New to Roon (and I am not a technicely guy). Roon / Tidal only plays 16 bit / 44.1. What needs to be done to receive better quality (which I thought I would be receiving)?
Hi John and welcome 
Firstly, there is a difference between files recorded with a higher sampling rate, say 96 kHz or 192 kHz and CD quality files which are upsampled. Upsampling doesn’t create the same thing as a 192 kHz recording, it just creates a lot of space so that shorter shallower filters can be used or noise shifted up the spectrum.
So if you want 96kHz recordings you will need to acquire those files and point Roon at them. If you just want to upsample CD quality recordings, read on.
Start off by checking the capabilities of your Output device in Device Settings/Playback. Roon will report supported rates for which it is currently configured as green, supported but unconfigured rates as yellow and unsupported rates in red. This will let you know what rates are possible.
Next have a look over the Roon User Guide and the KB pages about the DSP Engine particularly the Sample Rate Conversion capability. That should get you upsampling.
Check back here if you have any particular issues.
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Andrew, thank you for getting back with me.
I currently subscribed to Roon and Tidal. I was under the impression that both of those services provided high-quality (greater than CD quality) recordings? On that note, I know I saw that one time with these providers the recording qualities listed in their bit and sampling rate. Now I do not. Was I wrong in saying that?
Can you provide me a couple of names of sites that provide the highest quality material that roon can overlay to?
Thank you in advance for your assistance.
Reading your response, it seems you may not understand what Roon does at a basic level. Roon is basically a music player (albeit with a lot of extras that optimise the playing experience). So it needs a source of music to play. The source can be your own collection stored on your own home network, or it can be streaming from TIDAL, or both. At the moment, those are the only options available in Roon.
Your own collection might contain high-resolution (greater than CD quality) recordings. If it does, and your downstream equipment (DAC, receiver, etc) is capable of playing it, then Roon will play it as high-resolution. If your own collection does not contain high resolution material, then Roon can upsample it for you, if you choose. Whether this sounds better is debatable, and best confirmed through your own listening experiences.
Tidal offers lossless streaming (ie CD quality). With some music (not all) Tidal also offers MQA format, which can be high resolution. How Roon currently handles MQA files and what gear you need to play MQA files at optimum quality is covered in various other threads on this forum. As mentioned, not all music available on Tidal is in MQA format.
While there are other streaming services that allow streaming of high-res music, these services are not available in Roon. Tidal is the only streaming service that can be played through Roon.
Paul
Hi John,
Roon doesn’t provide music except by integration with Tidal. Tidal currently streams 44.1/48 kHz (with their top level subscription) as well as MQA Masters that can be unfolded to hi res with MQA capable gear (coming to Roon).
You can purchase high res files from a number of sites including:
https://www.prostudiomasters.com/
You can find Roon users reccomendations as to good sounding hi res files here: