon all-in-one (control/server) and HQPlayer on the M1. I  settled for retaining the 2012 mini as the separate Roon server and running HQPlayer from the M1 mini - both connected to an Uptone Etherregen switch with the 'B' side of the Etherregen going to a Sonore UltraRendu then to my DAC. 

However I did notice that using Roon in any combination of the above was obviously inferior in SQ to streaming direct from the HQPlayer app on the M1 without Roon. The HQP player interface/functionality is vastly inferior to Roon's, so this was a source of frustration for me. 

Anyway, as an experiment I acquired a second M1 mini (cheapest basic config) and substituted it for the 2012 Mini/Uptone combo. The second M1 mini was run headless like the 2012 Mini, using the same generic cat6 ethernet cable into the Uptone Etherregen switch. 

Roon Server running from the headless M1 mini, with HQPlayer running on the other M1 mini and both connected to the 'A' side of the Etherregen switch with the UltraRendu on the 'B' side of Etherregen, sounds fantastic and indistinguishable from streaming direct to the UR via HQPlayer alone. 

@sns  said:  Doesn't your admittance that some may not experience reliability issues,  and many testaments from those who also don't experience these issues prove there is no inherent reliability issues with Roon?

No, I don't follow that logic.  Roon offers a lot of features, and many people don't use them and thus don't see the issues.  My supposition is that tag queries and searches tax the database in some way that creates a resource problem and the core application doesn't recover until restarted. It's just a guess based on heavy database usage correlating with Roon choking on many occasions.  But even if I just leave it open for 2-3 days it needs a restart.

And as I said above, using multiple remotes also seems to correlate with some of the stability issues I've seen.  

The problem isn't one is pressing Roon too hard, it''s that Roon is pressing the server beyond it's capabilities. Roon can be both processing heavy or not, be prepared to have more processing ability with server for users maxing out Roon processing.

I've got a dedicated Roon core:  Core i7, 11th generation, 8 cores (16 logical) with standard speed at 3.60 Ghz and peak of 5 GHz, 32GB RAM and a PCI 4.0 SSD - the fasted the board will take.  That machine can probably process 5 streams of 4K video and still run a browser window.  Short of IBM's Blue, what kind of machine do you think won't be taxed by Roon?

IMO Roon gets a bad name by providing many conveniences without more clearly stating the need for more processing power with these convieniences. Roon, with it's complex interface already more process intensive than some of the other players, many servers simply don't have the engine to provide much more than elemental Roon settings.

This is all true...except not in my house.  I have a 10G network and the above spec'd Roon core.  I've been running movies and music over digital networks for over 25 years, have built probably 150 computers over that period, and been the network admin for my own dot-com startup. I've now built 6 Roon cores (we have 2 houses and I upgrade frequently).

I guess what I'm saying is I think I'd have a sense of when software is stable and when my setup is the problem.

Yes, I could tone down what I do with Roon (I use 4 endpoints in a zone, 3 remotes, 2-4 web displays simultaneously) but I don't see why I would.  I push Roon and it piddles.  I see plenty of others with similar issues on the Roon forum.

To be clear, I am a huge Roon fan.  I would just like to see them focus on stability across platforms before pushing forward.  They've made a different calculation and it's their product.  But when I see people say that Roon is perfectly stable I'll call that out.  It is not.  It's great.  But (1) web displays and remotes show the previous artist instead of the current one quite often; (2) remotes "lose" album cover thumbnails and occasionally the full size version; (3) web displays often lose artist images; (4) tracks stop at the end and "play" has to be pushed, and occasionally stop in the middle; (5) Roon pops messages that "files are loading slowly" and stops playing, then immediately remedies that when the Roon core is restarted; (6) Roon will just close itself sometimes; (6) Roon stops playing IP radio frequently, and often tells me the station has disappeared; and (7) crossfade will abruptly stop a track about 5 seconds before it's done playing and then miss the first second of the next track, instead of actually crossfading.

