1. Home
  2. digital
  3. 194563-169390

Is there a ROON sound?

I finally had to give in and open a ROON account. I bought the highly recommended 432 EVO Aeon server, but it only works with ROON (as an endpoint) or the Logitech Media Server. The latter seemed a bit awkward to get going, so I started a ROON account (so far for a year). The server offers a plethora of filter and up-sampling choices, let alone the unique ability to change the orchestral pitch to 432 Hz down from the now common 440Hz (the way Mozart or even Verdi heard their music before 440 became the common recording standard for sounding "crisper"). [I have tried this option several times but was underwhelmed. But that's just my personal first take on the subject]

Up to now, I listened to most of my music either through Apple Music as ALAC files or Quobuz as FLAC; I also have a Native DSD library and another with YouTube downloads (FLAC as well). The latter go directly from my MacBook Air (M1 chip) to my MSB Discrete DAC, or through an Audirvana rinse cycle.

My first impression listening to the 432EVO/ROON combination on "Brothers in Arms" was like listening with lightly compressed cotton plugs in my ears. That was with the manufacturer-recommended upsampling rate and filter-choice. I could hardly understand any of Mark Knopfler's (admittedly mumbling) musings! I immediately switched back to my Apple Music version and at least heard things like "through the fields of destruction - baptism of fire" and other text bites. The overall presentation was sharper and more acoustically demanding, but with admittedly less-wide soundstage. I then switched back to the server/ROON combo and disabled all filters and upsampling, going into bit-perfect mode. But even then, the overall presentation, while admittedly more bass heavy and spacious, the singer's words were still hardly intelligible. I actually think that "Brothers in Arms" is a really good example to test for a component ability to shine light on sung or spoken words; another favorite example is Boz Scaggs' "Thanks to You", where the clearest presentation in my system comes from the LP (which is called "Dig"), followed by Quobuz.

I went back to the 2022 review of the Aeon server in Absolute Sound by Andrew Quint, where he extolls the sonic virtues of the instrument (but, like myself, did not like the lower pitch option). I trust that he could not detect the same flaws as I did, albeit streaming from ROON as well.

I understand that ROON emerged from the previous SONOS company. A good friend of ours was one of the first SONOS adopters some 30 years ago, but I never liked it in a musicality sense, especially the gooey bass. To me it always sounded like Musak. So, I might be a bit prejudiced here, because what I am hearing now from ROON is as "pleasing" as the old SONOS; kinda lounge character, but not really stirring or attention-grabbing.

So, I would like to hear the unvarnished truth from this illustrious audience, what their experience with ROON is in terms of musicality and neutral/natural presentation, especially if they can offer some kind of A/B comparison from their own listening experience. As I said, I have zero previous experience with ROON, and might just be a bit biased here.

 
reimarc
reimarc's avatar
reimarc OP
81 posts
 

Thank you all for thoughtful answers to my original question. The majority of you seems to agree that there is no ROON sound per se, because "bits are bits", or shall I rather say: there CAN’T be a specific ROON sound. I am not sure, and I don’t want to offend anyone, but have you actually listened to a direct stream from Qobuz or Native DSD, and then listened to the identical track through ROON? Well I have, which prompted my original question. I came down to accept the suggestion of some of you that it is my streamer that is adding colorations, and not the data coming from ROON.

Well, I just came across a review of the 2024 version of the Ideon Absolute Stream Meta Edition server by Jason Victor Serinus (whose ears and writings I trust) [Stereophile Vol 47 No11 (November 2024), p.81], wherein he prefers the sound coming directly from Qobuz processed by Ideon’s own software over a ROON stream. Here is what he says: " How can different software sound different, even when it’s serving the same digital data? By running quieter." He then cites an engineer (Mr. Vamos) from Ideon: " Ideon did a test with a downloaded track. Their (Ideon’s, my addition) software’s CPU was using around 5% of its total capacity to play it, but ROON required 30% to 60% of CPU capacity to play the same track. That’s because ROON is working continuously while playing, searching for every single version of the track, including cover versions and live versions". " More CPU means more electronic noise" (JVS). "ROON has all these processes running in the background that do not help the sound. If you play Qobuz without going through ROON , the sound quality goes up quite a bit" (Vamos); (end of citations).

Could this be the explanation for what I am hearing? I played FLAC files from my own library (from my MacBook Air to my server, or even directly to my DAC), and then the same tracks from ROON, and I could clearly hear a difference: the music coming from ROON felt like it coming through light cotton earplugs: not un-pleasant by any means, rather like "deliberately pleasant" for lack of another word, or hard candy vs. caramel, or shellac finish on an old piece of furniture vs. polyurethane). In any case, yes, bits are bits, but how they are being handled either by hardware or by packaging software seems to have an audible influence on the sound. In the same vein: the manufacturer of my 432EVO Aeon streamer told me about his plans to widen the scope of compatible software to other providers, such as Audirvana and HQPlayer, because of their sound quality.

BTW: I am getting used to the ROON sound, especially when we have guests with no particularly "golden ears", its phenomenal data packages and quick retrieval is indeed very nice. If I really want to listen "into the music", like a Bach cello sonata, I return to vinyl anyway.

 
sns
4,218 posts
 

This is exactly what I and some others have been saying, Roon and every music player app has it's own specific requirements for use of streamer resources. Roon consumes relatively high level of cpu resources due to it's intensive and complex user interface. I have great sound with Roon due to my two streamer setup and powerful processor in streamer running Roon Core. I'm using less than 1% capacity on 7 cores in this custom streamer, this means virtually no noise being produced by this streamer. Other streamer optimized and designed to only run Roon Endpoint, again virtually no noise produced by this streamer.

 

I've been directly comparing streaming music vs over 3k cd rips on NAS for years, took many years optimizing  entire streaming chain to equal sound quality of cd rips. I also turn off or minimize all the superfluous  Roon processes like volume leveling, dsp, library analysis, this minimizes cpu usage. 

jbuhl's avatar
jbuhl
1,110 posts
 

CPU load with ROON simultaneously streaming to 4 endpoints.  That is with upsampling a 16/44 to 96

 

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/75phlxo7ucpno9xmsqcbq/Screenshot-2025-06-25-at-14.38.01.png?rlkey=vwp589atr3ixnpj4dpwlk0ndo&st=47ntb758&dl=0

 

 

More to discover