Upsampling should not have such an effect.
I’ve seen this before, but at successive switching between RAAT and Devialet AIR protocols, done while playing music. At the first switches, everything was normal, but from a certain point, on RAAT appeared exactly the effect you described.
It’s an obvious bug, but I don’t know if it’s from Roon or Devialet.
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Oh. No. For me a a researcher the world phenomena triggers my interest about what could be mean here.
I have HQP for many years upsampling and enjoying different filters. What I learned finally is to play PCM without upsampling. I have Mscaler and use it to go tp 192khz. But the amazing discovery is HQP NAA is batter that Roon end point. This is a discussion by itself. So, I output to HQP NAA 32bit to Mscaler through a windows based NAA end point. My Mscaler is powered by a seperate power supply to provide isolation for the USB.
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Hi Franz and others,
I am brand new to Roon…in fact, not yet running but about to…
Run a Devialet 440 with an Auralic mini an a Qobuz subscription playing on a pair of Martin Logans. Auralic is connected by USB to the Devialet…
Now, i would like to use Roon and like to learn from your and others experience.
Some questions:
- any preferences or advantages using Qobuz or Tidal?
- preference using or not using MQA?
- advise to still use a dac like my Auralic or directly connect the Roon core to the Devialet?
- what server/box/player for Roon core is recommended?
- if Roon core is directly connected to Devialet then how do you connect (what physical interface and protocol and settings)
- do you advise to connect the Roon core server/box using wifi or by lan cable?
Thanks in advance.
Paul
Paul
Congratulations. I am sure that you will have a great experience and get hooked on Roon.
Others may have greater knowledge but as a first response:-
The general consensus is that Qobuz is preferred, which means no MQA to worry about.
First try connecting Roon core directly to the Devialet. You can also test against the Auralic.
The best solution for a core is either a Roon Nucleus or Intel NUC with Roon ROCK, both of which are supported by Roon, as long as you select an approved NUC.
Wherever possible, connect by cable rather than Wi-fi.
I trust that this gets you up and running.
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I also have a 440 Pro and use it almost exclusively to stream from Roon which is running ROCK on a NUC. I have a sizable library and I use Qobuz. I have little interest in MQA but choice between Qobuz or Tidal should really be based on the type of music you listen to. There’s a good bit of overlap between them and I’m sure many people use both. I have tried both and prefer Qobuz.
I’ve tried streaming to my 440 Pro via USB and, to my ears in my system, it sounds noticeably better streaming via hardwired ethernet to my 440 Pro (with my NUC in another room next to the router). This gives you the choice between using Roon RAAT or AIR. Both work beautifully and sound very similar. The one advantage of using RAAT is that you can stream concurrently to other endpoints in your house that can also use Roon RAAT (e.g. whole house audio).
Good luck with this!
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Hi, I just stumbled across this googling “better than Devialet 440 Pro”
I have Devialet 440 Pro driving TAD ME1s and 2 arrays of 2 subwoofers per channel. The roon core is Antipodes EX, my network is the result of much experimentation and yielded much improvement. I could go on about the rest but that is the basics.
As an indication of how resolving the system is, I notice an improvement in sound with most roon updates - some more than other, the latest was quite noticeable.
So in relation to roon the endpoint of the Devialet CI. I feel this is easily superior to using the EX as both core and endpoint (ie. server and player). Separating the server and player functions is the key here.
I had tried many ethernet things between the EX and Devialet, including Gigafoils and EtherRegens in series, but in my view the wifi is hands down better (but I will be revisiting that sometime). Actually, I was trialling a Auralic Aries G1 via wired and wifi as endpoint connected to Devialet via toslink (for total isolation). Aries via wifi is extraordinary, Devialet is at least equally extraordinary and I consider the end result to be more accurate and superior to Aries even with all its nice sounding filters. I could write a chapter about that experience, in short I think the Aries filters enhance, emphasis and/or fabricate aspects that are not revealed in some systems - they are intoxicating but not accurate. I sold the Aries.
Incidentally, the wifi I use is a dedicated Mikrotik mAP lite powered by a USB lithium powerbank with Akiko USB tuning stick connected directly to the EX via Shunyata Sigma.
So with that said, a lesson I did learn from Aries is multiple sampling changes, and different filters, can be beneficial. At one point I had roon upsampling to 192, Aries down sampliing the 96 and then Devialet native upsampling (192?). This is akin to polishing to achieve a deep gloss. I presently use roon to upsample to 96 and then devialet native upsample. But each ‘polish’ tends to make blemishes stand out more against the pristine surrounds.
So the idea of using roon to resample from PCM to DSD is novel and worth a try given my past experience following the logic of PCM to PCM (silly me, what was I thinking??). Maybe it will deal with the blemishes better.
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Sometimes there is no explanation known … yet.