I'm not here to criticize anyone's choice of Roon. But it does have inherent stability problems.  

@kray agreed and I definitely employ static IP addresses in my LAN.  For all important devices anyway...streamers, switches, DAC/endpoints, processors, servers, etc.  That could be yet another reason ROCK has been incredibly stable for me.

@audiom3 you could easily assign a static IP to a device (Roon Core) so you don't worry about IP's changing. I have a server that does video streaming with Plex, along with other home automation stuff, etc. and any server that's "serving up" data to endpoints I always set a static IP on it. 

@soix Spot on. Using airplay/blue tooth is tossing the baby out with the bathwater. Good olld hard wiriing best.

I wrote an article for Copper magazine on this topic last year. For your bedtime reading!

@antigrunge2

To counter that point, there is also a school of thought that more processing power brings higher resolution, expanded soundstage, and greater dynamics. Taiko and Pink Faun are subscribers of this philosophy. Quite a few audiophiles whom have built their own music servers have come to this conclusion. Both approaches can net great results, but I am seeing a trend where more processing power = more noise is being challenged.

@sns,

more computer power means more digital artefacts and more noise. There is a school of thought that in digital less is more. 

@jji666  Doesn't your admittance that some may not experience reliability issues,  and many testaments from those who also don't experience these issues prove there is no inherent reliability issues with Roon?

Now, I have no doubt we may see more cases of issues with Roon, but this due to it's high volume of users vs other players. The problem isn't one is pressing Roon too hard, it''s that Roon is pressing the server beyond it's capabilities. Roon can be both processing heavy or not, be prepared to have more processing ability with server for users maxing out Roon processing.

IMO Roon gets a bad name by providing many conveniences without more clearly stating the need for more processing power with these convieniences. Roon, with it's complex interface already more process intensive than some of the other players, many servers simply don't have the engine to provide much more than elemental Roon settings.

Again, Roon has no inherent reliability issues, seamless streaming requires some network and computer knowledge.

I agree with the second independent clause in this sentence.  But, Roon definitely has inherent reliability issues. Some may not experience them.  I have found that most Roon users that say they don't have issues don't press Roon too hard.  They turn it off every night, don't use more than 1-2 remotes, and have a pretty simple endpoint setup.  The one thing Roon does seem to be pretty robust with is supporting multiple endpoints, albeit it may still just stop and wait for play to be pressed again.  Roon likes positive reinforcement!  Good Roon.  Good Roon!

It seems to me reading all of this that the computational power required for full Roon implementation is per se detrimental to good sound quality. Hence the need for separating the (noisy) core and the clean end point. Other than the associated cost and cable dependency the question arises why going with the slimmed down processing power of say an InnuOS server wouldn’t be the more elegant solution from a sound quality perspective, fully acknowledging Roon’s superior customer interface.

@jji666 wrote: 

I definitely agree that trouble-shooting Roon is a highly complex process. But it’s just not fair to say that nearly all problems with Roon are the user’s fault and usually due to their crappy network. True: many users that complain of problems have crappy networks (many are powerline! Yuck!). False: Roon is stable if your network is.

There are many ways in the way of ordinary use of Roon that cause it to tax itself to the point it piddles. Just do 15-20 searches in a row, adding tags to your search findings in between, then bring up a large tag and try to use focus on some of the tag results. It’s gonna choke.

Someone mentioned that having many open remotes also seemed to tax Roon. I’ve had my eye on that as a potential cause as well and there does seem to be some correlation.

I’m definitely not kicking Roon from a software design standpoint. I couldn’t do what I do with my music room without Roon. It’s brilliant in many respects. But that doesn’t make it stable.

AND, if it were the case that a restart of the core software temporarily refreshes IPs and other data that were causing problems, why doesn’t Roon just do that every so often?

