Bumped into this thread while searching for Remastered Vs Original.
Rob I curious to read your findings in SQ with 192. Did you find time to do it?
I am testing Roon and J.River playing PCM FLAC 24-96 24-192 and native DSD64 - DSD256, the sound of J.River is better than Roon. In J.River is much more detail, clearer. In Roon the music is more blurred. In J.River You hear 2 violins, in Roon they are melted together, You hear 1 violin, and that happens with all the music.
I am using a new computer Windows 10 Pro with Roon and J.River, T+A MP2000R DAC/Streamer, T+A PA2500R amp, Piega Classic 60.2 speakers, Kimber and WireWorld cables.
The operation of the Roon software is the best I have ever seen, but the sound is terrible.
Can I get the same sound quality in Roon as I have in J.River? My Roon testing period is over in a week.
While JRiver, imho, sounds a little different because of the filters it employs, I donāt think it sounds better. The clearer of the two has always been Roon for me.
So I"m curious, Iād like to try the recording you reference on my system and see if I can tell the difference in violins. What recording are you listening to?
Iāve seen other comments about the āsoundā of Roon, but I donāt get how Roon has any āsoundā at all, when it simply presents a bit perfect stream to either a DAC or audio endpoint ? Surely any change in the audio has to be caused by something other than Roon ?
Isnāt the notion (at least for all bit-perfect players) that itās not just getting the data to the DAC, but how you get it there, that may make a difference? Iām not agreeing or disagreeing, but just that there seems to be a consensus that an Aurender W20 over USB will result in a better sound than a stock mac mini over USB because of the signal integrity.
Similar theories in signal integrity/noise/jitter reduction etc are alleged to be addressed by some computer based players to the extent they āsoundā different (i.e. the DAC is doing something subtly different based on a subtly differently delivered set of data).
My guess is when people say one sounds better than the other, they are implying the better sounding one ādoesā something to make that happen. Thatās my understanding anyway. I used to very much believe digital data was immune to such effects, but Iām starting to believe otherwise (as it relates to DACs), which of course could just make me deluded also - itās very hard to say! Which is no doubt why thereās so much confusion and uncertainty about whats going on.
There are a lot of gurus making money selling nothing special at exorbitant pricesā¦all under the guise of audiophile digital components. As long as gullible audiophiles abound thereāll be peddlers catering to their needs.
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I donāt think there is anything close to consensus for that idea except in certain audiophile communities. (Donāt try saying that on Hydrogen Audio or any mainstream tech site, for example. )
If a setup has a direct output from the computer to the DAC (USB, coax or toslink) then many people find that the processing within the computer can affect the sound. This is in addition to issues of noise from the computerās power supply etc. This is why people use software like Audiophile Optimiser, Fidelizer, Process Lasso etc. or hear a difference between Windows Roon and Linux Roon.
If, however, you send output over an Ethernet or Wi-Fi network connection to a renderer (SOSE, microRendu, Aries, Pi, Aurender etc.) then the influence of the source computer becomes insignificant. The renderer becomes the significant processor and because it doesnāt have to run a GUI or do anything except buffer Ethernet input into (usually) USB output, it can be highly optimised (microRendu).
I would be surprised if people could hear a difference between two bit-perfect software players over a network connection to a renderer, but can more readily accept that people might hear a difference with a direct connection.
Itās important, however, not to compare apples with oranges. Daniel (@rugby) notes that JRiver employs filters, which may mean the appropriate comparison to Roon is with JRiver filtering off or Roon/HQ Player filtering on.
Not saying that there arenāt people out there looking to expolit, but I donāt think itās always expensive = better. I actually thought the trend was smaller, cheaper, lightweight devices with good power supplies being said to better traditional expensive streaming sources.
Itās interesting that the Roon forums probably lean much more towards the bits are bits camp, yet Roon itself is aimed at really high end kit, and has a program of integrating with some of the best streaming hardware out there. But thereās no point in having any of it?
