Because the feedback I got so far was very negative in tone as in “go away unless you talk positive about Roon” I found this review online that matches my own observation.
Summary below is in Dutch
Maar als we van Audirvana naar Roon schakelen, moeten we bekennen: Audirvana klinkt beter (lekkerder…). Roon is nét wat ruwer en minder ruimtelijk dan de Franse concurrent. Dat hadden we écht niet verwacht. En we vinden het oprecht jammer, want nu blijft het wel een beetje kriebelen dat het dus nóg beter kan… Zo gaat dat in deze hobby!
But when we switch from Audirvana to Roon, we have to admit: Audirvana sounds better (tastier…). Roon is just a bit rougher and less spacious than its French competitor. We really didn’t expect that. And we sincerely regret it, because now it keeps itching that it could be even better… That’s how it goes in this hobby!
Hi, some people claim to hear a difference between Roon and LMS too, I don’t use Audirvana. I use LMS as a backup for Roon but can only use it on one endpoint to compare it to Roon.
They may sound a little different but I can’t volume match 100% accurately and in a blind test could I tell which is which? Probably not.
I use Roon for the convenient PEQ, how I can switch between end points easily when using headphones, I can’t do that easily with the end points I have with anything else, the server I use is Linux too. I couldn’t be less interested in the Roon library features, I queue up music and play and close the app.
Sorry this is a rambling answer to your post but I think this is all a bit of a rabbit hole I choose not to go down enjoy the music.
I asked you an honest question because I’m genuinely interested in your thoughts about what sort of exchange you expect when only accepting to evaluate subjectively and not look at the broader scope of things.
Choosing to feel treated hostile and posting links to subjective only online sources that don’t seem to be interested in further scrutiny of their auditory impressions, although seemingly attesting to technical proficiency, doesn’t add anything but serving an echo chamber.
This doesn’t seem like a good recipe for a path to understanding the mechanisms at play.
After all, the underlying technology we’re using to digitally stream and decode our music is developed using stringent scientific methodology, and not sorcery by some magically gifted high end gurus evaluating their work in painstaking sighted listening tests.
Like you I’m a happy user of Roon. I have been using LMS years ago and at that time it did do a good job.
What I have learned so far that I’m not alone in hearing differences. The guys at Alpha audio are very knowledgeable and 100% honest reviewers. They came to the conclusion that they can hear differences between various players in the market where Audirvana ( to their surprise ) did win above Roon.
But why ?
I have now put Roon rock on a I7 ( it was running on a I5) perhaps that makes a difference ?
I know that in theory, if two players deliver the bit-perfect file to the same input of the DAC, using the same protocol and the clock controller in the DAC, then there should be no differences in sound quality.
However, I’m looking forward to the official release of the Linux version of Audirvana, to make the comparison on my system. I expect the sound quality to be the same, but the testing is too easy not to do.
It’s also possible to run Roon on Windows but I don’t want to follow that path for I believe that Linux is the better choice. Early days I did use Roon via windows and when I moved over to Linux it sounded better and it was much more fluid
Your correct that my bridge is the same hardware. Everything in that chain follows the same hardware path besides the entry point in the bridge, name it UPNP versus RAAT.
To be honest I will not move over to Audirvana for Roon has so much more to offer compared to Audirvana.
At this moment my brain is in the state that it should technically be possible in getting Roon on par with Audirvana. I just need to figure out how.
I hear what you’re saying, people have said it before about other players sounding “better”, but if both players claim to be bit perfect and if everything else in the chain is the same, the volume matched, the source music is the same and there’s an audible difference, I can only think of a few causes: the software is not bit perfect, it’s altering the sound somehow or a piece of hardware in the chain is treating the sources differently.
I’ve no evidence of this, it just makes sense to me.
People will ask you to prove the differences with evidence and measurements, which most people can’t do. Discussions here about such things can get very heated.
That’s why I say it’s a rabbit hole and I’d be inclined to do your own testing and then enjoy the music based on what you enjoy the most.
One way, and I don’t mean this to come across as either patronising or challenging, would be to accept the fact that it’s far more likely that the difference you perceive is psychoacoustic in origin rather than anything to do with either Roon or Audirvana. I appreciate your point that there are other people who have perceived similar differences but’ in the absence of any rational/physical explanation as to why this would be the case, the most logical explanation is that your experience, while subjectively real, has no objective correlate.
what I hear between the lines is that this a just a to challenge topic to address. I’m just an open communicating user that would like to understand the differences there are. If I would be anti Roon and want to downgrade it I could understand the responses but I’m pro Roon.