I agree mostly.  I didn't mean to imply that Roon is 100% reliable if you know what you're doing.  Every situation is different.  But I also disagree that users without issues are just 'lucky'.  Your point on several open remotes as a potential cause could have merit.  I use a single tablet and always close Roon out whenever I turn off my DAC.  I don't even do it for Roon purposes.  It eats up my Samsung's battery when left open/running!

A restart should definitely not be an automated process.  Not everyone has IP conflicts.  In fact, I would bet the vast majority do not.

Thanks again @blisshifi  for the explanation and the two factors you raise are imaging of the sound towards more life like and fatiguing peaks which I assume tends towards the higher end of the frequency response. Are others hearing these differences as a result of a streamer change and not related to dac or speakers? Or have you had the experience where the streamer does not not appear to make a difference? How expensive did your system need to be to hear this difference? Did you have lower cost systems before where you could not hear the difference?

@sonicfanatic "Timing" does not result in music going faster or slower - it is more about the interpretation of the data which as a result makes imaging more solid, or in the case of poor timing/clocking, makes the imaging sound more flabby or loose. So improved timing simply helps the signal produce sound that snaps/gels together.

The same paradigm applies to photography. Think of it as a lens that can produce an image that is completely in focus vs one that is just ever-so-slightly off focus that you might not really notice unless you had the two images side by side. Or even two lenses that may be equal in quality (Canon vs Nikon top of the lines). When people shoot with them, they perceive those images to be the best reproduction to what their eyes can see. But sometimes those manufacturers can bring new innovations to those lenses that improve upon the focus and clarity, even if used on the same camera body which produces the same image resolution.

Timing is one issue, based on clocking from the source (server/streamer), in the DAC, and the cable in between. For more fun, different digital interfaces (USB vs SPDIF) prioritize their clocks from different places. USB uses the DACs clock, whereas AES prioritizes the source’s clock. Some DACs will still reclock a SPDIF signal, and this can result in both great and poor outcomes, depending on how good the clock from the source already is. Many people don’t like the USB interface because it tends to be noisier, even if the DAC offers incredible clocking. This is typically due to lack of isolation in the ports and circuitry, and the fact that most USB cables are powered, carrying 5VDC in parallel conductors with the digital signal. So what one might gain from clocking they may lose in noise.

Noise is a whole other issue. Much noise in digital is indescribable. It’s not that you hear the noise like white noise, but it does cause some distortion to the output and you will know when you hear less noise in comparison. Lower noise reduces fatigue when listening over time, and with digital sources lower noise also tends to shift the tonal balance to feel more natural because it tames some of the fatiguing peaks and allows you to hear more, easier, and do so in a more relaxed way.

With this in mind, even though SPDIF sources are generally limited to 192khz resolution, many people prefer this interface because of the improved clocking and reduction and noise compared to a higher resolution signal such as a USB which can deliver 768khz of resolution, but at times with shortcomings due to noise and timing. Some DACs are designed without USB in mind because of this principle, like Berkeley’s reference which are around ~$25K, or the Aqua Formula xHD at around ~$13-15K. They prefer to offer a max resolution of ~192khz.

I appreciate the response and pointing out the two items you mention @blisshifi  and those are the two everyone says, noise and timing, but are you saying that you can hear music slower/faster or with more or less noise based on streamer? Who else can hear that?

@sonicfanatic I always say bits are not just bits. Yes 0s and 1s are passed from a source and received at the destination, but the final result also considers timing (clocking) and the amount of noise (jitter, interference, power supply ripples, you name it) that is introduced into the signal alongside it. Better streamers/servers do a better job of improving the timing and reducing noise (while hopefully also introducing a more delightful user experience with its platform, but that’s not always the case). It has nothing to do with the resolution of the signal, but in the clarity, purity, and integrity of it.

I am hoping the community can corroborate this as you are requesting, but many threads on this forum already demonstrate how people are getting better results from their streamer upgrades, and why many manufacturers offer different tiers of performance in their streamer/server solutions at different price points, such as Innuos, Roon, Auralic, Aurender, Wolf Systems and others. Even NAD, as they own Bluesound still has their own units (The discontinued M50.2 server/streamer was my step up from the Bluesound Vault, and it was exceptionally better. Stereophile rated it a Class A component).

