I have noticed the last several updates resulted in sluggish UI performance and the sound quality degradation (rolled off, dull and anemic). It reminded me why I cancelled Roon twice in the past.
Anyone else with the same experience? Can’t the Roon be made to sound and operate at its absolute best without compromising on either user experience or sound quality?
Equipment:
Eero pro 6e into Trendnet 8 port unmanaged switch, Roon Nucleus One, Meitner MA3i, Tidal, Qobuz, local SSD Samsung mounted inside Nucleus One
My network is absolutely fine so it isn’t a network issue. Qobuz Connect, Tidal Connect and Jplay sound great.
I am also a little frustrated. I don’t believe it is my network or internet. My Roon server is a M2 Mac mini connected by Ethernet, and my primary endpoint is a Nagra Streamer also connected by Ethernet.
I am wondering if there is a way for me to prioritize the roon core and streamer over other connected devices over WiFi (apple tv’s, laptops, iPads, a family’s worth of stuff)
My WiFi router uses an app called Nighthawk. The WiFi router is a Netgear, purchased new a few months ago.
The sound can only be different to Qobuz if you make it so (by using volume normalisation, peq, etc.) else it will be verifiably identical bits. The rest, real or otherwise, is placebo/psychology.
The first part of the two statements by @David_White1 is definitive, though: Qobuz Connect claims bit-perfect delivery and Roon certainly does deliver the bits perfectly (absent DSP treatment). Several of us undertook an adversarial test of that proposition with an RME DAC and damaged test files last year.
So there is a chasm between what you claim about sound quality and the facts. I also haven’t noticed UX sluggishness.
Roon - hardware with OS and firmware that runs heavy background tasks such as indexing and managing the database, signal processing (although I have all DSP turned off), hardware induced noise that the processing needs to mitigate. Removing these impediments requires processing to reconstruct that data stream. Result: a warmer, fuller, more polite presentation with rolled off highs.
Qobuz Connect/Tidal Connect - directly streams from Qobuz to the end point which is a network card in my DAC. No obstruction layer between Qobuz and streamer. This the most direct path. And yes it sounds more forward and direct, even slightly more “digital”
Jplay - minimal processing it runs on iPad or iPhone for example. Minimized processing, loading the data stream into buffer. This is closer to Wobuz Connect than it is to Roon, but results in a more open and detailed presentation.
That’s my theory.
I hear the difference. Roon sound quality and UX was solid until the recent few updates The question is why. What happened and what can be done to eliminate the dull and anemic sound. Convenience is one thing but sound quality shouldn’t be compromised.
Sorry, makes no sense. You don’t understand how digital data transmission and DACs work. Your ideas concerning processing are simply flawed. If the bits arrive at the DAC without any change, you can’t hear a difference.
Well, to be strictly accurate - there is no difference in reality, but what our psychological perception of reality makes of it is something else. Our brains are funny things - so it’s quite possible for someone to believe that they hear a difference when none in fact exists…
Yes, indeed, this all has been tested ad nauseam by many, many people. There is no difference that can be heard in blind testing. And there is no physical mechanism by which any could exist. Expectation bias is a far more plausible explanation.
The burden of proof is squarely on you though. We need extensive blind tests in lab conditions. Since there is verifiably no difference at all in the audio, you would be directly controverting much established physics and audio science if you could tell the difference blind. We’ll wait
The last several responses are a non answer and the exact direction where this is headed with a group of theorists without actual experience with the streaming options I listed telling me that it’s all expectation bias and placebo.
Once again, state your own experience in your own system. Don’t tell me about some blind tests that you read about. Not interested. I’m sharing my existence within the context of my own system.
To add to my list above…from my experience…
I owned Auralic, Lumin and Aurender streamers. Native streaming software sounded better than Roon every time in every streamer. And once again, the native apps UI is not on the level with Roon, especially in case of Lumin(horrible really and way overdue for a rewrite). But sonically Roon is inferior. Yes it’s gotten much better over the years but it’s still not what it can be.
Anyways, I’m done here. Talking to it’s all ones and zeros people is a waste of time.
To clarify, we know and can prove the signal is exactly the same. That isn’t to question your experience at all, but that experience is psychological, and nobody has ever shown otherwise (which would be really easy to do with a simple blind test if any difference existed). The brain, however, has many complicated and partially understood processes far more difficult to explore than looking at identical audio signals. That experience can be real but it’s absolutely not because of any difference in audio signal.
