Roon sounds better than ever and IMHE unless you compare to a rare very high cost SOTA streamer with proprietary software(e.g. DCS or Aurender), Roon SQ is going to be equal for you. The user experience is fantastic. Few who try the free monthly trial choose not to subscribe.
Roon is run by guys who came from Meridian and care about SQ. They get it and will continue to make improvements. New products & companies are getting added to Roon Ready all the time. This benefits us all for a few reasons:
- Incompatible hardware issues impact their response to software issues
- Wide adoption supports longevity
- Competition among hardware makers supports innovation & quality/value
I am a vinyl lover who runs digital for musical diversity. I run Roon Core on a Sonictransporter, keep 4TB of music on a NAS, and feed both to an OpticalRendu streamer into Denafrips Pontus II DAC. I stream Qobuz via Roon. Compared to using Lumin, Linn and other DLNA/UPNP apps and Minimserver on the NAS, sound quality is equal. Reliable connectivity is better by far with Roon. Roon also integrates room correction if your're interested in that.
The integration of my personal library along w/Qobuz in Roon is hard to beat. You can use phones, tablets or laptops as remote...you may not need to buy a tablet. It looks and runs great on both my Macbook and iPhone.
I agree that Bluesound is okay, but a better streamer with a good linear power supply will definitely give you better SQ for not much investment. For Roon Core, you can trial with most computers and if you decide to stick w/Roon then add dedicated core (e.g. NUC or Sonictransporter) when you can afford that step. Cheers,
Spencer