Recently I have been upgrading my audio setup and I’m now hearing more details than before, but I’m also confused for some of my CD’s started to outperform my High res files.
Most of my files are in compressed FLAC format and to my understanding Roon decompresses FLAC before sending it to the end point.
With a dedicated pc intel i5 processor + 8 GB of RAM the processing power for the decompression shouldn’t be not a problem, but it now seem to me that it does have an impact in a negative way.
I therefore did a test using Alan Parsons I Robot album track 2 for making comparisons.
My starting point is the file I have on my NAS and that’s in 24bit 192KHz (level 5 FLAC).
I’ve converted that file into:
Level 0 24/192
level 5 24/ 96
level 0 24/ 96
24/192 WAV
24/96 WAV
My conclusion is that I hear a difference between a level 5 FLAC and level 0.
Wav 24/96, Flac 24/96 level 0 and Flac 192/96 level 0 all sound identical.
The lower the bitrate the more level 5 and level 0 sound identical
At 16 Bit 44.1 KHz (I’ve used a CD version for this) there’s no hearable difference between FLAC level 0,5 and WAV.
I, for now, have concluded that Roon is not transparant when decompressing High res FLAC.
Makes sense or… where do I go wrong?
Open to hear your thoughts.
My Setup is:
QNAP NAS for file storage.
PC intel I5 with 8GB of RAM + SSD that’s only running Roon.
Wired transport with optical link to block electric network noise entering the DAC.
Roon endpoint : Auralic Mini with BOTW power supply
DAC : Schiit Modi Multibit DAC
Preamp : Schiit Saga preamp
Amp : Schiit Aeger Amp