I sometimes feel tempted to respond, especially in the Audio Gear Talk of the forum, but as this was a place to discuss audio gear it nowadays feels more like a battlefield. It seems very polarized and even people in the middle that want to share experiences are being bullied away. I personally donāt think that manufacturers of high-end gear are only in the business for the money and to rip us off, and even if this was so, I just donāt want to believe this because that does not make me happy. Roon and Arc do make me very happy. Time for me to unsubscribe from this forum, but I canāt figure out how to do that.
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I never fell in love with any kind of forum 
.
B2B forums may behave differently than B2C, but in general itās for sure a matter of luck to find or get the exact information or solution to your specific issue. Yes, things repeat quite often here but I think itās not different somewhere else.
Forums live on sharing thoughts publicly about a specific topic. Totally voluntary, with a minimum of brusqueness, without any guarantee of liking, understanding or solution.
Yes, the mechanism of transferring official issue tickets right into the forum is somewhat a bit disturbing. But we know why they do so. And the future will tell us if there will be a significant change.
But, what I do believe, a much more compact and constantly updated source of relevant information would be great. But we all know thatās not for free.
This forum is also over-moderated at times, and that can get a little frustrating. Not that I am declaring the end of the world, but sometimes I think that the moderatorsā mission of keeping threads organized results in a sort of āno fun policeā type of undertone here.
I do understand that certain threads have topics that are useful as user references and there is a legitimate reason to keep them organized. Then there are other threads that would never have that value, so why try to keep them on topic? In that scenario the legitimate moderating would be to avoid a flame war.
For example: there was the beginning of a āheated debateā on sampling rates (/s) and because of a few posts that werenāt even flaming each other, it was put on slow mode. Kill the fun and the mood:
I appreciate what the mods do. But that doesnāt mean that it isnāt over-done at times. I donāt mean to single out the above thread or modā¦I posted this after a cumulation of that type of moderating.
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Agree. At times itās ASR all over again. With all the āwe know the truthā kind of comments that treat everyone else as idiots and the whole audio industry as criminals. Itās not that Iām not aware of a lot of snake oil and magical thinking, let alone the noise of YouTube reviewers, thatās an important part of the audio world, but if one takes this (aggressive) attitude and opinions too seriously, then all audio companies should be shut down (well, not topping and SMSL, I guess) and these people would tell the world how to make the perfect audio gear because they know it all. Itās amazing how the Roon forum is becoming this toxic environment, even though itās populated by older people (like me). Well, I guess thatās how things work these days. Peace
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Agreed. I also donāt like the fact that when you post it initially is with your full name, you have to request to have that changed.
I very much value my privacy and post nothing online using my name.
Amen! Wasnāt even heated.
Important? How? A large part, sure, but Iām not seeing the importance of it. It disturbs me to see fantasy masquerading as fact. I guess we all have our various irritations.
One might alternatively argue the problem is that the companies which are doing things, and promoting ideas, harmful to society, are not criminals. Because we donāt have the necessary laws in place to protect the susceptible from predatory vendors and their followers.
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9 posts were split to a new topic: ASR could be nice as a hangout for engineers
Well said, every time Iāve made an attempt to comment on something and provide some first hand experienced response in the subjects such as GASPā¦ digital cables making a difference or such, you get dog piled by a handful of very loud, very opinionated responses about how itās impossible blah blah and case closed. To make matters worse, any evidentiary info provided is suspect in some way or another.
No one simply just doesnāt comment; Instead apparently thereās an obligation to provide regurgitated third hand rebuttals with zero real world experience. There are billions combinations of gear, in a billion combinations of environments then factor a varied degree of skillet in actually listening but the outcome is always predetermined one side is myth the other is fact. Moderation here is indeed heavy handed and from what Iāve perceived usually unilaterally applied hence the topics always end the same.
God forbid someone spend a few dollars on a decent DDC and a good power supply. LOL
Anyway, enough for one evening. Goodnight everybody. Iāll remain an infrequent member here, coming in a couple of times a year to figure out if and when a Roon upgrade goes very sideways.
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Iād say thereās plenty of blame to go around in terms of the lack of civility in some posts. Both sides should be able to state their case without attacking the other. Iāve seen that happen but itās the exception more than the rule.
The fact is, if youāre going to post something that is contrary to science and engineering, that is going to invite skepticism. Opinions may vary, but my observation is that if someone posts it humbly as their experience and is willing to explore why and open to discussion on the merits of that experience, that is less likely to attract a condescending response than those who baldly post that X router and Y non-spec ethernet cable sound so much better due to non-science possible reasons. Itās partly in the tone of the claimant that triggers the tone of the respondent. Then it swirls downhill from there.
As one who has often posted a science and engineering based response, I can tell you that my motive is always the same - someone who is relatively new to digital audio needs to have access to a balance of opinions or they are going to think they canāt get digital to sound good unless they buy these products. But Iām not super strict - I mean, here I am listening to a tube preamp and appreciating the sound of the 1950s Amperex 6922s thinking theyāre so much sweeter than the Sovteks I had in there before.
There are different cultures in the audio hobby and they tend to collect around certain forums. To me ASR is a bit strict ā Iām pretty sure my DACs sound different from each other, albeit I believe thatās mostly due to their analog side ā but then again look at AudiophileStyle where itās mostly the digital tweakers and they gang up on those presenting science and engineering based thoughtsā¦going so far as to having rules that scientific rebuttals are prohibited in some sections of the forum.
In terms of here at the Roon forum, because itās a relatively complex software product, I believe the culture here leans toward the science and engineering crowd because it takes some of that knowledge to use Roon well. People understand IP based networking and how packets work. And the Roon team themselves tend to favor that side because they know that you donāt need a $10,000 server to feed the same packets as an old laptop to a streamer on the other end of the network.
