Roon changes the music

One thing to look out for in Roon are your settings.  Turn off volume leveling, if it’s on. I have also heard Roon sound compressed but only when leveling was enabled.  Also make sure you’re using fixed volume, particularly if you’re not doing any upsampling.  If you’re connecting your computer directly to your DAC, try a DDC in between. Or better yet, get a separate streamer so that Roon is running as a server and the streamer as a transport.  Then connect the streamer to your DAC with the best connection for your particular DAC.

I don’t doubt that people hear differences in software or hardware being used but make sure to remove some of the settings differences as variables.

Why not just buy a true streamer like a innuos with very low noise dedicated linear power supplies , i too used a computer between the filthy power inside to lack of much of any f filtering or power regulation . Buy a good innuos streamer 

dedicated linear power supplies , low noise regulators ,massive filter capacitance 

my innuos 3 also has a dedicated 2T  SS Hard Drive .

please remember your router brings in tons of noise  most are 4 amp 12 volt ,the wall wart is $5 garbage put a dedicated. LPS power supply,  and Ethernet hub for sure toss these $25 hubs added noise .LHY builds the best for under $700  and use at minimum pangea power cords, quality Ethernet cables , your last end point cable makes the most difference ,use best cable.

@nymarty 

Good advice and in place in my system.

@audioman58 

My Xfinity modem uses an iFi Elite for its PSU. My Nucleus+ and Nagra Streamer are powered by Tony Pardo PSUs and use AQ Vodka ethernet cables to connect to the modem. There are no other devices connected. The Nagra Streamer uses a proprietary fiberoptic cable to connect to the Playback Designs MPD-8. I do not think I can create a better signal path.

I agree that Roon sounds fantastic, but QC sounds different and at least with a brief listen, sounds better.

@tcutter 

That would suck because I really like the Roon UI and the fact that all my music is organized there.

There is a solution, it is Jplay

https://jplay.app/

@mapman 

I think Roon sounds wonderful. Go figure!

It does, until you hear something better.

Or, you buy a Taiko- those users claim there is no degradation using Roon. If someone can tell me what that server/streamer does differently than my Antipodes K50 in order to make Roon sound better I would appreciate it. 

@audiopacer 

Don’t believe the Roon forum bots. They will try to convince you that you are wrong- it can’t be Roon… and you are only imagining it. They are the digital equivalent of the ASR hardware “measurements above all else” weenies. 

Yup. been there done that. I respond to someone else’s thread to confirm I hear the same thing, they jump all over you, claim you didn’t level to the 1/100th of a db, I tell them Roon could be 2 db higher and I still say other software sounds better, they say there must be something wrong with my system. I question their unscientific reasoning, they then called me the troll!