Headphone via Roon or Roon ARC

Audio Gear Talk Headphones
1

For a couple of weeks I do have a B&W PX8 wireless ANC headphone.

When I want to listen to music at home, I have to choices:

  1. use my android device as normal roon endpoint and listen via bluetooth
  2. use Roon ARC on my android device and listen via bluetooth.

What are the Pros/Cons concerning this?
Which would be the preferred method?
Sound Quality wise and maybe other considerations?

Reghards, Martin

2

I would use a wired connection to my Android phone and use the Roon app, not Roon ARC. You could compare the results to Bluetooth and see which sounds best to you or if they sound the same.

Use Roon ARC when away from your local network.

EDIT: Roon ARC is for “away from home.” Roon is for “at home.” That’s not to say you can’t use Roon ARC at home, but why would you? It is not full featured as Roon.

3

Thanks fpr the tips.
I will try to use the headphone wired (USB-C digital) and see if this makes a difference., though it sounds pretzty amazing over bluetooth.

Can you elaborate why you would use Roon rather than Roon ARC?

4

So from what I can see online the PX8’s DAC takes everything an resamples it to 48/24 no matter what so I’m not sure there will be much difference in this case but worth a go. If they worked like most DACs ARC would be your better bet as on Android only it, and not Roon remote, allow usb dacs to skip the resamping in the OS. Try that and see if you get bit perfect and if that makes a difference.

If not Roon and Arc should sound the same so it really comes down to the UI and if you use the Roon features not in Arc like convolution filters. Hope that helps.

5

Simply ARC is designed to run over the internet (WAN) , Roon over your internal network (LAN) your LAN is likely to be more stable than an external internet source. If you are using the headphones within the scope of your LAN use it . It’s likely to be more stable.

WRT to connections , Bluetooth is very good these days , I suspect a BT connection to your PX8’s will sound just as good as a wired one via a “Portable DAC” Try it and see

I use a pair of Sony WH1000-MX4 headphones connected Bluetooth to my iPad pro or my phone (Samsung A52) for listening on the patio etc , the wireless route is far more convenient as long as quality doesn’t suffer too much.

6

I tried using the PX8 wired and wireless. The headphone plays louder, when connected wireless (no idea why), I think that Sound Quality is also better wireless. It is fotrs sure more convenient.

Using Roon has the much better UI than using Roon ARC. When I look at the signal path. sound processing is done on the core when using Roon and on the device when using Roon ARC. This also points to using Roon

Martin

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