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.
I wouldn't say that Roon does anything bad, but in the past year I went to a more direct path, ethernet straight into my Meitner MA3i, Qobuz Connect. The sound is cleaner, soundstage is more distinct. Really love the Meitner "i" upgrade. I have been able to simplify my system, eliminating an Innuos Zenith MK3 running Roon, as well as an extra ethernet and power cord. The UI on Qobuz is not fabulous, but gets the job done.
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I was unwilling to give up the features in Roon that I enjoy—in particular, the ability to apply room-specific FIR filters to multiple zones at the same time, even to DSD content without converting to PCM. I've successfully used DACs from PS Audio and RME to confirm that Roon's digital delivery is bit-perfect. With DSP settings disabled, it's not changing the data. So, the sound quality disparity between Roon and other solutions has long been head-scratching. It was not until I used tcpdump to capture network traffic between Roon Server and Roon Bridge that I began to understand what's happening under the hood. Roon endpoints manage a buffer of around eight seconds. During playback, Roon Server sends data in a high-speed burst to fill that buffer. The CPU in the endpoint spins up to shuttle the data from the network to memory and then goes idle. The cycle repeats as needed to keep the buffer full. Next, I compared Roon's bursty RAAT delivery style to another audio protocol I've been using for the past year: Diretta. Again, performing the same network captures and analysis, Diretta's data transmissions are remarkably smooth, and evenly timed. There are no bursts of data, just a continuous flow. I created these plots from the PCAP data I captured while playing the same song from Roon Server to my endpoint device:
The thinking behind Diretta is that bursty noise emitted by processing audio data can have a negative impact on the analog output of the DAC, even though the data is verifiably bit-perfect. The manner of delivery matters, it seems. One might imagine that connecting the DAC directly to Roon Server would eliminate the need for bursty RAAT data transfers, but Roon still uses RAAT internally. The bursty processing is still happening, even with a one-box deployment. By integrating Diretta with Roon, I've successfully elevated Roon's sound quality to match or exceed bespoke solutions up to $12k (based on anecdotal feedback from scores of users over the past year), enabling the best of both worlds. If you like Roon's UI and features but have been disappointed with its sound quality, visit https://diretta.diy to learn how to have your cake and eat it too. |
Why would you have to get of roon if you go to tidal? I was on tidal for a couple of years with Roon. I switched over to Qobuz. I did a lot of testing with standard flac files using Roon and the best sound quality came when Roon was on a dedicated Linux server. The audio club I’m in sat in the eval demo and they also agreed. Then I demoed Roon vs Qobuz Connect and Qobuz Connect sounded better. I would continue using QC but the interface is terrible. A while back, I tested Audirvana vs Roon and Audirvana sounded better, but its interface wasn’t very good at that time. |
