I tell you. I have a lifetime subscription with Roon and love the software and processed myself not less than 10 subscriptions for my friends and installed many servers for them. Interfacte is amazing and the entire experience is powerful and easy to use.
However, I am since a few months not using Roon after many years of continuous use. I subscribed to Audervana. It simply sounds batter. If somebody from Roon is interested, I am willing to work with them to see where the degradation in Roon is happening, unless they are aware of that already.
Sound difference: in Roon you get: 5% less details, 5% less musicalities caused by timing issues as it seems. 5% more harshness or what we call digital glare. This is very clear through many AB testing and may combinations and very expensive streamers that are all Roon ready.
On other front, I believe people using HQP see improvements because NAA in HQP is batter than Roon end point knowing that HQP upsampling is poor and has full colorization. (All filters).
My guess and not sure. The issue in Roon is the Roon streaming end point to the DAC (WASABI or ASIO). Their Roon end point software seems to be unoptimized/legacy. Perhaps due to compatibilities and legacy issues with massive number of Roon end points in the market making the server to work with all end points.
I hope Roon do something but the business focus seems to be on mobility which I understand. I still recommend Roon but I hope they fix this substantial audiophile complex issue.
Agree. I believe Roon did the community to hear from their customers so they have time to make decisions based on the feedback. I am expecting Roon 3 to be superior to any product in sound quality. If not, I already used Roon for 5 years and not concerned about any money.
I would be glad to see Roon’s responce here as it is their product and they know it best. I may have missed something before getting into my conclusion, so a post from Roon can help.
I have Roon lifetime, Audirvana Studio, Audirvana 3.5, and Apple Music. Roon sounds as good as any of them. As a matter of fact, I no longer use Audirvana and will let my Studio subscription expire.
EDIT: I cancelled my Audirvana Studio subscription yesterday, 3 months before it expired.
Yes no surprise. In most combinations Roon is superior. In my case, the advantage shifts to Audrivana only with a USB cnnection on Windows and Qobuz. Not any Windows, a computer carafully built for Audio to isolate the USB.
That’s your problem, Windows and special computer builds. Get yourself a simple Linux streamer, and your woes will be over. I never understood why anyone would want to struggle with Windows audio incompetence, which goes back decades.
