Denon Receiver Options for Highest Quality with Roon

Well, I have Denon 3600h which is very similar to yours. Had the same impression with Direct audio. But my stream was comming via HDMI from media player. But I improved the Direct mode a lot with Denon settings.
Before I write how, tell me if you use Subwoofer otherwise that might be not relevant.

Yes, have a sub along a side wall opposite tv/sound bar. It is connected wirelessly to the Denon LFE out.

The Def Tech sound bar is an entirely different ball of wax I am endeavoring to improve…

I have to say using wireless to connect sub is so great!

I have a Denon Receiver, 8500H, connected to my NUC/ROCK server via HDMI. Also use the Roon Ready Ethernet connection streaming to an OPPO 205 with HDMI to the receiver.

In both cases the Denon DAC is doing the decoding.

The difference is with HDMI from NUC to receiver I can play multichannel files, with the OPPO Roon Ready streaming it’s Stereo only. I can’t detect any difference in the sound quality using either one.

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Ok guys if you are using sub and direct mode make sure:
Go to setup-Speakers-Manual Setup

  • Speaker Config- all set to small
  • Crossovers- all set to 80Hz (can be experimented with later)
  • Bass-Mode- LFE+Main, LPF for LFE 80Hz (or whatever set in Crossovers)
  • adjust sub volume to your liking.

If you don’t have it set like this already, try it and see if any different from what you get before in Direct mode.

Denon has decent DAC and it goes up to 192/24
I believe. I use external DAC via analog (CD) input which gives me higher resolution (not that I’m crazy about that, just want to utilise the full DAC abilities). I use also external Emotiva amp for Main speakers via Denon’s pre outs with excellent results. In Direct mode Denon doesn’t do internal recoding which is great for my setup.

Qobuz is available only in a limited number of countries. Tidal is available just about everywhere.

Forgive me for tacking on to a sorta old thread but it was the closest one to my circumstances I could find.

I have a Denon 4400 and I’ve mostly been using HEOS with tidal. The interface is a little frustrating and I don’t think the shuffle is really shuffling my 5000 or so song playlist. I’ve just started the trial of Roon and I’m trying to understand sound quality capability vs. HEOS with my current implementation, which is Roon installed on my desktop pc, sharing my library and connecting to Tidal. I notice it’s connecting to my Denon via Airplay, which I’ve never used.

Do we know the streaming capability of Airplay vs HEOS? Can it stream at the same audio quality of HEOS?

Trying to figure if there is any value in me continuing with Roon or if it’s not worth it unless I get a node or something connected via HDMI.

Thanks for any help.

For the best Hi-res playback with the receiver connect the HDMI out from the Roon core to the receiver. The HDMI connection will play 192 kHz/24 bit and multi-channel. I believe heos and airplay is CD quality only, 44.1kHz/16bit.

I agree that should sound best, but in my use case I’ve found that introduced problems. Admittedly I suspect the issue is with the Raspberry Pi driving the HDMI (rather than the Denon) but I’ve discovered a whole host of noise gets introduced on the higher frequencies… sounds a lot like speaker hiss, however it completely disappears if I play the same track through the same Raspberry Pi into a USB DACmagic100 (before it goes into the same Denon via analog).