@clearthink  there is the opposing camp that say bits are bits to what @blisshifi  is saying, that you need a highly resolving/expensive? system to tell the difference. So is it really the streamer and what specifically does it do to improve sound quality over the fact that you have a highly resolving/expensive? dac (possibly in the streamer) and great speakers? 

In some cases Roon can be buggy if using many processes which taxes processors in many servers. For those using many Roon and/or HQPlayer dsp and other processes you're going to need a server with Intel I7 and above for seamless performance.

Again, Roon has no inherent reliability issues, seamless streaming requires some network and computer knowledge. The high likelihood of each of us having unique streaming setups makes troubleshooting difficult, diy fixes may entail steep learning curve.

I will offer the possibility Roon or any music player may not work seamlessly with every single possible streaming solution out there. These providers cannot possibly  test for every single piece of streaming equipment and/or combination of this equipment.

@audiom3 wrote:

Network issues can be very complicated. I will admit, far more complicated than my networking smarts allow for. Issues with TCP, UPnP, router IP conflicts and on and on. As I was on the steep learning curve, I was having plenty of issues too. I even had the guys at SGC try to figure out why I couldn’t run their software consistently in the opticalRendu and we eventually gave up and I returned everything. And they really know their stuff - far more than the average Joe, so that should tell you a lot. I’ve since rebuilt my LAN with fiber optic, added managed fiber switches, new fiber router, PSU’s, etc, etc. And now Roon is ROCK solid (pun intended as I run ROCK via a NUC). It doesn’t disconnect, doesn’t cut off the ends of songs, doesn’t skip a beat or anything else unpredictable.

I *think* restarting Roon software/device temporarily refreshes the IP addresses and something (another device most likely) borks it down the road (it becomes conflicted). But it’s too complicated to have any certainty.

I definitely agree that trouble-shooting Roon is a highly complex process. But it’s just not fair to say that nearly all problems with Roon are the user’s fault and usually due to their crappy network. True: many users that complain of problems have crappy networks (many are powerline! Yuck!). False: Roon is stable if your network is.

There are many ways in the way of ordinary use of Roon that cause it to tax itself to the point it piddles. Just do 15-20 searches in a row, adding tags to your search findings in between, then bring up a large tag and try to use focus on some of the tag results. It’s gonna choke.

Someone mentioned that having many open remotes also seemed to tax Roon. I’ve had my eye on that as a potential cause as well and there does seem to be some correlation.

I’m definitely not kicking Roon from a software design standpoint. I couldn’t do what I do with my music room without Roon. It’s brilliant in many respects. But that doesn’t make it stable.

AND, if it were the case that a restart of the core software temporarily refreshes IPs and other data that were causing problems, why doesn’t Roon just do that every so often?

@jji666 wrote: Sorry but I couldn’t disagree more with this.  Roon is great but those who post saying they’ve never had a problem are just lucky.  Plenty of power users have had issues too.  If it’s a network issue, why does restarting the software resolve it temporarily?

Network issues can be very complicated.  I will admit, far more complicated than my networking smarts allow for.  Issues with TCP, UPnP, router IP conflicts and on and on.  As I was on the steep learning curve, I was having plenty of issues too.  I even had the guys at SGC try to figure out why I couldn't run their software consistently in the opticalRendu and we eventually gave up and I returned everything.  And they really know their stuff - far more than the average Joe, so that should tell you a lot.  I've since rebuilt my LAN with fiber optic, added managed fiber switches, new fiber router, PSU's, etc, etc.  And now Roon is ROCK solid (pun intended as I run ROCK via a NUC).  It doesn't disconnect, doesn't cut off the ends of songs, doesn't skip a beat or anything else unpredictable.

I *think* restarting Roon software/device temporarily refreshes the IP addresses and something (another device most likely) borks it down the road (it becomes conflicted).  But it's too complicated to have any certainty.

