Sound quality Qobuz/Roon vs. Qobuz direct

RooHead does sound really cool, I’ll keep an eye out for release announcements!

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Veering off topic sorry but I suspect Roohead is going to feature the auto EQ headphone filters available on GitHub. There’s a good thread about them here:

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@killdozer Not off topic at all. I downloaded and applied the convolution filters for the Clear, and it made a world of difference. Now, turning on my EQ curve on the DAC/Amp (as a test) makes the sound muddy and flat. I take that as a good sign that the filter is damn close to the mark.

I haven’t done an A/B against Qobuz with EQ enabled yet, but my gut says Roon with the convolution filter enabled (and no additional EQ) is now the better-sounding option. Opportunity for some minor tweaks? Perhaps. But much closer to ideal.

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I saw this in Roon weekly and would like to add a remark in the confirmative. I have tested Roon against Audirvana. Last month. It was using a 2.4Ghz as roon core.

No doubt, despite Roon reporting perfect signal chain, Audirvana was several steps better, in an direct audible manner. More air around voices, more “blackness”, audibly tighter/deeper bass. (I have full output down to 18Hz)

My setup is without any DSP and for both Roon and Audirvana I used the fresh and default available after install. No tweaks of any kind was done. Others have reported the same on Audirvana forums.

I dont have time to investigate at the moment, but if some installs Audirvana trial and experience the same, one clue could be to investigate and compare the respective default settings and spot a difference. But it could also be things like different handling of the USB dac output, etc.

The machine is a macbook pro 2013 running Windows (much better than native windows machines as a digretion). And then perhaps Roon is less compliant to older USB outputs? These were my thoughts…

Unfortunately (for me at least), while the Audirvana is better sounding, it is just too buggy in their remote systems, especially the Android remote is too immature for practical use at the moment. The user comfort of Roon is in another league.

I decided to stick with Roon solely because of those bugs. But I will probably check in on Audirvana in half a year or so. I was intrigued!

The question is, of course, how two bitperfect streams on the same “core” device can sound so different. Audirvana HAS done something that Roon has not.

On Mac or Windows? On Mac I prefer Roon no doubt.

Edit: Nevermind. Windows on a Mac…

That has always been my theory.

Doesn’t explain this thread that @Protyreus alluded to -

The Lumin rep must have gotten bored with that thread or just couldn’t be bothered with me as I never did get a reply to this -

I find Audirvana 3.5 to be extremely bright compared to Roon on my Macs. In my setup this is not complimenting the sound in any way. Just too bright but it may sound awesome in other setups.

Well @danny might definitely like to contribute here and clarify some prejudice.

I tried Audivarna on my laptop, Roon core is on rock on a separate server so different hardware config so I can’t compare server to server but comparing playback on the same laptop via Audivarna and Roon in both cases via Dragonfly DAC. Both sounded different and I didn’t like Audivarna one bit. To me it stood out as sounding false and processed I would swear they are doing some DSP but can’t prove it. Will have to connect my RME and do a bit perfect test. It’s hard to compare both properly though without countering for differences in volume and that our it’s not a seamless comparison so bias can come in quite easily either way.

I am also using an RME, and a well reputed DAC. After reading these comments I stick to my own, that the difference could be related to e.g. difference in handling of the USB chip on the particular device, or similar, and that therefore, we perceive results different. In my setup, Audirvana is not bright, but more natural sounding.

I have a newer macbook 19 pro as well, and also this machine has both WIndows (bootcamp) and MacOs installed. They are separate partitions on the disk and I can start either. On one occassion, I found the newer mac better sounding than the older one, but this is a premature observation that really needs investigation. And again, some difference in the laptop hardware could be the cause.

I find Audirvana sounding differently when turning on exclusive mode on my macbook smh… but yeah I agree with you. Audirvana does change the sound. If you like it or not is up to you. Audirvana 3.5 is a good Software with some minor flaws imo. Audirvana Studio is just crap imo… I dont like it at all.

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In terms of bit perfect output, no - unless it is misconfigured (usually not exclusive mode may imply the OS mixer is destroying bit perfectness). If you are talking about CPU / network utilization, every software is different.

This can be easily proven by using RME proprietary bit perfect test, HDCD album to HDCD DAC, MQA album to MQA DAC, etc.

For a notebook computer, also check whether you hear a SQ difference when it is charging vs the power supply unplugged from both the notebook and the electricity socket.

Over all these years your posts indicate you refused to accept SQ difference from bit perfect streams. The truth is out there.

The key thing is to realize SQ is an analog thing. You are not hearing bits, but an analog conversion of the bits.

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But it’s the same DAC converting the same bits, right? That should be a well-defined and repeatable process.

On the exact same device chain? Yes, that’s what I don’t understand.

That’s OK, doesn’t matter even tho you chopped my question off where it suited you.

I’ll leave this SQ discussion with a quote from the CTO: “Have you ever heard that sound that car stereos used to make when a GSM cell phone was about to ring?”

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Oh, so all a bit-perfect player needs to do is block GSM signals and whatever other interference there may happen to be. In software. Got it.

Especially over the years with increasing technological advancements there is far more than GSM (3G/4G/5G), WiFi in various versions / frequencies, …
So all that has an impact on various points in the audio chain like DAC, cables,…

Granted. But how do you explain that all those interferences affect one bit-perfect player more than another?

Well bit-perfect is just „one of the outcomes“ of the player but the way doing this is quite different from player to player. So as stated here the software architecture causes different involvement of hardware and also this has an impact on the overall output.

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