I wasn’t even trying to hear for any differences but I noticed something not quite right with how my setup sounded. Fired up audirvana and noticed roon 1.8 was thin-sounding whereas with 1.7 there was hardly any difference between it and audirvana. 🤷
Do use a network or USB? I ask out of interest as some people say it sounds better, some say worse and for me, on a network, It sound exactly the same.
My NAS is in a separate room upstairs.
I’m using through usb…
There is the problem, you are probably experiencing the result of processing electrical noise leaking into your system. The Roon sound is neutral and it’s the playback system that determines quality. If this is polluted with electrical noise, then all bets are off.
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Because Roon 1.8 is better, does it sound worse?
I believe that I definitely heard an improvement in SQ. Blacker background for starters. This is with tracks that I have heard many times in the past.
Every setup is unique due to myriads of components and settings. There are transparent tracts where small components change differ the sound. I use two pc setup with optimized bios and operating system optimized with AO3.0 both headless (removed key boards and video cards, turned off usb controllers and all unnecessary options). Any time a change in any settings such as CPU core voltage and RAM frequency and voltage brings an audible difference. A lot depends on bit perfect player itself or even controller (like Bubble UPNP and UPPLAY) because they differently process the data and create more or less noise. Those who use UPPLAY may have noticed difference in sound between versions 1.3.1. and 1.4 of this application. My recent experience with changing the routers to no WI-FI device and shorter CAT8 patch-cords between control and audio PC provided the additional evidence that in a digital tract whatever reduces the noise in the system (including hardware or software optimization) should be taken into consideration. 1.8 sounded different and more attractive to me because I heard less noise and more details with my settings for example including xeon CPU voltage of 0.8)) and 3 out of 4 (also matters)) active cores. It can be different in other setups where the noise level have already been minimized or vice versa. Therefore, to me there is no evidence that 1.8 is better or worse because it is just different in a particular tract with specific settings.
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Whenever someone mentions ‘blacker backgrounds’ and/or ‘less noise’, especially in the context of expensive and tricked out highest end systems, I am tempted to ask:
Your backgrounds were grayish before, you did hear more noise before?
If so, something must really be wrong with that system!
My system contains none of the highly regarded high end brand names, but uses rather high sensitivity speakers and there’s no sign of noise to be heard with ears up to the drivers, server and endpoints are electrically isolated, and no, I haven’t heard a change in sound while using DSP for convolution and sample rate conversion with either version of Roon.
Anyone care to enlighten me about their understanding of ‘blacker backgrounds’ and ‘less noise’?
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I fully share the opinion of those who believe that the sound of Roones has undergone negative changes.
The sound became thinner, shallower, the fullness disappeared, the space of the stage worsened, the bass degraded and the timbres lost their former naturalness.
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Have You tried long listening sessions with 1.8? With all those sharpness and dryness like all beauty in music is being sucked out.
Changing to Mosaic and mConnect apps brought a pretty favourable release to me.
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Perhaps you should wait with conclusions?
The background is now so black that it has become a black hole. All my music gets sucked into it and nothing can escape from it anymore.
Ah well, I might just enjoy the silence for a while until they fix this.
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Better not get sucked in!
I experience quite the opposide.
Wouldn’t it be a 3 line statement of the Roon people to tell us whether they changed any remarkable things in sound processing with 1.8? Much better than any of these speculations ;-).
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The sound transparency was clearly better on v1.7 on my system (Antipodes S30 server+EERA Andante). Sorry but the sound impact of v1.8 is bad (if the hifi system is good enough…).
I hope that an update will change that or I will go by on the v1.7 if possible or use the squeeze player…
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Audio stack improvements
The audio pipeline in the Roon Core has been optimized to reduce memory traffic and CPU usage. We have also improved the efficiency and mathematical accuracy of the dithering algorithm used for DSP.
I don’t know what needs to happen for the Roon team to bring back the wonderful sound. Based on the fact that many people like the current sound, they are unlikely to pay attention to the opinion of grumbling users who are in the minority.
For me personally, a music player is in the first place emotions from the music I listened to and which I was deprived of.
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Are you using USB? No sound issues for me on a network.
with nucleus+/accuphase e-650 + internal d/a converter/dynaudio confidence 20 no difference audible for me