And @sonicfanatic what exactly do you need corroborated? That the quality of a streamer / server will advance the quality of the final sonic outcome?

What do you mean by "bandwidth is flowing"?

Having read countless threads discussing digital sound quality, can anyone corroborate or counter what @blisshifi is saying? It seems to me the dac and speakers are the key factors in resolution not really anything else assuming bandwidth is flowing and adequate.

Observation of Roon forums with those having issues, one will find problems nearly 100% of time individual in nature. Extremely rare to find a single issue universal to a particular version of Roon.

If there was a problem with a particular iteration of Roon wouldn't you think this would affect all or nearly all users of Roon!

I agree that statement that is the implementation not the software that causes issues.  How can the Alsace software have issues with person a but the vast majority do not?  I am on all the roon sites including Facebook groups.  It’s NEVER the NUC or Nucleus.  It’s always someone with crappy network or some old PC or MAC.  I support software for 12000+ users.  All different types.  IStandard install that works on 95% of the PCs that share the same image but the few that don’t which always seem to a VP or other VIP break it’s ALWAYS something on the PC. Drivers or something.  It’s a singe pc running many many apps and various things a user downloads.  Roon or any software writers cannot account for the 10 million variations out there.   If you like roon on your trial on your PC invest 700 and get a NUC loaded. Done 

Vast, vast majority of Roon issues are either user or network issues, I've not had single Roon caused issue in a few years of using it, only time I had issues, my network to blame. Roon forums will also prove this out, Roon pretty much as foolproof as it gets.

Sorry but I couldn’t disagree more with this.  Roon is great but those who post saying they’ve never had a problem are just lucky.  Plenty of power users have had issues too.  If it’s a network issue, why does restarting the software resolve it temporarily?

@jjss49

This is actually a great question. I believe that it has to do with the shorter signal path (UPnP App-> Player -> Internal SSD) vs Roon which requires a lot of back-and-forth traffic between core, player, etc.  When you condition for good power, low noise, and jitter, issues are reduced a lot, but not 100%.  Of course, this is just speculation based on a purely pragmatic approach.  Also consider that while there is a difference that most will be able to tell easily, it is between great and greater, no bad choices IMO.

He could do that and only be out one month’s Roon payment assuming he does not buy a lifetime up front.  

@vgmbpty

Roon can be very very good, but an App like BubbleUPnP, while not giving so many goodies like UI and DSP, can sound a couple notches better.

do tell, why would this be the case, all else equal (same setup, Roon properly implemented, jitter and noise management handled)??

@grannyring 

i think my point to the op is by using the innuos zen mini 'starter' set, he is equipped to do comparisons for himself and find out

OP, since you are thinking about buying Innuos, I strongly suggest you skip buying Roon and just use the Sense product. Most all users find Sense sounds better. You can read about this on the Roon and Innuos Internet forums. I would only say this for Innuos users. At least start off without Roon and listen.

I am an audiophile and electronic engineer.  I dont know everything, but I happen to have two friends who are a dealer for high end and the other one is importer/distributor for high end, here in Brazil.  I usually do product testing for them, purely subjective, no measurements.  I love to do it, so I do it for free, and when I think I reached a reasonable conclusion, I invite them to come and listen by themselves.  I keep doing it because of the joy of testing super high end equipment that I get to keep for several weeks at a time.

Enough introduction, here are MY findings, based on my experiences and the products I have tried:

1.  If you have mid Fi it is difficult to hear some of the differences.  Some products really shine when you have a set up with enough resolution.

2. The quality of your network is very important.  It is not the same to listen to Roon in a regular network vs one with a good audiophile switch, external power supplies and clocks.

3. Roon can sound very very good, and be completely satisfying.  Depending on the demand of the listner, you may need a very good audio server/network/DAC to achieve the maximum sound quality Roon can give.