I wish there was decent debate about it from top scientists and engineers where we could all get educated. Iād like to learn more - as Iāve said I often find myself in a quandary - trouble is itās impossible to have a decent discussion about it as people tend to get upset. (Not pointing any fingers - just a generalisation from the few forums I browse). So people decide with their ears I guess - what more can we do?
My post wasnāt directed at you either. I agree people listen with their ears, albeit what they hear is often influenced by expectation bias created by the audiophile press, other audiophiles and marketing hype e.g. jitter is still touted by some as an enormous problem whereas itās well understood as are the methods of reducing it to the point itās irrelevant in the scheme of things. I remember the audiophile press decrying streaming as inferior, not hi-fi and countless articles authored by inept reviewers clearly demonstrating that they didnāt understand the first thing about it. Now itās mainstream and can no longer be ignored itās the best thing since sliced bread but most of the audiophile press remains as inept today as it was in the early days of streaming.
Now we have audiophile USB and Ethernet cables as well as a myriad of low power computing devices sold at ludicrous prices and touted as audiophile transports, and operating system tweaks promising a new nirvana. Audiophile grade network switches canāt be far behind. Sad thing is most of it is utter bull and relies on pseudo science, misinformation and resultant expectation bias - quite clever really from a marketerās perspectiveā¦itās called demand generation. Of course those that drop the cash swear blind it works (to admit otherwise would be to admit to having been fleeced) and not only fervently defend their position, but continue with the myth propagation and claim that the very same science that brought us hi-fi doesnāt understand its nuances and intricacies, that differences cannot be measured or that we donāt know what to measure. 
Many of these same believers and conveyors of difference have expensive hi-fi and audiophile tweaks languishing in untreated rooms with poorly placed speakers etc. But sure as the sun rises every morning they hear day and night differences.
Anyone that thinks theyāve got superb hearing and can pick up night and day differences should sit down in their listening space and have someone else play back some frequency sweeps without the listener having sight of whether or not somethingās actually being played. Tell the person controlling playback when itās started and when itās stopped. The results are pretty sobering unless youāre a child.
As to anyone coming out and clarifying what really matters it would be an absolute waste of time and energy because theyāll be dismissed by those that believe, regardless of any evidence placed before them. So the world of the audiophool will forever remain intact, and charlatans will be right there to profit by fueling and feeding the addiction.
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JRiver (and Foobar2000) has on my audio-set (ā¬25.000) clearly a clearer sound
than Roon. The violins was an example. Roon does that with all the music I
use. With Roon the music is flat, less high, blurred, smoothed, less detail,
as if the music is pulled back by a big magnet. Voices disapear in the music,
instuments are glued together, etc. As if the music is played by a number of
zombies instead of musicians. The music is dead playing with Roon. All music! It
seems as if Roon uses a filter somewhere and I can not switch it off.
The software is verry fine to use, I have never seen something better then Roon
software, but I do not like the sound. The money is not the problem, if Roon
could sound the same as J.River or Foobar2000 I would even pay double the price,
but the sound is terrible, and I can not find out how to improve it, there are
no settings. I play NATIVE DSD64 ā NATIVE DSD256 and FLAC 24-96- Flac 24-192, NO
up- or downscaling, no conversions. Just plain straight on computer USB out to
T+A MP2000R USB in. The difference is not a little, it is a huge difference in
sound quality.
Hereās something for you try seeing as youāre using Windows. Download audiodiffmaker, capture the output of the same song, played via the 3 programs, compare them using audiodiffmaker and report its findings here.
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Oh, you can do a lot more. Read some scientific stuff about audio and the human hearing.
You will see, that the big unknown, some audiophile gurus try to make us believe, didnāt exist.
Our eras are really simple instruments and a big part of our audio perception is done by our brain. It fills all the gaps und flaws our ears (and also our eyes and other senses) deliever, with data from our previous experiences and our expectation. Thatās why you see images in the clouds or Elvis on a buttered toast.
So my message is: better trust science, not your ears. Science gives you reliable result, your ears did not, they can be cheated easily (see placebo effect).
Scientific knowledge is your best protection from snakeoil dealers.
