That could be an answer. What is also interesting is with the servers on the antipodes and using an allo usbridge using ropieee with roon and squeeze enabled there is a sound difference. Although I get that bits are bits, it seems that server software processing has an effect on sound as well.
It would be interesting to hear whether enabling or disabling different services in ropieee makes any difference to the active protocol.
What DAC are you hanging off the usbridge?
Iâm using a mojo2 through an src-dx and dual coax.
A further layer of abstraction! I guess that if we exclude gross processing errors that are actually altering bits, weâre looking at minor processing differences in ropieee causing electrical disturbance on the output that upsets the src-dx sufficiently to then upset the mojo 2. I suspect cumulative âstuffâ like this makes it a bit random which configuration is preferred!
Among the software I tried, Roon is the one that has the best user interface, even if rigidly structured, but the worst sound performance. The sound is flat, sometimes the sound planes are confused, the scene is small, no emotions. It seems like everything sounds the same. This to my ear that has been listening to music for 60 years.
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I donât hold it to be that BAD sounding, just less than others.
I find Audirvana 3.5 more engaging, with a more convincing stereo image, on offline digital content. Itâs library management is horrible (Roon can be tricky too, esp. on box sets), I just use folders.
But, having done a year with Roon, with Tidal and Qobuz, and of course my offline library, I am going back to Spotify for background streaming, for day to day listening, it has a great interface, never hangs like Tidal, downloads playlists in seconds to my iPhone for car use, looks good, has good artist information and the suggestions & playlists are well curated. Spotify Connect works as well as or better than Roon too. Itâs also more fun, no audiophile pretensions, it may not be the best sound quality but as a package, for me, it gets my 7,99 euros.
I donât think Roon is aimed at you if you have chosen it knowing the SQ is not the best. I get people using it in addition to Roon, LMS, Audirvana etc for the car or wherever as ARC is terrible IMO.
Before Iâm accused of being a Roon apologist, I too have stopped using Roon, I use LMS now with Qobuz, that fills all my needs but with excellent SQ.
Maybe so. 61 year old ears!
My digital library is pretty big, around 150,000 tracks, so streaming is not such a big deal for me anyway, just as well as unfortunately my rural over-the-air internet is so poor that Tidal used to hang all the time, because the buffer isnât big enough I guess. Next year I plan to install Starlink, and I can look at options then. Thanks for your comments.
IMHO, agree that Roon doesnât sound as good as JPLAY. Iâve used ROON and JPLAY - recently compared them. I love the ROON interface (best of all) and simplicity of connecting audio devices (provided they are all on the same VLAN - which is another issue if they are not). I noticed that the sound was more congested on certain songs/passages, sound was thinner on vocals and detail and imaging wasnât as precise when compared to JPLAY.
Process: I listened to locally stored FLAC (CD, hiRes) and streaming from QOBUZ with the same songs. I used the same hardware for all three (completely uninstalled and rebooted each time I changed software) and used the plain vanilla configuration from ROON (OOTB), no MUSE, etc. JPLAY was configured using the Kernel streaming (KS) option.
Digital Front-end and Speakers: Custom built fanless PC, with JCAT USB card isolated power input with Shanti LPS, MSB Discrete DAC, Purist Audio Design 35th anniversary USB cable, Magico A5 speakers.