How can Maestro sound better than Roon?
I ask the question since the amount of ■■ in McGowan’s answer would make most politicians blush. It’s amazing that there are people who actually respect this huckster.
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He is however sitting next to a Steinway & Sons. Doesn’t that command respect?
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The fact that everyone claims to “sound better than Roon” only shows that Roon became a standard of quality, the real reference. Btw, how is Maestro “magic” protocol different from Audirvana? I don’t get it.
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Because he says it is 
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I couldn’t work out if he was talking about Maestro or the AirLens 
I’ll start with the AirLens as he thinks PS Audio has done magic with all the galvanic isolation. If your DAC already isolates its own inputs (many do), you’re buying redundancy.
Maestro in terms of sending a Qobuz stream to your streamer is no different than using JPlay (the iOS app), mconnect, bubbleupnp for example. Try those and compare to Roon, Audirvana, JRiver etc. Maestro for all its bugs isn’t worth it.
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So I wasn’t the only person who seen that video today and thought it was a load of crap 
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I stopped watching Paul’s videos pretty fast. I think we’re giving him undue attention here.
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I’ll pretend to be Carl and moderate us all 
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I don’t mind the topic, though I do think all that needs to be discussed has been numerous times.
To quote Dr. Ian Malcolm (fictional) …
“Ooh, ah, that’s how it always starts, but then later there’s running and screaming.”
And my paraphrase …
- and shouting, and personal insults
- and then there is silence.
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The things that McGowan says may be complete garbage but once he says it the garbage then becomes audiophile dogma and that is why I push back. In addition, AI will pick up this garbage and spit it back as truth, which is also quite troubling.
Well hopefully Maesto will work great with MQA since they belong together.
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stop watching the videos - lower your blood pressure
I dont use Maestro and even tho I have PS Audio equipment its’ (Maestro) gains are too hard for even me to swallow.
They were outstanding with support for me however - truly standing behind their gear when I moved to another country.
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Why in the year 2026 has disagreeing with someone become the equivalent of insulting that person?
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Disagreeing is not the issue and not what I said or implied.
It’s when the discussion devolves to repetitive confrontational statements and personal attacks, nothing new is brought to the table, the board lights up with user flags complaining and the mods have to step in.
Have a re-read of some of topics that the moderator team have had to close there plenty of examples.
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Roon is terrific. None of the other services can touch what Roon offers, and I subscribe to many including JPlay, Tidal, Qobuz, Roon, and Maestro. My Bartok is a streamer as well as a DAC with it’s own excellent Mosaic internal program. To my ears, they all sound great, some slightly better than others often based on the content and its source. I own no PS Audio equipment; just C-J best tubes, some Pass and Wilson speakers.
What I can’t understand is the vitriol directed at a guy whose creativity and energy has built a successful business in one of the most difficult fields available. Right or wrong, every statement he makes is criticized as uninformed by people whose source of knowledge is; OMG, social forums. Like it or not he’s figured out how to build decent to excellent HiFi equipment from doing experimental design for many years. What did Bill Conrad, Lew Johnson and the founder’s of McIntosh and Johnson at Acoustic Research know about electronics when they started. Yes, he promotes his company… good for him.
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What you don’t understand is that there’s no vitriol, just criticism, and it’s not directed at a person, just at what they claim. Don’t make this personal; that’s exactly what @Jazzfan_NJ was lamenting about.
You are wrong. There are engineers and scientists on this forum and they know what they’re talking about.
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Could it, possibly, be because (almost) every statement he makes is, indeed, wrong? And truth does have a value all on its own.
Some of us had actually studied physics, math, computer science, and do know ■■ when we see it. That “OMG, social forums” canard is, really, quite insulting to those who had spent time studying things.
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As in!
I agree with you. You might not like PSA products but he has built a company from the ground up, employs scores of people, and from my personal experience he treats his customers well. It’s fair for one to argue whether PSA equipment is worth the price (I’m not saying it is or is not), but I too thought there was a belittling of Paul at points in this thread that went beyond the equipment.
I have owned a few PSA pieces over time, and although they were quirky, in the end they worked, sounded pretty good and I always got top shelve service from them. Once I had ordered one of their Power Plants as they were rolling out the next model. The older ones were being heavily discounted. Somewhere my order got lost, but Paul wrote me directly, apologized and gave me the newer model at the older model discounted price. Not everyone would do that.
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Pray tell, please show me where I criticize or make any reference to PS Audio equipment. I commented on the utter nonsense coming out of McGowan’s mouth in the video.
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I know I’m probably going to be thrown out of this forum for even suggesting this but have any of you actually had a decent listen to Maestro? I have no idea why its sounds so good to me but I’m a long time Roon user and I’m afraid I can’t seriously listen to Roon anymore after listening to Maestro. I suggest as Paul said that you give it a try. I have to say that Roon is still far superior IMHO in all aspects other than sound in my system.
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