Curious - is your source Qobuz, Tidal, or do you own the album in your library? If it is Qobuz or Tidal, did you import it into your library first? Do you tell Roon to play the whole album or just the first track?
When I set my volume leveling to Auto and -15UFS, and then play the whole album, the first track gets adjusted by -5.5db. If I just play the first track, it’s only -2.4db. My source is Qobuz 44.1/16 and I have it (temporarily) imported into my library. In settings → library, I have “use replay gain when available” enabled and “replay gain settings override Roon’s audio analysis” disabled.
According to Roon, volume level adjustments are just that - multiplying the signal by a constant gain value. It should not be compressing dynamic range or “sucking the life out of the music.”
However, there are some corner cases where volume level may affect sound quality.
Maybe something like this is happening here, especially if it is applying -8.3db to this track (that has a large dynamic range) in your setup? A large adjustment might take you out of the sweet spot for the DAC (significant bits) or pre-amp/amp as suggested above.
You can always disable volume leveling to avoid any mystery and send the signal unmolested directly to your DAC. I’m a fan of this approach but I find the feature very useful and leave it enabled.
I’m going to delete this album from my library now 