Me too, on a daily bassis 
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I am positively surprised by Roon 1.8. I like it because it has more fine detail, “faster” transients and better spatiality. The bass is lighter now, it’s still there but firmer and deeper. What impresses me most are the timbres of the instruments, they are much more differentiated. The lowered upper bass makes it seem as if the music has less attack and dynamics, but I think the opposite is true. To me it sounds more like live music. I hope this sound characteristic will be maintained.
I have an Antipodes EX and my DAC is an Exogal Comet (via USB). I used to listen with sqeezlite, but now Roon Ready sounds better to me. My speakers are from PMC.
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Now I understand exactly what you’re talking about.
Recordings that aren’t bandwidth limited in the low octaves sound more open since they better convey the recording venue ambiance.
One can even recognize this with speakers missing the lowest octave - just not to the fullest extent.
I would have never called any improvement in that regard ‘blacker backgrounds’ or ‘less noise’, since it seems completely counter-intuitive to me.
Blacker as an analogy with light equals less illumination, which in my view is the opposite of what’s to be described here: the recording venue gets better illuminated, so I can make out it’s dimensionality.
Similarly with the noise statement, just doesn’t make sense to me in this context.
But that’s just me, of course…
I’m not d’accord with you on tape hiss though, since I always distasted recordings with audible tape hiss, or groove noise for that matter, since that’s partly what masks low level ambiance information.
That’s what actually makes digital recording technique superior to any analog medium - no additional noise added by that medium.
To close the circle, I did not perceive any improvement in that regard with 1.8.
Everything sounds as it did before.
But I may just be lucky by having separated the core from the endpoints and taken all technically relevant steps to ensure a low EMI environment.
Thats not luck, that is setting things up properly have taken the time to understand what is and is not important.
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Speaking of digital audio reproduction I’d still prefer a touch of warmth.
For my ears definitely. Bigger stage, better location resolution, more real.
Interestingly with my Antipodes CX and EX I feel the same. Prefer the 1.7 version
Hi Thomas, glad I’m not the only one that thinks this way. I’ve spoken to a couple of HiFi dealers since my post to see if I’m doing something wrong, but they all confirmed that Roon is a great interface for music discovery and organising music, but it’s not the best for out and out sound quality.
Are using Qobuz or only internal files? I am wondering if the problem is not coming from the link between Qobuz and roon
Only using internal files on the SSD in the CX.
I spent many hours listening last night and I can hear the difference that many others have described and I can understand why for some it is an improvement. However for myself I prefer version 1.7.
Personally I have never liked super detailed systems, much prefer a slightly warm system and any tweaks I have made have been to take any edge of the music. Not sure what to do at the moment, I have never used the DSP function of Roon, looking at previous posts in regards to bass (40Hz and down) I might have to try it.
I love super detailed warm systems, and it exists. The Antipodes server is a part of it and is able to do the best up to now with Roon. I came back to Squeeze (available on the S30) expecting for an update of Roon…
You should not use DSP functions because the results are a huge loss of transparency.
I understand your concern.
Only in the sense it increases the Signal to Noise ratio, that I prefer to reference to the lowest audible signal - in that way, I think the actual dynamic range of the signal is larger.
About black silences, actually I take great care in selecting all audio components that do not « fade to black » artificially, therefore truncating the end of notes. I believe it is an important criterion of actual high fidelity of reproduction systems.
It is a very pleasant surprise that 1.8 marks a progress there - across the whole spectrum, at least coupled with HQplayer. If anyone else also using HQP has some feedback to share, happy to read it.
That’s what in technical terms is called Resolving Power, or Power To Resolve. I never really understood what peope meant by the term blacker backgrounds or more silence around notes. Maybe it’s because I am a technician but all these words where allways meaningless to me. I wouldn’t call it black silences, or blackness or whatever term with the word black in it. That does not describe what you mean at all. Resolving Power could be better described as longer decay. Blackness implicates quite the opposite, as if the last piece of a note turns into silence to soon. Maybe people should stop try to talk like audio reviewers and use the correct terms for things that allready exist for a very long time. These audioreviewer have promised you “ultimate transparancy” years ago and now have to review something that is even much better than the “ultimate transparancy” before and so they have to find new superlative words for it over and over again. Now the problem is that many ordinary people like us are starting to talk the same way, in superlatives, in vague terms that are getting more abstract by the day. It would certainly help if people stopped playing hifi reviewer and returned to talking normal language again. I think they might find out that they are going to be taken serious a lot more if the superlatives are sized down a bit.
Thanks for the explanation. You are the first one who has ever explained what he actually meant by “Black…”
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Thanks for the tip regarding DSP. Hopefully I will adjust to the new sound or Roon will provide an update. Have a feeling that we might be in the minority though.
Hi,
Thanks for this discussion, well done Roon for 1.8 version, often better sound and certainly more clever interface altogether 
You are right, we should not ask Roon to do everything, and the user interface progress is also very important. Yet should the sound became less good, no matter how pleasant to use Roon would be or become, a fraction of your users (including me) would look elsewhere.
It is also understandable that some users reactions (for example, my first reaction to 1.8) could potentially induce some frustration for the Roon team that obviously do their work professionally and with dedication to actual improvements. Then their code implementations face an universe of variable implementations in an audio chain, although one can claim that while compensations or adaptations (my case) to the old version can be in place, a better audio source should always provide better results, given that the rest of the system can tilt the response and degrade it, but will not reinvent lost information.
We as end users don’t need to « bury ourselves » in Roon universe, yet we users, as clients, pay for a service and are demanding users, so it is legitimate to ask for more insights, especially in case of controversy (apparent, fictitious or real) about software changes.
That might not be so difficult, at « Lab stage ». I don’t think anyone believes such things like Roon doing trial and error tuning on a large reference system! But I would imagine that before distributing upgrades for paid software to a large community, claims such as « the audio pipeline in the Roon Core has been optimized to reduce memory traffic » are checked prior general release launch. Perhaps by actual measurements on a generic configuration, the idea being simply to check that new code actually behaves as expected. It can probably be presented in a digestible form. A few comparison graphs would be a good way to communicate on version progress. If it’s improved, don’t only tell it, show it!
Best regards,
Christian
Welcome Uwe and well put out. 
I do agree on improved timbric differentiation. Quite a normal consequence of better transients and better preservation of low-level signal like notes decay. Also facilitated by better spatiality - localization of sources. I also confirm slight added liveliness of bass, also enhanced pushing a tiny bit more deep bass. That is what I summed up as « improved transients across the whole spectrum ».
Guys, I’m in the Alpha for version 1.8.3 and the SQ will blow your mind!! RAAT2 is bonkers!!
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I can only assume this is one of those 4chan mass delusion pranks, or some other theatre of the absurd spectacle.
Otherwise, I’m going to start a new music playback app, that offers different flac playback modes at ever increasing prices. Mode A $50, mode B $500, mode C $5000 you get the idea.
And retire, and watch the threads in which people claim that mode E of superFlacPlayer123 is the best investment they ever made, even though mode D sounds a bit better.
How do people make it in the world, never mind in jobs that allow them to purchase expensive Hifi kit, whilst being so far removed from reality. It boggles the mind.
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@RobOK
good to hear this.thanks for sharing.
any idea on approx,normally how long does it take from alpha version to a GA stable release.
is it alpha /beta and then release version?
also its surprising that,they have newer version of RAAT spec on a minor version release?