My take on this is that when ‘noise’ is reduced and impulses are more accurate, it can sound quieter, less ‘clutter’, it is less loud, but the noise floor is lower so the range between very low and very high amplitude s extended, even if it sounds less loud. Reviewers sometimes speak of hearing deeper into the music because the minute details are now more audible.
So in short, the high amplitude sounds less loud and more precise, but the audible range is now includes much lower level detail.
My experience is it is far more comfortable to crank the volume way up and enjoy being engulfed in the sound.
The cause cannot be noise reduction:
- The same FLAC converted to PCM has reduced volume only in DEVIALET, but not in RME.
- The difference in volume is too big, especially since the noise is not heard at all with PCM not converted to DSD.
- The PCM would sound terrible if it had that much noise that should be removed.
I think that simply DEVIALET considered that PCM to DSD conversion requires a headroom or something like that and applied it.
Well, I have tried it and …like it a lot!
I am not going to elaborate but will simply say music is more enjoyable, and sounds are more pure. Go figure.
I have Parallelize off which sound better to me but makes the CPU core work alot more. My processing speed is about x2, significantly less than previously.
I too have noticed a drop in dB and agree it is way more than would result from lowering the noise floor. BTW, noise floor is not noise you can usually hear, but the very high freq interference impacts electronic in a way that affects SQ.
Having said that, I can now hear more hiss in silent sections of more tracks, perhaps on the recordings, perhaps due to the sample conversions, or both.
It am yet to try different modulator filters, current using 5th order CLANS.
I would like to know where else others have shared their experience with this.
This is bad, not good. 
Hi Michael,
Thanks for your reply, this helps.
1
Would you like to share your Devialet, Qobuz and Roon settings please, maybe some print screens.
I would like to use them as a template for my setup that also incudes Roon, Qobuz and the Devialet 440.
The Devialet 440 will arrive back from the factory next week and the Roon Rock (supported Inteli7 NUC) has been build.
2
Any advice on the use or no use of upsampling for the Roon/Devialet/Qobuz combo?
Many thanks.
Paul
Setting up your 440 Pro is all done in the Devialet Configurator and would be highly dependent upon what sources you will use. If you need help or advice with that I’d recommend studying the Devialet help for that. Another great resource for Devialet is DevialetChat.com.
One word of caution with the Devialet configurator - there is a known bug in the configurator with dual-mono systems (e.g. 440 Pro) in that sometimes but not always, a re-edit of an existing configuration may cause problems. That drove me a bit crazy because I thought I was doing something wrong. The recommendation is to create a new configuration whenever you want to change something which can be a laborious and error-prone process if you have a lot of configuring to do (i.e. multiple sources, multiple outputs). Sadly, most of that happens to new users during the learning process.
You should absolutely use wired ethernet between your NUC/Rock and your router or network switch and I’d recommend using ethernet between your router and 440 Pro if possible (although many have good success using wifi to the Devialet).
There is no Qobuz setup to speak of. Just enter your username and password in Roon → Settings → Services ->Qobuz.
Personally, I don’t hear benefits of upsampling in Roon to my 440 Pro so I just stream based on whatever the source provides. But I have seen quite a few posts about upsampling everything to 192kHz. There is a lot of hi-res 24bit music on Qobuz as well as in my own library. So best to use your own ears to determine if upsampling is worth it. Your i7 NUC running Rock should handle it fine if you choose to do so.
Good luck and enjoy the process!
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It’s on the Devialetchat forum.
I think from the very first post people are stating this. In my case I can confirm that the DSD64 conversion is exactly as people are describing. The imaging is incredible. In addition it takes off the “edge” of the high frequencies and “rounds” them off. In my head it’s comparable (similar) to analog. I really like it.
Quobuz -->Macbook Pro Running Roon Core -->Ethernet–>Devialet 120
I am considering buying another D200 to go dual mono D400
Is the configurator still buggy? Or has this been remedied
I mean I don’t change the settings a lot so it would possibly only be done once
I’m not an expert (no pun intended), but the difference between a single unit and dual mono is huge. I’ve never had trouble with the configurator, just start from scratch each time.
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Still buggy, no bugs fixed.
But, the bugs may or not have impact on your configuration, it depends on what functionalities you want to use from the available ones.
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My current system features a trio of D220 PRO feeding Naim DBL’s (a 3-way) speaker in active crossover mode (aka AXD mode). Up to now, I have been using PCM (with or without upsampling) and I am happy to add my voice to those who concur with Dr Torque’s finding: his DSD-based configuration sounds very noticeably better: more clarity and focus, better separation and soundstage.
Perhaps it makes “no sense” from the point of view of some well-regarded theory, but then, chances are that the relevant theory is wrong or incomplete. Theoretical expectations can never invalidate empirical findings. Admittedly, we are not talking yet about solid empirical results (e.g. blindfolded experiments with groups of people), but please add my voice as one more bit of evidence.
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