Relax and enjoy your music. Its not the only thing and certainly not going to be the last thing in audio that makes a difference without much of a logical sense.
Time and again, I have been told objectively Intona will not make an audible difference unless you have a ground loop issue. Yet inserting an intona to the chain (and I have four intonas, one for each system) things clearly sound cleaner and I will never have any objective foundation to back it up. I don’t understand why I need an explanation for others as long as it makes a difference to me for my own enjoyment…
Sure you do - many, @jussi_laako included, have measured lower noise with an Intona and so we know that the Dac is getting a cleaner signal. Audible or not, harder to say, but there is an objective difference that might be the cause.
Because this is a topic that exists to specifically discuss the differences? I thought that getting into what/how/why was of relevance and interest. Maybe this thread should be closed?
Yet time and again any measurable differences with and without the intona are concluded to beyond human hearing threshold unless you run into a ground loop so objectively you can’t hear it.
Unfortunately some times it really is possible that its down to whether you can hear it or not.
People claim fiber optic connection for NAA or streamers makes a difference. I am currently using that and it makes zero difference to me, yet I heard clearly a difference between jplay and roon…
Is Roon and HQplayer on different pcs or the same one? Where is jplay picking up files to play from? What UPnP server is it seeing for its library? Does this run on same hardware to Roon?
Config Roon :
Synology 1019+ NAS files with DSM 7.2 Roon Server on NUC I5 32GB RAM
HQP Desktop 5.10 on Mac Mini M2 (DSD256 - Convolution Focus Fidelity filters)
NAA on NUC I3 16GB RAM
DAC Holo Cyan 2 USB connexion with NUC I3
Preamp Lake People MC100 XLR connexion
Active ATC speakers XLR connexion
Config JPlay :
NAS Synology 1019+ files with DSM 7.2 (Idem config Roon) Jplay IOS (on Iphone / IPad) connexion Wi-Fi
HQP Desktop 5.10 on Mac Mini M2 (DSD256 - Convolution Focus Fidelity Filters) (Idem config Roon)
NAA on NUC I3 16GB RAM (Idem config Roon)
DAC Holo Cyan 2 USB connexion with NUC I3 (Idem config Roon)
Preamp Lake People MC100 XLR connexion (idem config Roon)
Active ATC speakers XLR connexion (Idem config Roon)
Roon applies some “special sauce” that’s easily heard A/Bing the same track against Jplay. I can switch between the 2 sources within 3secs.
Roon has some type of smoothing going on and a smaller soundstage. Jplay is more detailed and accurate.
Exactly that, Roon is “applying” something.
Such a claim should be backed up with a technical explanation.
(We are talking here about bit perfect, so no DSP, no volume levelling, etc. delivery of a PCM stream from Roon to HQP.)
Not just to HQP. To everywhere.
If one could somehow capture what Roon sends to HQplayer then you might be able to see and compare.
I leave it to greater technical minds to find that.
I can simply hear the difference. It’s not slight.
I’ve said this for years and I will repeat myself. Roon is the most transparent playback you’ll hear. If there is something lacking its lacking in your system. Clean it up and Roon is great sound quality but it will reveal everything. Other software somehow, for whatever reason, isn’t so transparent and these things get hidden. In some cases… in a lot of cases… it’s the right answer to just run the other software.
On a side note… I do need to try this JPlay thing. Figure out what’s wrong with my system.
That’s kinda an interesting perspective indeed. Perhaps roon is too transparent and letting you hear all the noise, while jplay manages to hide the noise that Roon just lets it out. Who knows
I have done exactly that - I have captured the packets sent to HQPlayer from Roon and reconstructed the PCM bitstream. When no dsp is enabled it is 100% identical to the PCM bitstream contained inside the Flac stream sent directly, for the same source stream/file. I have posted about this elsewhere in more detail. But that only confirms what was already known - there is no ‘secret sauce’ being applied.
Maybe we should look further into the processing of the file, which Roon does but UPnP software doesn’t. Roon sends PCM/DSD to HQP while other software keeps the file as is. This is the only clear and obvious difference between the software I think?
To me, JPLAY + Minimserver + HQP sounds the same as playing with HQP client directly. But Roon sounds different from both of them.
At least to me, I have always followed advices from Jussi and Goldensound when it comes to digital audio setup… use of cat6 utp cables throughout, Cisco switch spf to fitlet3, intona to dac(s). There are many things that never made a difference to me and I am always honest about it. Holo red vs rpi4 vs fitlet3 as NAA makes zero difference to the sound as long as an intona is in the chain. USB cables as long as they are up to spec don’t make any differences to my ears. Power supply for NAA don’t matter much either…
I do believe I have done my due diligence when it comes to my digital setup. I don’t have a legit explanation why it sound different but I am not losing any sleep over it. I know jplay sounded cleaner to my ears, whether I turn down the volume at night or I crank up the volume during the day.
Sorry but what is jplay initially using to add files to it? HQPlayers inbuilt library or is their another UPnP server running on the Synology. Trust trying to establish signal path for source files when using Roon and HQplayer. When I used jplay it had to connect to another UPnP server to get files.m
One difference between the two is there is one less network hop and device in the chain with jplay as it doesn’t touch the files so it’s synology straight to HQplayer pc. In Roon you have 2 nas to Roon, Roon to HQPlayer. Not sure what would change here but it might be part of the difference?
Of course Miniserver server on NAS for JPlay. I didn’t try to overload the NAS with Roon installed on it because of the minimum CPU specifications indicated by Roon (but some people did, it works but I don’t know what additional load it implies on the NAS).
After all, we all have different configurations, and many see a clear improvement with the use of JPlay).
Thanks, so really only difference is that it has an extra hop to Roon and out again to HQplayer. I have all my music local to my server and this runs all my different apps, perhaps it’s part of why it doesn’t sound any different with any of them? Who knows it’s an odd one. Be interesting to see if all those that do hear a difference are using similar to yourself and those that don’t are local storage for Roon.
You can’t and you haven’t. You don’t have the access to Qobuz, Roon and HQplayer. HQPlayer API is about playback control, metering data etc. It doesn’t transfer audio. If you use for example JPlay or HQPlayer Client to play from Qobuz, HQPlayer server gets the FLAC data straight from Qobuz servers and neither control application is involved with this audio data at all. Roon always sits on the audio data path.You would have capture what Roon is recieving from Qobuz and need to compare the data Roon decodes with the data hqplayer decodes from Qobuz. Even Jussi himself is unsure how Roon handles the decoding.