Sound quality of Roon

@jji666

I would suggest that if commenters want to be specific about their Roon experience with SQ, it’s necessary to state expressly whether the endpoint DAC is (or is connected to) a separate networked streamer or directly to the core machine.

this is a good point, which i would broaden

meaningless for someone to talk about how they feel roon sounds, unless they clearly state how it is implemented, from how the system receives its internet feed, to what core machine is used, to how the music feed is then extracted, filtered and sent to streamer and dac (and which streamer and dac are used and how they are connected)...

one doesn't simply hear the 'sound of roon' - one hears the result of everything above sent to their dac, which then reconstructs the analog music that is played by the system downstream of it

Hi! Tested Roon for a month as a replacement / plan B for BlueSound OS and to connect with my T+A MP3100HV streamer. Upgraded to life time, bought a NUC using their excellent user fora and never looked back. I'm streaming in flac from my basement, I love the additional info and it made me rediscover some music as well. 

One hears the sound of Roon when using Innuos gear vs the Innuos Sense software. Roon sounds different vs Sense on Innuos gear. Obvious and easily heard with a resolving system.

My digital front end consists of:

Netgear modem/router powered by Keces LPS with my high end DC power cable - Network Acoustics Muon Ethernet cable - Network Acoustics Rubicon switch powered by a Keces LPS with high end DC power cable - Ethernet Acoustics Muon filter to Innuos Zenith 3 with power supply upgrades - Tron Atlantic Signature dac. All plugged unto a Puritan 156 conditioner with the additional Puritan Groundmaster grounding system.

Sense sounds far more nuanced and resolute in my system compared to Roon. So much better that I can only use Roon for background music. I much prefer the inner detail and realism of Sense. Roon sounds muffled and flat in comparison. I repeat, this IS ONLY with my Innuos server and front end digital system. I have heard Roon sound great with Merging Technologies gear.

I do not use any of Roon’s DSP capabilities as an FYI. Also, the better my front end becomes with products such as Network Acoustics, the more obvious Roon’s subpar sonic performance becomes on my Innuos server based front end. Without the NA products and my LPSs the difference between Roon and Sense was far less obvious.

OP--There are many confusing statements in the comments to your post--and many off topic responses such as which DAC/streamer to buy or why vinyl is better or worse.  Bottom line:  Roon was not originally intended to add or subtract from SQ--it was purely software that organized your music library and the libraries of whichever streaming service (Tidal & later Quobuz) that you were using.  Roon later added SQ features such as DSP if  you wanted to use it--i never have but have heard both positive and negative--all room dependent.  The software has evolved over time to overcome bugs that would cause songs to suddenly drop or files to be lost--i love Roon purely for its metadata approach.  You already have Tidal so why not try Roon and see if can tell the difference between streaming directly from Tidal vs streaming Tidal through Roon--i hear absolutely no difference with my DAC.  But be sure you're comparing apples to apples by implementing it the same way (ie via ethernet or USB) you do now for directly streaming Tidal.

One hears the sound of Roon when using Innuos gear vs the Innuos Sense software. Roon sounds different vs Sense on Innuos gear. Obvious and easily heard with a resolving system.

My digital front end consists of: Innuos Zenith 3... - Tron Atlantic Signature dac. 

But that is not a fair test.  The Innuous software is developed to run and feed right to the DAC; it's far more lightweight than Roon.  Roon drives your gear like a stock car driver and is very resource-heavy.  Their solution is to isolate that by feeding the pure PCM stream over the network to a different endpoint that is doing nothing but streaming the data. 

I understand you can A/B Roon on these single server/streamer combo units.  What I'm saying is that since it's not the way Roon recommends using their software, if you want a fair scientific comparison, you gotta stream to a separate, very quiet endpoint. 

It might still sound worse.  But that's the fair test.