Itās not the contrary opinion that is the problem. Itās the fact that people canāt maintain an even tone. Humans are just a lot more emotional than they themselves want to believe, and have trouble disengaging that side of themselves when presented with contrary viewpoints. At least we donāt have that in politics or government 
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Therein lies the rub. They know it, but theyāve never tried it when pressed. Itās a matter of whatās good enough to some not being good enough to others. There is just as much science based information out there as to why IT DOES make an audible difference, but that science is derided while their lack of first hand experience in trying said comparison is put forth as fact, put forth simply to justify a viewpoint without understanding. In the real world, science is based on experimentation and when you canāt explain the results of your experiments i.e. why improvements on the digital source have an impact on the quality of the sound, then you need to further test and potentially change your viewpoint if continued testing and experimentation results goes against your held beliefs. But theyāre not here for that. 
Itās also often out of context because replacing a power supply on a network switch when youāve got a $300 dollar DAC and your entire chain is well south of $2k, youāre more than likely not going to hear the most impact and frankly itās not the best use of your upgrade money in the first place. There are things that you do and gain value from doing WAY further along in the journey and perhaps itās why you get these repetitive argumentative threads. Everyone has their perspective while only one side is unwilling to admit that other perspectives can also exist and perhaps be right.
Believe me, no one starts out saying that a $1500 USB cable will make as a purchase, but for some people at some point in their journey if theyāve gotten that far, it does make a lot of sense. No one should be derided for it but donāt even dare suggest it in a thread here.
The entire hobby is about power, and we se companies separate their power supplies into a separate chassis, but you constantly see comments here about it being pointless to upgrade the power supply to a DAC because bits are bits without having any real understanding of the topic theyāre talking about.
Iād counter that there is just as much damage done to someone starting out in the hobby by the ASR crowd saying that all DACS sound the same and you never need anything more than a Topping or SMSL component (that they provide shortlinks to purchase) because to do otherwise is just throwing your money away. When the reality is that the implementation on these inexpensive (but very good sounding relative to their price) DACs is because their implementation is pretty much the same.
Sometimes it does take a $50k investment to develop a chain that is extremely capable, and it does take years of being in the hobby listening to be able to learn what to listen for. To be able to say that ABX instant switch testing isnāt the optimal way to hear differences because itās not how our senses work. In my journey, Iāve addressed room treatment, Iāve addressed vibration and isolation in components, Iāve addressed power cabling and conditioning Iāve addressed synergy and when I say I hear a profound difference in the continued improvements to the digital source itās because I hear it, donāt have to prove it to anyone. It doesnāt take a lot of money to get a decent DDC and a power supply. Anyone that is open and curious abut furthering their system should know that there are meaningful improvements on the table to be had, regardless of what lacking good faith science crowd says about things theyāve never tried.
The point is that 9 times out of 10 itās best to leave a comment unreplied to and move on.
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You mean, there is objective evidence that bit-perfect digital transports sound differently when all else is the same? I would love to see that.
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My statement was about the Roon team. The Roon team has never tried a $10k server? Where did they come from again? Iād say thereās a pretty good chance the Roon team has had their hands on a lot of hardware at all levels.
And after they have, what they recommend is a competent machine at the server end, a wired network in the middle, and a streamer at the far end. And if there is any, any, theoretical chance of any EMF traveling from the server to the streamer, you can eliminate that with a fiber optic network, which is just a fraction of the cost of a $10k server.
There it isā¦you just have to wait for it. My dollars make me right.
Respectfully disagree here - there are plenty of people that absolutely swear by their audiophile network switches and $10k servers, and donāt allow for any point of view as to configurations that make those items relatively meaningless in the scheme of sound quality. Even get angry when presented with those opinions.
This isnāt what Iām talking about and I donāt see that many people denying that different DACs have different influence on sound. Albeit I have seen some convincing engineers and others say that switching supplies have caught up with LPS but I think thatās a case by case question.
Certainly, it is silly to upgrade the power supply on a network switch or on a server that isnāt doubling as a streamer.
Well, I wouldnāt agree with that as I have 3 DACs well north of that price range but I think actually that is a good place to start. Need to learn first. If you start off believing you need a $10k server to even get in the game, thatās far more damaging.
And there are plenty of people with that level of gear and that amount of experience that know that certain things, especially in the digital realm, are not amenable to analog audio logic.
/i
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Mods, itās time.
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This type of behaviour and some more reasons is why i fellā¦ 
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Itās primarily a āsupport forumā - thereās no need to hang out here if Roon is working for you. Something Iāve learnt and come to terms with myself too. And the longer youāre here, the more you realise the same themes just keep going round and round, lol.
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I realized you are right about this, because a very long thread was just closed because I gave personal taste about some type of speaker sound-print but this has nothing to so with the software.
Still trying to find out how to unsubscribe from the forum though, so I wont be tempted to join such discussions about equipment. Any suggestions?
That is patently untrue!
It was closed as it had run itās course many times over and not even remotely close to being closed due to your contributions.
Please refrain from making statements that are wholly inaccurate and misleading as stated facts.
Than you for your cooperation.
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What does that even mean? Whoās going to decide that a āthread has run its courseā? Have there been serious violations of the community guidelines?
We might think about particular threads whatever we may, but as long as there are other members who debate a topic and donāt seriously violate community guidelines, why do those threads get shut down?
To me this sounds as if there were some tacit and unwritten forum rules, or if itās not this, as if arbitrary moderation power was being wieldedā¦
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In this case I had the impression after exchanging some heated comments, all sides have returned to a fruitful discussion and some progress as well as partial agreement on technical facts were just in the making.
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