Considering I went in expecting no difference at all as I am don’t with everything else such as network and fall into bits is bits category not sure confirmation bias applies. Nothing wrong with setup it’s well reviewed DAC and one of ASR who all the naysayers love recommended DACs.
It’s more complex than that. Confirmation bias can be based on expectations we aren’t consciously aware of…
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You can’t measure sound quality
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Einstein wasn’t simply open-minded; he applied a great deal of thinking and rigorous mathematics to develop a new theory which was then confirmed by experiment. This isn’t a good analogy to “I hear a difference so existing science must be wrong”; for one thing, existing science has good explanations for why you might be hearing a difference - it’s just that people have a tendency to conveniently ignore them.
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When isn’t it. Until I can record the output I’m sticking with I hear it. After I record output and compare it in Adobe audacity and its the same I’ll go with your theory. Until then both arguments are unproven.
Because that’s the purpose of Roon - to deliver the exact data to a DAC or other endpoint. Personally, if I found out that Roon was messing around and altering the fidelity of the original music I’d be very unhappy. The artist recorded the music, which was then mastered in a particular way, which I then play via Roon. I expect that the bits are indeed the bits, with every single 1 and 0 exactly where they should be.
Maybe it would help if we called this signal quality rather than sound quality.
All that said, there’s nothing wrong with tinkering around with the data after that point - upsampling, filters, whatever - all of which can affect perceived sound quality.
I think you’re mistaking how science works here. Newton’s theory of gravity works well at certain scales, but not at others. Einstein’s conjectures work at much larger scales, but fail to take account of quantum level phenomena. In short, an all-encompassing theory is still an aspiration for researchers in this field. Digital transport, on the other hand, isn’t even vaguely contentious. It’s well understood, robust, easy to implement, measure, understand, and so on. So no, I think it’s massively unlikely that the “mode of thinking” is wrong in this case.
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You can pad anything out you like, buy some tone controls and leave the ones who like unadulterated alone.
I made exactky this point a couple of months back - can’t remember if it was here or over on ASR. It just exposes the whole futility of ‘audiophile’ network gear.
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Einstein was also wrong about many things, and got a lot of credit for things that other scientists did.
But that is NOT the point here: NO ONE is denying the possibility of SQ differences; we are simply saying that, as far as bit-perfect software goes, such improvements are not applicable; they reside elsewhere.
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Don’t move the goalposts - what you said was
there’s a ghost in digital systems that no one 100% understand yet.
What I am saying is that that is not true, and that digital systems are well understood and documented. This is easily demonstrable and measurable, and the only people who find that contentious either do not understand them, or make their living from saying that they are not well understood and selling “solutions” to problems that they are incapable of documenting (“some things aren’t measurable”), for the simple reason that these problems are non-existent.
If they are able to engineer solutions, then they must be able of measuring what they are engineering for. If they are incapable of quantifying their improvements, i.e, measuring, then they do not know what they are engineering for, and one is forced to assume that they are magicking solutions at the expense of their customers.
Anyway, it’s your money, you’re the one whose choice it is to amplify untruths, so suit yourself.
I will, however, ask you the same question I asked @Samuel_Hau before: assuming you had a 70 year, 20+ country, 2500 employee scientific project measuring particles flying across the universe on one hand, and a car tuner on the other. Who would you assume knows more about “ghosts in digital systems”, and whose opinion would you assume is the more credible on these matters ?
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Could you tell apart JRMC from Roon in a blind test - i.e. with someone else operating them? If you were the one alternating among them then you were vulnerable to your own unconscious biases – which can be very powerful.
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Good choice - the middle seat provides the best imaging and sound stage.
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The only SQ implication that I’m expecting is if I can’t get 1.8 to work! There’ll be no sound at all, therefore SQ of zero!!!
Apart from that, 1 and 0s don’t make a sound, so I wouldn’t expect 1.8 to be any different from 1.7 in terms of SQ. If I want SQ improvements I’ll equalise, room correct, buy new headphones or buy new speakers.
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I never tried. I don’t find blind testing useful since I don’t listen to music blind. All my senses and brains will always affect my listening experience so that’s how I also test my gear. I’m always aware of every component and cable on my system. It can’t get any more real than that.
But I don’t want to get into this argument once again. Everyone’s free to listen to music and build their systems just as they like.
True, though not what is being discussed. The question at stake, is if it makes any sense for people to ask if/when/why will Roon improve on their existing promise of bit perfect delivery. A question based on so far baseless comments such as software X sounds better than Roon’Y.
So far It has been demonstrated that Roon and a couple other programs do stick to their promise of bit perfect delivery, leading to the conclusion that the original comments that lead to the question, are without merit and can be happily ignored.
Leaving us with a nice satisfactory conclusion, can Roon improve on its promise of bit perfect playback: no.
And it is worth noting that none of the questioners are talking about DSP, which can “Enhance” the original audio to compensate for Room/Equipment, which Roon offers.
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I’m not concerned with whether you or others want to do double- or single-blind testing. But when I read responses such as this, I do feel the need to point out that “blind testing” has nothing whatsoever to do with being “blindfolded” or having one’s eyesight blocked. Rather, this is a scientific experimental procedure (similar to what is done, for example, in testing COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness). A single-blind test simply means that the listener doesn’t know which version of something he is listening to (e.g., the listener doesn’t know whether the file playing is an mp3 file or a WAV file). But in a single-blind test, the person PLAYING the music in the test does know what he is playing (mp3 vs WAV). The old “Coke vs Pepsi” challenges in the shopping malls back in the 1970s were single-blind. The shopper was drinking from plain white cups and didn’t know which cup had the coke and which had the pepsi (that’s the “blind” part of this…not a blindfold!). A double-blind test (which is better in scientific work) is when neither the listener or the player of the music knows which file is which. Instead a 3rd party, not participating in the experimental task, later can match the choices to the actual file identities. Again, neither party is wearing blindfolds. Double-blind is considered better, as research has documented that the experimenter running a task can unintentionally “give away” the identity of the item being tested with body language, tone, etc.
Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest, as it seems to come up often around here. Thanks. 
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Yes, obviously I’m just writing about my own experience which is purely subjective one. To me the difference was very real and audible for long time and I was just as amazed about it as anyone since both software output bitperfect signal.
I did also compare to foobar2000 back then, just for reference. It was obviously outputting bitperfect signal also. I used foobar2000 as my main playback software way back, before I got JRMC. Foobar2000 and Roon sounded identical, no difference whatsoever. It was JRMC which differed from the other. Once again, it’s just what I heard. Sharing my subjective experience here, feel free to ignore it.
Garym:
I’m fully aware what blind testing is, single or double. But thanks for clarifying it.
What’s so funny, is I also use both JRMC and Roon, and I hear them EXACTLY the opposite; i.e., JRMC more crisp and bright, and Roon smoother, with slightly heavier bass 
… which is probably why people can’t align on “sound quality”.
“Golden eared audiophoolery” is all over the place. Spend a half hour on the forums at Audiogon—if you can bear it, I no longer can—where the GEA isn’t brand loyal or specific, and you’ll no longer wonder why the human race is circling the drain.
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