I am a convinced user of your software.
However, I have problems with the output quality:
I have your software running on a Mac Studio M2 Ultra, as output device I use AVM Ovation CS 8.3 (Roon Ready).
I play one and the same song (44.1 kHz, 24-bit) in the following ways:
via Roon Server: Data rate 1058 kbs
via Tidal connect: data rate 1211 kbs
direct via AVM: data rate: 1211 kbs
The difference in sound is clearly recognizable.
Tidal connect and AVM direct sound much better than via variant 1 Roon Server.
(just a Roon user) You might not get a response from Roon staff unless you file a support request on the support part of the forum. In the meanwhile, can you show the Roon signal path used in this comparison? The Roon server (whether on Mac or any other platform) does not change the digital signal in any way unless you configure it to do so, for instance with digital volume control or other DSP (digital signal processing). There is something a bit unexpected in the screenshots you shared: FLAC is a lossless compression protocol, so the bitrate from decompression on the server (as Roon does it) or on the endpoint (as the other two methods do it) should be exactly the same. This suggests that some additional processing is going on in the Roon server, such as digital volume control. Again, the signal path would tell us what’s going on.
Finally, are these 3 experiments carefully volume-matched? Small volume differences (< 1dB) can be taken as quality differences, given how our hearing works.
The comparison took place at exactly the same volume.
The difference in data rate is just as incomprehensible to me.
Attached are screenshots of the signal path and the MUSE settings.
First, the bit rate isn’t a relevant measure of quality for lossless media files such as FLAC. Indeed, Roon only displays bit rate for lossy codec such as MP3.
Therefore, please post the Roon signal path, as shown below.
If the same lossless FLAC file is used by both Roon and the TIDAL app, the only explanation is DSP or the sources aren’t volume matched as @Fernando_Pereira mentions. Louder music is perceived as better, which is why level matching volume is critical.
The difference with roon is that it does any decoding on the server - and then sends uncompressed audio to the endpoint device.
I’m a doubtful about the bitrate numbers being different, uncompressing a flac file - either on the roon server - or on the AVM should produce exactly the same result.
I’m suspicious their bitrate number is using some sort of approximation and so is wrong.
So I don’t think that explains a sound difference.
Roon is reporting you are increasing the volume of the right channel by 1.5 db. Of course this may also be happening in the other case.
DSP to increase volume needs to be done with care. Most digital music uses the full bandwidth of the signal - and so even a very small volume increase is likely to cause nasty sounding digital clipping. This might be what you can hear. To do this safely you would need to do some DSP first to reduce the volume and give you a little headroom. However this then makes it difficult to compare different sources - because even a very small volume increase is perceived as sounding better.
You could remove the balance adjustment and see if this helps.
If this AVM is doing this in analogue the the abve doesn’t matter.
All three streaming methods report 24bit stereo at 44.1kS/s. This corresponds to a bit rate of 2116.8kbps. So if the Ovation is reporting 24bit 44.1kS/s, then that is the bit rate actually received at the DAC - not 1058kbps (Roon reported) or 1211kbps(Tidal reported)
These reduced bit rates obviously relate to the compressed stream bit rates which would be the flac file itself in the case of the two Tidal methods but may be the RAAT data rate in the case of Roon to a Roon Ready streamer. It could also be that the Tidal numbers are the actual file data including the Flac sample record overhead whilst the Roon number is just the bit rate associated with the sample data itself (and is thus smaller).
I don’t know. Just trying to make sense of what I see. In any event, it is the sample rate and bit depth reported by the Ovation that actually matter.
Wade, I wonder if they are reporting the mono stream number (which is half your number - and matches the number they report for roon).
I guess if the device has mult-channel facilities that may have chosen to show the data for a single stream so that it is a reasonable quality indicater recordless of channel number.
Still doesn’t explain why the flac number is different though.
So I have a guess - the Roon number is half what it should be (for whatever reason - maybe a bug)
Flac typically compresses between 50% and 70%. 60% of Wade’s calculation is 1270 - which is pretty code to what the AVM is reporting.
So my guess is that for FLAC the AVM is reporting the birate of the compressed stream.
For Roon it should be reporting a bigger number because it’s uncompressed - but it isn’t!
I wonder if something is switched to mono in the Roon stream. That would sound much worse and would explain the number - alhought I’d expect the Roon signal path to be displaying that.
I’m sure you’d be able to hear if you’re playing mono.
So do I. Assuming a lossless transport (which may or may not include lossless compression), The only thing that really counts is the sample rate and bit depth transported to (and often reported by) the receiving equipment.
Unfortunately, however, if the numbers are different it sets up an expectation of superior/inferior quality which then becomes realized in perception.
I can’t confirm that. I first became aware of this problem because I noticed that the sound via Roon was inferior. It was only in a second step that I noticed the slightly lower data rate displayed.
Most likely there is small volume difference, with the better sounding tracks a little louder but it would need some detective work on your system and options to track it down.
The roon signal path is transparent - but the others aren’t so clear.
You could contact AVM - and ask (and also ask about the bitrate).
I have already contacted AVM about this issue. AVM recommended that I switch to Tidal Connect.
Could it be related to the MacOS after all?
The handling of audio-based data streams is very opaque for me.
Roon are very precise about what is delivered, and their architecture doesn’t leave choices to the host OS. So all roon core platforms deliver the same.
So they are definitely delivering correctly decompressed files to the AVM device.
The signal path is almost like an audit trail.
I think the Roon-Ready certification also guarantees the AVM behaviour too.
There are several phone apps that measure sound level pretty accurately. For level comparisons, I use a 1kHz pure tone file, you can then check levels with an app or (in my case) with a decent digital multimeter.
Hi, Try deleting all filters not just disabling. If you need them later you can add them back in. I have found this gets Roon much closer to the sound of me running my LUMIN X1 thru the native application.