What I read a bit between the lines is that as soon as you touch on RAAT you are entering a minefield. This seems to be a no go topic. But hence nothing is perfect. It that was the case then why does one need innovation ? And perhaps it’s not related to RAAT but something else. It reminds me of a discussion I had many years ago between FLAC and WAV. According to the community I was making things up for FLAC and WAV were Identical and there could not be any sound difference between. That I heard it using myself squeezebox could not be the case. Later it became clear that the unpackacking of FLAC took to much processing power on the squeezebox and that it indeed had an impact on the sound.
That has let to new thoughts and innovation
I’m happy to accept that placing undue stress on a system could lead to an impact on sound quality but I don’t see how it’s relevant to comparisons between Audirvana and Roon. Everything else being equal, they should sound the same, a fact that most people seem to agree with, while a few do not.
Bit perfect delivery … is perfect.
I’m not disputing you hear a real difference, but ‘real’, in this instance, need not imply an objective cause. Listen, I don’t want to disappear down this particular rabbit hole again, leastways because it normally ends up in some sort of acrimonious stand off, but I did just want to raise the point I made in my earlier post. You said you want to figure out how to get Roon sounding as good as Audirvana, and I said that maybe the difference you perceive is psychoacoustic in origin. Do you feel that there’s no point in considering that possibility, or have you already ruled it out?
When comparing two audio players, there is an aspect that is almost always forgotten: it is about software, and software can have bugs (known or unknown). I have put a link below to a Roon DSP bug. It has been reported for 2 years and does not appear to be fixed.
Software can have bugs and I think that for audio players it is very difficult to detect bugs that affect the audio quality, but do not generate a visible error on the screen or in the logs.
So it is not excluded that when you compare two bit-perfect players, one of them may not be 100% bit-perfect. Obviously, that’s if you don’t have the technical possibility to check this.
But this is different than trying to play true bit perfect playback. It is by definition modification of the original data. For most people playing music without modification, Roon playback is testably accurate. Many of us have employed an RME ADI 2 DAC to verify this.
You’re going to the wrong parties or inviting the wrong guests seriously though, really good reply.
My sticking point is a Chord Poly, I’d love to get that working with LMS, I know I can use DNLA but it seems a huge step backwards.
This discussions appear here at least weekly, and never end well. And no one will ever convince the other side, with one believing in whatever they perceive being an objective reality, and the other knowing how things work
It’s not really all that difficult to prove (or disprove) whether there is any audible difference – just do a blind test on bitperfect output from both, no special equipment needed, and as long as the same input to a DAC is used, levels should be matched by definition. Either one can distinguish between the two with a high degree of confidence or not. Everything else is just idle chit-chat that has little to no evidentiary value and is not going to convince anyone of anything.
Maybe it’s because I’m also an old man, I completely agree with you - especially the filtering in Roon is not reliable semetimes because Roon uses its own metadata database and this metadata is often incomplete and mixed up. Users have pointed this out many times.
I may be old but I am still computer literate, I retired as a developer.
I was referring to Audirvana odd sorting , for example , The Beatles and Beatles will show as 2 enties. People like Sir Georg Solti , Dame Janet Baker etc as well. There is no way to group artists by dropping “The” prefix or a user defined prefix like Sir etc
Sometimes it sorts Christian , Surname others Surname, Christian it’s not consistent . You have to dig around to find an Artist.
Personally I find the Filter function in Roon one of its greatest asset , a similar function is absent from AS
I have an AS license I. Will not be renewing , Roon and JRiver is a far better option .
Hi Dave,
Yes, I do rule out the psychoacoustic effect.
For me the world of Digital music is not exclusive to listening to music but even more a journey to understand the technology behind it and to figure out how one can improve
Over the years I have been learning a lot from people like Hans Beekhuyzen, Eelco Grimm, Jaap Veenstra, Paul McGowan to name a few.
Bit perfect does provide you the foundation for building a perfect house. but other elements layered on that foundation are equal important.
Most of the changes I made in my system ( DIY) over the years are timing related and I’ve made impressive steps up in how my system at home sounds today compared to a few years ago.
And if I follow that path of timing …then why can’t the difference I’m hearing between Roon and Audirvana be timing related ?
It’s all software with handovers within the software to other software stacks
I have now upgraded my Roon rock hardware from I5 NUC to a I7 NUC to investigate if that makes a difference. ? I doubt it, but this is a step I’ve taken just to eliminate it.
enjoy the music.