Clarification needed on DSP and Tidal music streaming (ref#6FFF5K)

[dean1 (Dean)]

Hi! What’s not quite right with Roon?

· None of the above quite fits

None of the above quite fits

· None of these quite match

Tell us what's going on

· I would like to purchase a room, but I have no idea if I don’t get DSP when I stream the tidal Music subscription will I have any kind of problems

Tell us about your home network

· I wanna buy a roon server, but not sure how much I’ll lose without DSP because I can only afford the less expensive

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

DSP in Roon is applied to all data in the same way, wherever it comes from, be it local files or streaming. The pathway is:

Sources (local files or streaming) > Roon Server (which does everything, like unpacking files to PCM samples, applying DSP to them, etc.) > Roon RAAT (preferably) or other protocol > endpoint.

This may be helpful:

Architecture

[noris]

Hi @dean1, welcome to the community.

Roon’s DSP is applied the same way to TIDAL streams and local files, so you do not lose DSP just because the music is coming from TIDAL. If you buy a less expensive Roon Server machine, the main thing to watch is whether its processor is strong enough for the DSP you want to use. Some DSP options are light, while others like upsampling or convolution can use a lot more CPU.

If you’re choosing between server options, the key questions are:

• What kind of DSP do you expect to use most often?
• Which machine are you considering for Roon Server?

If you share those two details, we can tell you whether the lower-cost option should be enough for your setup.

[dean1 (Dean)]

@noris

Roon’s DSP is applied the same way to TIDAL streams and local files, so you do not lose DSP just because the music is coming from TIDAL. If you buy a less expensive Roon Server machine, the main thing to watch is whether its processor is strong enough for the DSP you want to use. Some DSP options are light, while others like upsampling or convolution can use a lot more CPU.

Does sound quality vary between Nucleus One vs Nucleus Titan?

Certain combinations of DSP + DSD may not be possible | are available on the nucleus one and cannot tell if that will be problem with my TIDAL tunes.

They are lot of storage and I only stream from TIDAL in a single room

[dean1 (Dean)]

I stream exclusively TIDAL music to my single room system. Need it to be simple

Is there a sound difference for me regardless of the Nucleus one or Titan?

Will there be cut off of some information with the following statement:

Certain combinations of DSP + DSD may not be possible | are available

[benjamin]

Hi @dean1,

@dean1

Does sound quality vary between Nucleus One vs Nucleus Titan?

No, there is no meaningful sound difference between them.

If you are performing heavy DSP, such as upsampling to DSD, convolution filters, or running many zones simultaneously, then the Titan would be better equipped to handle this compared to the Nucleus One, since it has more processing power.

@dean1

Certain combinations of DSP + DSD may not be possible | are available on the nucleus one and cannot tell if that will be problem with my TIDAL tunes.

If I understand your question properly, Tidal does not offer any DSD content, so this shouldn’t cause you issues. Feel free to include some additional details around your specific question if this does not answer what you’re looking for.

Thank you!