Just one example is Analog Devices , several more devices if you search their site.
Thanks for your comment, but the statement was that changing some hard/software component causes ‘blacker backgrounds’ and ‘less noise’, which seems to have nothing to do with ambient noise as you describe it?
Am I misunderstanding you?
I am always reminded of wine tasting and the associated descriptions that I always have trouble expressing.
Then there are experiments to show that purely changing the atmosphere with other sensations, say, styles of music, and the wines perception is altered significantly.
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/BFJ-06-2019-0434/full/html
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It can be unequivocally stated that a person is not able to hear emptiness.
That is, if we are able to hear “black level”, then it is not a void.
This is some kind of specific quiet information. It is still not entirely clear to me whether this is useful information that arose as a result of an improvement in the reproduction path or side noise that many people subjectively like.
But I emphasize again that even if the “black level” is noise, it is not perceived as such by ear.
Here’s how to compare lemon and hot pepper. Both products are high in acid but taste very differently. And only lemon seems to us sour.
So with the “black level” the same. Despite the fact that it can represent a specific noise, to the ear it feels like a space devoid of sounds.
That is why music lovers describe this phenomenon as a space devoid of noise. They rely on their own feelings.
But if we still hear this black, then we need to understand that its level should exceed the noise level of the room and that means it is not a sterile void.
This is really interesting, because on other gear I noticed that Roon <=1.7 also sounded better over SqueezeLite than over RoonReady.
Sound is the relevant factor for me. Some say bit-perfect=perfect. That is not true. Audirvana is also bit-perfect. But it has another sound. I like roon better. Because of this I was not amused of the update. I wish in frontline must stand the sound. So I would prefer a roon-made easy-to-use room correction or the integration of other streaming services. Because Tidal sounds different than Qobuz. To me.
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Funny how a cold beer tastes so much better on a hot sunny beach. It’s the same beer.
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If you really want room correction there are many ways to do it nowadays. Don’t expect Roon to be a replacement for software/hardware you can’t afford or are not willing to buy. I think they do deliver enough withnthe dsp, convolution, hqplayer integration. Want more, feel free to shop around.
I think many people have a very strange view of how the Roon team works. Do you really think they have a super reference system setup somewhere where they spend thousands of hours tweaking for sound quality with the most trained ears and most highly skilled audio software engineers on the planet. Or do you really think they should work that way. I think you have no idea how much time and energy goes into designing a software package from scratch. Do younreally think they have time to tweak countless hours at each step to get that 1% extra notch in sound quality. No, don’t think it works that way. Offcoarse sound quality is important but I think most people have way to high expectations of what software can do. Like I said, room correction, further dsp etc is something that you have entirely control over, just shop around. I use dsp myself but I am totally independant from Roon for that, as long as it delivers bit-perfect output I am totally fine. I wouldn’t even want to be dependant on Roon because I would not be in control anymore if they decide to change things. For how the interface works we are totally dependant on the Roon team. That’s why I think that request and comments about the interface itself have more value than all this talk about the, often even imaginary, sound quality. Don’t burey yourself to deep in the Roon universe, you might regret it one day when they decide to change things, go bankrupt, or something better comes along
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People just make it up as they go along.
The music I have on now has a dark emptiness and is void of emotion with a timbre that is off beat.
Try it, I just made the above up, it’s quite easy once you get the hang of it.
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Goth? Haha
My perception of this « black noise, background noise, emptiness » whatever you name it, is that, even before talking about audio reproduction, in real life, we get a perception of any space, when we close our eyes, via low level reverberation - be it sound halos or even echoes if in really large spaces.
It would be great if any blind person could join this thread - they develop this auditive perception of space to a degree probably unknown from us who use vision so much.
Upon playing of a good recording on a good audio system, with sufficiently low ambient noise, the quiet moments of the recording are never perfectly quiet and it is the low level reverberation of these noises that enables us to build a feeling for the spatial extension and some reverberation characteristics of the recording place - or even of the size of the public, say, for live events.