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I do that. Iāve got a (slightly outdated) degree in Physics and to be honest even with that it doesnāt make reading scientific papers in other fields that easy. So Iām not sure what science papers would do for anyone without a scientific backgroundā¦
In the same vein as every other walk of life there are agendas and misinformation from both sides. The things Iāve tried to read and understand over the past years all seemed to have their own bias. Not saying they were all wrong, butā¦
To @evand Iād say I understand expectation bias, and am also aware of a tendency for people to stand their ground because they feel somehow embarrassed or whatever if they made āa mistakeā in a purchase - especially when under attack. Now, Iāve definitely experienced expectation bias, and not just in audio! Happy to admit it. Iām also happy to admit I tried various cables and a Regen and didnāt always find there was a change. Similarly Iāve tried other things and felt there was. I donāt think everyone that experiments with an open mind in life is a gullible fool, but I can see why others think so. Iād bet many people here that are into hifi have also bought branded trainers or whatever, feeling theyāre higher quality or better performing for running. Are they gullible?
As I say I feel Iām fully open to discuss and fully happy to accept I may be wrong. Very few others on either side of the fence are I feel, so it makes for a difficult discussion.
But whatās pretty much being said here is mass deception and fraud across an entire industry - with all hardware manufacturers, retailers, and reviewers complicit.
In any event, if in a few weeks I AB my latest toy and find out that in fact I canāt tell any difference when itās removed, Iāll be the first to admit it!
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[quote=āhifi_swlon, post:58, topic:5590ā]
But whatās pretty much being said here is mass deception and fraud across an entire industry - with all hardware manufacturers, retailers, and reviewers complicit.[/quote] Nowhere did I imply that all industry participants are complicit. There are many great companies with great products that deliver actual tangible benefits.
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Problem is, itās more and more harder to find them, in a time there the audio related media praise every new gadget with highest words. When in each review of a socalled āaudiophile expertā each new usb-dataflow-cleaner or digital-noise-reducing-1000bucks-ethernetcable makes a night and day difference, removes curtains from my speakers and widens the soundstage, how can I trust them any longer and how am I able to find the products which makes really a difference?
The whole audio business is in wide areas infested with voodoo.
Eh? Weāre talking about digital bit perfect streamers and players here. You guys canāt have it both ways!? 
If the digital output (letās assume async USB) from one piece of software to the next or one hardware streamer to the next are all identical, then any manufacturers selling devices under the pretence of delivering data that will sound better is blatant fraud and deception. How can it be otherwise? How could anyone designing, manufacturing, selling, and reviewing be anything other than complicit in that case?
If there are some making āgreat productsā what can they be doing thatās different if itās scientifically impossible?
This isnāt an argument btw, Iām thoroughly enjoying the debate. Iām just genuinely confused.
We are, thatās news to me?
You read the posts you responded to right? 
No point me quoting them all here but just to summarise; the topic started out as a discussion about the sound of roon compared to other digital players. More recently, Jan said roon sounded different to jriver, jobseeker queried how a bit perfect stream could have a sound, I put my understanding out there - comparing a Mac to (for arguments sake) a high end aurender, and the notion of digital signal integrity and the way digital data is delivered etc, and you said gurus make money selling gullible audiophiles nothing special under the guise of being audiophile products. Nick said thereās no consensus of digital players sounding different to one an other outside the audiophile community. Andybob seemed to think there wouldnāt be a difference between two network end points, but maybe between direct connected onesā¦
What were you talking about then, out of interest? So you do think two bit perfect devices or bit perfect software players can sound different?
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Neat, but rather selective and self-serving summary of a portion of the thread.
If you read the views of people actively engaged in DAC design over the years and perhaps been able to engage on occasion (as opposed to forum hocus pocus) it would seem that the primary reasons for differences are timing and common-mode and differential-mode electromagnetic noise and that competently designed DACs typically compensate/ eliminate these effects through various mechanisms. The end result is that good DACs under typical operating conditions make these things irrelevant. I have experienced audible EMI first hand (the result of very dry air during our winters) during listening, so Iām not oblivious to its sonic impact. It doesnāt take some uber expensive device or audiophile USB transport to overcome it though, a simple ferrite core does the trick.