Roon vs Qobuz Connect

@sirocco30303 FWIW here is my admittedly specific experience, hopefully of use to someone. I have two systems, one far more resolving than the other: 

1. Moon 791 -> Moon 761 -> [AP Black Oval 9] -> B&W Nautilus 804.

2. Moon 891 -> Moon 761 -> [Nordost Valhalla] -> Wilson WP (50th anniversary).

Both systems have fiber optic moats just ahead of them.

On system 2, the difference between Roon and QC is palpable with every correction you can think of. QC >> Roon.

On system 1, the difference between Roon and QC basically vanishes.

I put this down to the very high resolution of System 2, and that aligns with your experience.

That said, I’m not sure I’d say one is drinking the Roon Kool-Aid. I give it a lot for an amazing interface and aggregation abilities. And it sounds excellent on both my systems. Obviously, both sound better going from System 1 to 2, but QC generates a larger jump without question.

My streamer is roon ready as well as QC ready. 
I have roon sounding better than ever, running on mint Linux, 64g of ram, all ssd/nvme storage, and qc sounds better, not night and day better, but very noticeable. Both family and audio club members also think qc sounds better.

But the UI is terrible using qc plus I have 2000 cds ripped on my roon server and it is a pleasure using roon for the UI experience

@rbstehno my thoughts exactly. It's an exasperating tradeoff that money can't get you out of. In fact (if my experience is any guide) better equipment makes the tradeoff worse ...

@debrajray - I have very nice equipment that allows me to hear the differences. The last time I evaluated Audirvana, I thought it was also better than roon in sq but again, the interface just isn’t there yet. For roon, I did move it to a Linux server which sounded better than when it was on a Mac server. 
 

I have a playlist on roon with my personal best songs that keeps growing. I also update my Qobuz playlist so it has the same songs. During the audio club sessions or when I want to play the best sounding music, I will play them from QC. In the future, I hope roon would tweak its engine to bring it to the head of the class.

Hi Debraj,

It’s an interesting and frustrating conundrum. Many, certainly not all, have experienced a similar sonic penalty from Roon. Myself included. Likewise, no one I know of disputes the superior UI of Roon. 

Roon seems complex and needs to work on many different hardware and software platforms. I lack the technical understanding of how it all works together but want to ask this group to opine on the following:

Taiko (maker of the Extreme and Olympus units which are extremely well regarded) has done much work on getting Roon to sound good on their servers. While they largely succeeded, they still developed their own software which reportedly sounds significantly better. Likewise, it’s my understanding (though I’m not entirely sure), Pink Faun (also a maker of extremely well regarded high end streamer/servers uses a modified/streamlined version of Roon for library management but a separate OS for delivering the data to your DAC. It seems as if both mfgs seem to be pursuing a path of fast processing, while reducing resource utilization in the unit. Taiko even measures and discusses this in detail over on WBF.

Without going to such extreme lengths, might Debraj benefit from running a separate Roon optimized core - where its only function is to run Roon - rather than the Mac, even though the Mac has been streamlined for this task?

I’m grasping at straws here, but there are many who’ve experienced the sonic penalty. Might this be a path to close the gap? Have any of you tried this? Personally, I’m skeptical the gap can be fully closed, but perhaps it can be narrowed.  

Thoughts?