I’m road testing Roon today. I have a dedicated PC music server storing FLAC files and outputting digitally through an Asus sound card. Switching back and forth between MediaMonkey and Roon, the sound quality through Roon is much worse. I can only think of three explanations: (1) I have a configuration problem, but where? (2) I’m wrong, and the sound is indeed the same (3) the Roon community doesn’t really care about, or notice, sound quality.
Anyone else conducted a similar test?
That’s the second time that you’ve made an inflammatory comment about Roon users. There are around 500,000 users enjoying Roon, many of whom are rather discerning when it comes to SQ issues.
There are lots of threads that address this issue. Many of us believe Roon is accurate and will reveal the transparency, good or bad, of the playback system.
Im going to go with #1 here.
It could be #2 but I trust that You trust your own ears.
If it was #3 we could likely rename this the Spotify forum rather than the Roon forum.(Jk).
Give us a bit more system information so we ( the Roon community) can see if there’s a configuration issue somewhere.
Nothing wrong with spotify, at least other streaming products support spotify/connect to judge the sound quality.
What’s wrong with Spotify? Is there a hidden reason Roon takes this long to support other non-hi-res streaming services like YouTube Music?
I know that you already know the answers to those remarks so I will not be engaging you on this matter.
Please read the post carefully next time…
You do understand that when you edit a post it has an “edited icon” so telling someone to read your post carefully after you have changed it is a tad sneaky.
And you do know that it was edited WELL before the above poster replied…
Unless of course they are a very slow typer or has a very slow connection 
Although I only “added” the Jk edit as it became apparent very quickly that nobody understood the attempted humour.
Oh well, I won’t give up my day job.
You know the answer to that so I won’t be engaging with you on this matter.
“The above poster” would really like to know what’s wrong with Spotify and YT Music.
Which one. My Asus xonar essence stx sounds great. Are you using ASIO?
I’m pretty sure it must be this one. After all, there almost no threads in this forum where SQ is mentioned!
I never implied what you suggest. I said that if there was no configuration problem, and that if I was correct that the sound is inferior, then the only other explanation I could think of was that everyone else didn’t notice or care. I posted precisely because I don’t believe that to be the case. But I can tell you that, as I am setup at present, the accuracy is much worse through Roon. I’m testing with classical and jazz, so DSP doesn’t come into play,
I may have a compatibility problem with the driver and will keep testing. It helps to know Roon does have discerning listeners who are getting good results on their systems, because there are 5,000,000 teenagers out there who think the sound through their earbuds sounds great.
A screenshot of your signal path and Settings → Audio will help the community provide suggestion to improve.
It’s quite possible that your setup is working properly and Roon has lower SQ compared to a smaller footprint player. Roon has a relatively large processing footprint, which can affect SQ with direct connection setups.The recommended setup for best Roon SQ is a network connection separating Core from Output.
And you, of course, have the mythical “golden ears.”
First up, could you clarify what you mean by accuracy? Second, why is DSP not an issue with classical and jazz?
More importantly, @ipeverywhere’s suggestion is a good one. Post some more details about your setup, including Setting → Audio and your signal path, and it will be much easier to see if there’s anything odd going on that could be contributing.
Is there any proof of this? It seems like another one of those “urban myths”. I doubt you’d see a difference in most cases. Perhaps if the machine is pressed to the gills with processing?
Considering Roon themselves state it’s best to be separate perhaps some truth to it. Most complaints against Roon and SQ come from users using core as player to DAC.