Roon plays music from Tidal at a much (like 40 dB less) volume than local hosted files. When using Tidal Connect from the Tidal app the volume is as expected. Streaming from ROCK server to Bluesound Node. No audio equalisation or modification applied in Roon.
Just to be clear: Tidal (Connect) -> Bluesound = Normal volume Local File -> Roon (ROCKS) -> Bluesound = Normal volume Tidal (Source) -> Roon -> Bluesound = Low volume
How can we help?
· None of the above
Other options
· Other
Describe the issue
Tidal volume is low compared to local files and Tidal Connect
Describe your network setup
Local ROCK server, router/switch, everything cat6e wired. Playing to Bluesound Node.
How low is low? Post screenshots of your Roon signal path when playing from Tidal and when playing local files.
Generally, it seems that streaming through Roon can sometimes have a slightly lower volume than streaming through the streamer directly, such as Tidal Connect or Chromecast from the Qobuz app.
This would be an implementation detail of the streamer and frequently leads to the incorrect assertion that sound quality through Roon is worse, if the volume difference isn’t corrected for.
As I’ve stated in my post, it’s not a little lower; it’s around 40 dB lower. If it was only a few dB I could write it off for Room taking headroom when using EQ or something, but this is something completely different. I’ve included two screenshots of playing local and Tidal showing the signal path. Volume is fixed (digital output on Bluesound). Adding to the confusion, the problem seems to come and go, sometimes fixing after a restart of the app. Roon and ROCKS are running on the latest versions.
What happens after applying volume leveling (set it to ‘auto’)? This is a zone setting, by the way… tap and hold the zone icon at the bottom right of your screen.
Thanks for reaching out and the screenshots. The signal path looks the same, so I am surprised there is a volume difference.
Can you please reproduce the issue once or twice more and let us know the exact local time + date + affected track when the issue occurs? We’ll enable diagnostics to see if there’s any discrepancy listed in logs.
Mr.Flibble
(Uncle Arnie fries them alive with his hex vision)
9
As @Arlen mentions, try volume levelling for the Tidal version. A screenshot with it on might help.
I’d also try playing back to the Node 2 as an AirPlay device to see if the issue is the same.
Thanks! I’ve been fiddling with it a bit to see if i could trigger the error in a more predicable way but i can’t seem to find the consistant factor. I’ve tried the suggestion to volume level (set on auto), but the problem stayed the same.
Then, i found that switching between MQA rendering on or off seemed to trigger the volume offset, but not in a consistant way where ‘Off’ would be ok and ‘Renderer only’ would not. I should probably keep the MQA renderer off, because although the Bluesound could decode, the RME does not. Still kinda weird because i’ve set to treat MQA as less than FLAC and it still streams the MQA file
Just to get my setup in full: Tidal → Roon ROCKS → Bluesound Node 2 → Digi out (Coax) → RME ADI2 Pro FS (DAC) → Active speakers
I’ve tried some songs between 11:50 and 12:05 today; switching between settings triggered the voume difference on the same songs in an unpredictable way.
Thank you for your post. The volume discrepancies you’ve described aren’t normal for Tidal and Roon’s signal path is transparently hard-coded.
Are you using any RME Console software with this audio interface?
Is the meter for the SPDIF/AES input registering unity or -40dB if you just input a regular FLAC file? Are you feeding other inputs or applying any sort of mixer at this stage? Is this interface also plugged into a computer via USB? We’ll need to know the full details of this digital chain beyond Roon to be efficient.
