Roon Adding Midrange Glare or Distortion

Maybe someone who has both Tidal and Qobuz could compare the two.

Its not a tidal problem. Or a song specific problem. Tidal does not have the distortion present when not streamed through Roon.

Hi, go into headroom management. To begin with enable it and switch on the clipping indicator but leave it at 0. If clipping is the issue then adjust the value until clipping stops.

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I have noticed of late a lot of mqa tracks with Roon doing first unfold sound awful and similar to what
the op mentions. Each time it’s cropped up I look at that signal path I see it’s mqa. However I just played all versions of the Nora Jones track above MQA all the different variants and other versions available on Tidal and Qobuz and all are clipping and sound distorted on the vocals. This has to be the mastering. I don’t get this on other albums.

Edit. Just tested on my DAP using Roon, Qobuz and Tidal and it’s still has some distortion. Qobuz master sounds better than Tidals MQA it’s more noticeable in the MQA master to me at least.

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Okay, I think I have started to narrow down the problem. While I am getting better quality now, I still wonder what the source of this issue is seeing that delivery from Roon should be unaltered from source.
My DAC has a tube output stage. When I switched from high to low gain setting on my DAC, the distortions seemed to disappear. Similarly, if I leave the high gain enabled and add a few decibels of headroom management, the distortion also disappears. I do not understand this because the Tidal direct to DAC does not produce this effect. I don’t understand why Roon is having this effect on the signal because I am not using any DSP.

I have noticed that Tidal SQ as a whole has degraded lately, even on basic CD resolution stuff (actually where I noticed it first).

But, John said he was getting the distortion with local tracks, assuming those are not local MQA tracks, it really points to the issue being something other than a basic issue with Tidal SQ.

I agree it’s not on par with Qobuz anymore for standard CD material. Not sure what’s going on at all.

Just a thought - does the Tidal desktop app apply level normalisation?

It does but not sure it’s on by default, but then I have never used the desktop app for playback only mobile.

I think you have found the culprit…

Whatever the reason, it sounds as though Roon is causing a higher level signal to reach the DAC. It can’t, by definition, exceed 0dBFS, so it seems the tube output stage can’t actually cope with the maximum signal level the DAC itself can produce. Perhaps something has drifted. I think I’d just select low gain, open a bottle, and put some music on. And maybe enable volume levelling in Roon.

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I’m guessing it is on by default then - it’s a plausible explanation for a lower signal level reaching the tube output stage, and it not clipping…

I am perceiving a pattern.


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Digression for anyone interested…

(I don’t think this addresses the desktop app though… )

Interesting to note that the recommendations include ‘never apply positive gain’ to avoid possible clipping . Roon does apply positive gain if it thinks the level below target…

Interesting I still hate use volume leveling, I keep trying it and always end up going back to it being off.

I suspect you are mistaken. The global volume is lowered when using volume levelling, most likely to provide headroom for these situations.

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I disagree with you, your approach to the problem is not right. For example - can you exclude that Tidal may stream to his own application something different then streams to other apps?

So - this stream (sent to other applications) can be played by Roon differently than it is played by eg JPLAY FEMTO or Audirvana. So not referencing other apps today is a mistake from scientific point of view.

On the balance of probabilities here… I think @Michael_Kenyon is likely correct.

Hello @Michael_Kenyon / @John_Kenyon,

I would agree with the assement by @AndyR:

Whatever the reason, it sounds as though Roon is causing a higher level signal to reach the DAC. It can’t, by definition, exceed 0dBFS, so it seems the tube output stage can’t actually cope with the maximum signal level the DAC itself can produce. Perhaps something has drifted. I think I’d just select low gain, open a bottle, and put some music on. And maybe enable volume levelling in Roon.

-John

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