It is actually subjectively important as I believe it plays a key role in how good is this « you are there » feeling.
Now, there is a spectral texture, associated to reverberation and sound halos of recording studios and halls. Entire books are devoted to the criterion of what should be a correct reverberation decay spectrum, how to combine volumes, shapes, materials, etc… We perceive that, for instance, on an organ recording from a large church, the combination of large space with high structures and hard surfaces, creates a long reverberation in the lower end of the spectrum, but also a halo of silky hiss (how to describe it ?) to higher frequencies such as « Shhhh » sounds.
This participates to the « church recording atmosphere ». To cheat you can burn incense and lower the lounge temperature 
Coming back to audio reproduction and to 1.8, I find a noticeable overall improvement (CPU noise solved) of the texture of these sounds, also of their spatialization (or diffuse nature rather). I also found that I needed, on my system, that had been previously fine tuned for 1.7, to increase by about 0.5 dB overall, the lower octave, 40 Hz and below, exclusively. Without it, on my system, it sounded like these low level reverberations did not sound as realistic as before, lacking a bit of flesh. With the adjustment, the perception of recording atmospheres sounds better than ever.
Perhaps not everybody has a sufficiently agile bass yet extending down below 40 Hz, or their system does not extend that low and substitute with more energy in higher bass to reach overall balance, therefore not everybody might share the same impressions, yet my perception is clear - and it is of a perceptible overall gain on low-level signal characteristics with Roon 1.8, that I think is also perceptible via increased transient clarity across the whole spectrum.
By the way, comments on such audio topics by natively blind auditors, would be absolutely precious !
I will now get acquainted with this Audio Glossary, thanks Alan Yang for finding it!
Back in the day we moved our loudspeakers to tighten or loosen bass, we didn’t rely on DSP or such like. It also allowed you to create the size of your soundstage.
As for recording studios the early Rolling Stones stuff sounds like it was recorded in a bean can. No amount of trickery makes it sound like a good recording.
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Let me precise: I use digital tweaking only after having exhausted the physical capabilities. The idea is that the system should sound as good as possible before using any digital « equalization », and that this eq should remain limited. The bass eq. I use peaks at +1.7 dB below 40 Hz. From 80 Hz and above the overall eq. I apply is less than 0.4 dB. I have played for some years with Tact Audio equipment, room measurements and corrections. I consider it helps correct poor room settings (that was my case in one appartment and why I purchased a Tact 2.2XP) but never as good as dealing with acoustic issues in the physical world. Starting from a decent room to install a system.
Now I understand why I so rarely listen to early Rolling Stones albums hahaha.
In the previous comments about low level background noise I forgot to mention the importance of analog tape hiss, whose texture, when well rendered, is a good indicator of the overall quality of the audio reproduction.
So, to summarize:
- 1.8 sounds better than 1.7;
- 1.8 sounds worse than 1.7;
- 1.8 sounds the same as 1.7; and
- there can’t possibly be any difference between 1.7 and 1.8 (for variety of technical reasons).
Unless you subscribe to 4. aren’t we simply describing the difference between our various set-ups and the way in which they react to a specific software change? 1.8 on the Nucleus via USB to my DAC sounds great to me (and, yes, I think it’s an improvement). If you do subscribe to 4., then there’s really nothing to discuss (but I’m afraid you won’t convince anybody who thinks there is a difference).
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For those who notice sound degradation :
Recommendation from Emile Bok ( Taiko Audio)
Settings
Library
Background : Off
On demand : Off
Restart these processes out of critical listening
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Ahhh but the energy caught attention…
Yes fab band. The mono vinyl improved it I reckon.
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To continue:
- Due to the disclosed “audio stack improvements” in 1.8, it does sound different, but only if you use DSP, and different doesn’t necessarily mean “better” or “worse”, except that as they are “improvements”, by implication any changes are for the “better”.
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Sorry post deleted. No use in showing off, not my style.
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I was loving your system!