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Roon changes the music

... at least on Qobuz on my system.

Listening with an audio buddy who has a very critical ear to both Roon and Qobuz Connect. We agreed that quick AB comparisons of the same song with matched levels per the iPhone DBx app and no DSP, volume leveling etc., yielded a difference. As some of the listeners in this thread (https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/does-roon-sound-different?highlight=Does%2Broon%2Bcolor%2Bthe%2Bmusic) found, "ROON has a certain "house sound" that blurs contours and softens treble." and "Roon is a bit softer in the upper midrange and images do not stand out in such relief as jplay". It was not subtle. Need to listen more to see if it’s an improvement or a step back. Too early to tell but there is certainly a difference.

Since I have been struggling with Qobuz connectivity, I am again considering going to Tidal, which is no biggie, but now I am also concerned that I may have to give up Roon. That would suck because I really like the Roon UI and the fact that all my music is organized there.

tcutter
kirkwallace's avatar
kirkwallace
351 posts
 

I envy your estate lawyer, @emergingsoul .

ohlala
1,277 posts
 

Does anybody use DSP on roon.  I’ve never seen much of the point to use it and it’s so damn complicated and doesn’t it take away from the sound quality by putting the signal through a filter?

I use the parametric EQ. There is no penalty in sound quality with it. If I find the time, I will someday try to load a REW wav file in to Roon for the promise of better correction. Jplay does sound better than Roon, but I currently prefer Roon with equalization. 

erik_squires
17,574 posts
 

I also use the parametric EQ, gently, lifting the bass and clipping excess. 

My speakers are tuned to be pretty neutral, which sounds great for movies but lacks bass for music at the levels I listen to.  Using Roon for EQ lets me have separate tuning for each. 

dman777
193 posts
 

@audphile1 are you going to be buying a separate streamer? I think I remember that you just used a dac with a network card? So you had to use roon?

audphile1's avatar
audphile1
8,100 posts
 

@dman777 no. I had aurender n200 that I sold when I got my Meitner MA3i. Preferred Meitner built in streamer. I compared it with Roon and Aurender Conductor, as well as Qobuz Connect. My days of using an expensive outboard streamer are over at least for time being. They bring nothing to the table at least when comparing to Meitner, sound quality wise. UI is better with Roon and jplay as well.
 

I had my Roon Nucleus One off for a week and I was using jplay. I powered it back on earlier and it sounds fine. However, I know this won’t last. The solution is to power it down after each listening session. I can live with that especially when I also have jplay that I can use when Roon poops. 

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