Same conclusion here, Aries femto on its own sounds better than aries + Roon.
Files arevon the same NAS. The only difference is the mac mini running roon (dsp disabled on roon and aries) on the same network.
I did the same with the aries in upnp mode and audirvana 3.1+ And again it’s better than aries+roon.
My charts :
1- Aries alone
2- Aries + aurdirvana
3- Aries + Roon
With roon, sound stage is not as wide as the aries alone. Everything sound a little boring and darker.
Audirvana is so clean but a little too much clinical. It lacks some warm.
Aries alone is the warmest, less clinical, but the more vivid and textured.
I’m not saiying that roon is bad, just that in my setup, it’s not the best (for sound quality).
If we are talking about ui and user experience, there is no debate, Roon wins with 200km ahead.