·My device is the Boulder 812, which has a built-in Roon ready function and also supports USB input. During use, I encountered a problem: if I use Roon to push the signal, it displays as "enhanced," but if I use an iPad mini connected via USB output, it displays as "lossless". There are relatively obvious differences in the sound of these two. My question is, I want Roon to push the 812 while maintaining the "lossless" signal without enhancement. Is this possible? If so, how do I adjust the settings? Regards for everyone
If you looked closely, you’d see that the Roon Ready Ethernet signal path tells the truth, in that the Boulder itself “enhances” the data by it’s internal upsampling after receiving an untouched bit perfect stream from Roon.
The USB signal path, on the other hand, just gets no information feedback about the Boulder’s up sampling, but it’s still happening in the background.
I doubt that you can change the Boulder’s settings to not upsample, since that’s likely their magic sauce.
Thank you very much for your guidance. I think I understand your point: you mean that Roon simply reveals all of this.
After making some settings on Muse, I found that it seems to be true. Boulder appears to automatically convert the frequency to 352.8 kHz. If it is already at that frequency, there will be no changes— the only difference is “who” does it.
Perhaps I should ask Boulder’s customer support, but this brings up another question: why does the sound quality of Roon differ from that of the USB input?
Yes, and that is a big question. Imho, the correct answer is to let Roon upsample everything to 352.8 so that there are NO need to resample in the Boulder. To do that you need to set a custom rate in Muse, and not use “max power of 2” or “max”. Try that and see if there is a SQ difference.
Maybe, the Boulder’s implementation of one could be better than the other. Audio companies tend to buy “off the shelf implementations” for ethernet, while they spend time and effort working through anyUSB issues.
You could also try some blind tests; you might have been influenced by “lossless” vs “enhanced”, especially since you indicated a preference for Lossless in your Opening Post. Lossless is not inherently better than enhanced, it all “depends”. Any DSP, including volume leveling, upsampling, etc is considered Enhanced and not Lossless, no matter what device does it.
Also, since that Boulder Amp/Dac is always upsampling, you are always ( and have been) hearing Enhanced Audio and not “Lossless” meaning untouched. Most any DAC is going to be pushing out Enhanced audio in some way since they oversample internally. If you are really interested in hearing otherwise, then give a listen to a NOS(Non-Oversampling) DAC; they are out there but not common; some DACs give you the option of a NOS mode.
I’d also bet on cognitive dissonances as the most probable reason.
But first, make sure to install it’s control app or possibly use it’s web browser interface to see if all available settings stay the same between ethernet and USB inputs.
There may well be technical reasons, as the manual suggests …
Input Trim
… allows you to reduce the volume of a selected input relative to all others … Input Balance
You can individually balance any input …
Relatively small volume differences result in an impression as being better sounding rather than being perceived as louder.
This thread is due to close in a few days, and we wanted to check in with you here, have you been able to find a setting that allows it to play natively on the DAC side?