4. Having said the above, under the same super high end set up, music will still sound a tad better when playing with a plain vanilla UPnP App.  Of course, you cannot compare the user experience to using Roon.

So there you go, Roon can be very very good, but an App like BubbleUPnP, while not giving so many goodies like UI and DSP, can sound a couple notches better.  

Thank you again to all who have taken the time to post their thoughts. My thinking at present is to get an Innuos Zen Mini, which can run the core Roon program, as well as be a pretty good streamer. (Thanks to @jjss49 for that idea.). The raw computing processing power in the Zen Mini is not great but I will only use one streamer and don’t think I will use its DSP which I understand can be a resource hog.

There is also a DAC built in the Mini even if some feel it is sort of a starter DAC. This way I can try the Innuos app and also Roon, and compare the music streamed from Tidal those two ways. That unit is nice since there are several upgrade steps for instance going to a better power supply as well as going straight out from its digital output to feed a better DAC. I do have a Schiit Gungnir MB I like how it sounds, and I think it is a good dac in its price range, using it with a Node right now.

I have been a ROON license holder even before it was released (maybe 2015). ROON has settled into a very nice sounding (there are ways to tailor the sound in ROON), reliable, and easy to use interface (less MAC like now).

If you want to something close to the best streaming I think a FMC after your network switch and then a fibre optical to remove analog noise before it gets into the DAC will give you reference level sound. 

There are many ways to do this and I do it as follows (ROON Core in another room):

Network Switch -> EtherRegen (used it in reverse B to A) -> Fibre Optical to Sonore OpticalRendu -> USB to DAC  

The ONLY time I had an issue was when  placed my cheapo ROON Core PC behind the PowerLine part of my home network and I was playing hi-res streams. I had QoS network issues that manifested as distortion. I could reproduce this 100/100 times. So my solution to this was to move my cheapo computer to the faster Ethernet side of my home network.

ROON is TCP. it is guaranteed delivery in theory at the network protocol level. However, how the network deals with congestion varies. I believe with ROON the network is told to drop the packets and the sender will scale down the sending. So this will result in some audible distortion. Without the congestion ROON is great at delivering the packets. The congestion is not the fault of ROON.

ROON also has the ability to deliver a Grouped stream of the same music at the same time to multiple ROON Endpoints in varies rooms. That is pretty impressive and complicated.

ROON has support for Convolution filters. This is a big deal with headphones and I also used it also for 2-channel.

The most cost effective audio purchase I ever made was a Lifetime Subscription to ROON for $450 before ROON was even released.

Vast, vast majority of Roon issues are either user or network issues, I've not had single Roon caused issue in a few years of using it, only time I had issues, my network to blame. Roon forums will also prove this out, Roon pretty much as foolproof as it gets.

I'd also mention it is pretty difficult to get support from any streaming equipment company these days, support overwhelmed with uniquely individual issues, they couldn't possibly answer all of them even if they had the support personnel.

The issue is end users with limited computer and network knowledge getting into streaming. I started with diy solutions which required steep learning curve with this, no doubt network issues can be difficult for novice to solve. Network issues are probably the number one cause of user dissatisfaction with streaming experience.

I’m not sure Roon has a sound...it simply organizes your music. My streaming service is Tidal and I stream through an Ultra Rendu into a Modwright Oppo 205. That’s where the sound comes from...

My complaint against Roon, and one of the reasons I’m thinking of getting away from it and using Tidal Connect now that it’s becoming more popular, is it’s not user friendly when you encounter problems...and you will at some point encounter problems.

As previously mentioned, no customer service to call, no walk you through the problem. Instead you have to go to their forums and search for a solution. I’ve never found a solution that matches with the individual problems I have with Roon.

The worst of it is, that twice I’ve had Roon crash and stop working completely. In order to get it up and running again I ended up trashing my account and losing thousands of favorites and playlists.

With this said, I’ll admit I’m not a tech person...however I’m thinking that cutting out Roon and just running straight from Tidal may be the way to go for me.

@blisshifi Dynamite summery.