I thought you’d be glad to know you are viewed as “simply the best there is” by some heavy-hitters in the industry! 
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I’ve met Paul personally and he does have some ways of seemingly getting one offside here and there…that Roon is not a server in his prior comment in the clip doesnt seem right to me…while it it is not supplied (yet) as a server its function certainly is especially when its done on a NUC with ROCK I dont see any other way to describe it other than as a server.
Paul’s been openly loving Roon’s UI for a long long time, saying it’s numero uno and nothing else comes close.
But he’s also been open about not being a fan of the sound quality.
See post #11 here: http://www.psaudio.com/forum/directstream-all-about-it/is-roon-support-going-to-be-eol/
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It was from one of Paul blogs I learned I heard about Roon and checked it out…
I’m a happy lifer…
If a piece of non-Roon software is sending music over the network to an audio endpoint and the bits are the same as what Roon is sending, then I would argue that the hardware should be better at isolating effects of other things on the network.
If a Roon Server on the network is able to impact your SQ, then a box playing Netflix, or an XBox playing a game should be able to do the same. I pass the buck here to the hardware manufacturers, who should be doing things to protect us against errors caused by third-party items on the network, including Roon.
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Hi Danny,
Since Roon already sends bit perfect audio to endpoints via RAAT, does this mean nothing else can be improved with RAAT, with respect to sound quality? It’s already as good as it gets since it’s bit perfect?
I’m guessing you are talking about fidelity loss, and not errors here…
We could reduce the CPU requirements of the RAAT SDK, but it’s unclear if that would be a win. It would surely result in a loss in functionality.
I speak about the difference between fidelity loss and errors here…
https://community.roonlabs.com/t/validity-of-audiophile-ethernet-cables/30251/25
Of course! I mentioned bit perfect so I of course am not talking (or thinking) about errors.
I’m moreso thinking about Brian mentioning he has ideas on how to improve sound quality:
We are talking about technical stuff now, which is above my head, beyond ‘bits are bits’, but it MAY have something to do with why Paul doesn’t like Roon’s sound quality. Or maybe his comments have nothing to do with what Brian’s talking about there.
Anyway to move away from guessing about Paul’s reasons, others have observed and commented about Roon’s sound quality, as I’m sure you’ve come across before.
Since this is all about listening to music with our ears, I know you guys are always thinking about how to improve sound quality.
I was speaking specifically about sound quality during grouped playback. I think that the DSP/technique that we use for correcting clock drift for slave zones could be improved–that’s it. I don’t think this is related to the PS Audio discussion.
Noted.
I remember having a fourm discussion with Ted Smith about why Roon may sound different, over the network, with the core far away from the networked DAC. It was way over my head and beyond ‘bits are bits’.
Anyway this is obviously something they are trying to tackle themselves.
As I said above, PSA have heaps of love and respect for Roon, the product and the people. As do I.
But sound quality is pretty important, since we’re talking about listening to music.
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my 5cents to the SQ discussion - to me it’s all about how effectively renderer works (e.g. loads the CPU / network hardware of renderer). The ones with a bit of audio streaming history could remember the differences achieved by tuning the various buffers etc on the renderer side (long live to Triode and his SB Touch patches/tweaks).
I have dedicated lan connection from roon server (running also upnp minimserver on the same machine) thus no other than roon or upnp traffic is on the network and still the upnp sounds better (more defined/precise). This connection is even galvanicaly isolated from PC running Roon (optical transcievers, powered by filtered linear power supplies) to eliminate any potential noise from the PC.
My only wish is that Roon would sound as good as the upnp and I just hope it will happen once when this will get understood and investigated by the roon folks who are very capable , just not sure if complexity of RAAT is not the culprit here.
Surely this is more than just obvious bitperfect topic (i use only fixed 100% volume, no DSP and the bitperfect tests pass just fine)… As far as I am aware there are good DACs with Roon endpoints available to Roon staff and doing comparison between upnp and RAAT on enough resolving gear should make the difference clear.
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