What features of Roon are worth the price? Compensate for Roon’s poorer sound quality?

[Ianderson]

Gentlemen , appreciate the replies so far.

soundwise, dCS app, for one, sounds better than roon. Hands down. My in unnous friends say the same thing.

So you can buy an App from dCS to run on Innuos that sounds better?

 

[vintageaxeman]

And will the dCS app work with Lumin streamers too?

Well, does it?

 

[sbo6]

I am curious if your view changes when no upsampling or filtering is preformed by either roon or hqp in playback? In other words, would your findings be as true if you have a DAC like MSB that does not prefer upsampling.

I'm currently employing no upsampling with HQP 3 as recommended from Aqua HiFi. I understand HQP 4.0 yields further sonic benefits which I'll find out once the HQP Core module for the LinQ arrives (comes with HQP 4 license and installed), so the gap should further widen.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I'm with you all in that ROON is hands down the best interface available.

Most impressive, I'd say, but not tuned to me.

 

[sbo6]

Most impressive, I'd say, but not tuned to me.

Kal, can you please elaborate? Tuned meaning choice of music or the interface itself or?

 

[sbo6]

I have an Innuos Zenith. Based on your comment are you saying you can have Roon run the front end library management and Squeezlight doing the rendering? If true I’d need to learn how to do the configurations - I’d love to see if I can increase the SQ.

FWIW you can have ROON run the front end library management and HQPlayer be the song playing engine for better sound quality. It's enabled via Settings
Setup in ROON.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Kal, can you please elaborate? Tuned meaning choice of music or the interface itself or?

The interface itself. The "choice of music" is my collection.

 

[sbo6]

The interface itself. The "choice of music" is my collection.

Understood. By choice of music I was referring to the algorithm that makes song suggestions.

The one thing I wish Roon had is a split view with 1 view showing your music queue and a second enabling / showing your search results, home view, etc. like JRiver has. The fact that it's one or the other is ridiculous given all the graphics and extreme functionality along with the $.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Understood. By choice of music I was referring to the algorithm that makes song suggestions.

Well, for one, I don't like it making any suggestions.

The one thing I wish Roon had is a split view with 1 view showing your music queue and a second enabling / showing your search results, home view, etc. like JRiver has. The fact that it's one or the other is ridiculous given all the graphics and extreme functionality along with the $.

The graphics and the underlying rich information base are wonderful but the beautiful but diluted page display wastes screen space and requires too much clicking and scrolling.

 

[ksalno]

Well, does it?

No, the dCA Mosaic app only works with the latest generation of dCS gear. Vivaldi, Rossini, Bartok, and Network Bridge. Like Roon, it can stream your local files and a number of music streaming services, a few more than Roon actually. But it doesn't have the meta data or slick interface of Roon. It is the best OEM app I've used. My experiences have been with BlueOS and Auralic's apps, plus using Linn's app with Minimserver.

 

[caesar]

So you can buy an App from dCS to run on Innuos that sounds better?

Hi,
If you have either a dCS product (such as the dCS network bridge or something like their Rossini / their Bartoli DAC that you can connect ethernet to) or one of the Innuos streamers, and download either the dCS mosaic app or the innous app, those will sound better - if you have a transparent enough system and are paying attention.

 

[caesar]

And will the dCS app work with Lumin streamers too?

I doubt it

 

[caesar]

I know we all have our opinion, but I just LOVE Roon. I have from their first launch. I think their sound quality is fantastic. Now we have companies like Small Green Computer, Uptone, Sonore, Qobuz,Tidal, and a bunch more making the whole digital experience just incredible. I am also learning about who sung back up on certain cuts, other albums I should listen to, etc, all why I am listening. It's true that every new launch had a few bugs, and they always fix them really quick, but I'll probably never buy another silver disc. Just my opinion.

I enjoy streaming as much as anyone out there, in terms of musical discovery and when I am a being a lazy ass, but a decent reference transport - even a 25 year-old Esoteric - is so much more musical than streaming, which is much more analytical and detailed. YMMV (Don't believe me, get a dCS Rossini with a transport and also plug in the ethernet cable into the back for quick, easy, and obvious comparisons. Transports kill streaming, despite the hype.)

If I find music I enjoy through streaming, I purchase the CD so I can play them through the transport

 

[hi5harry]

I agree with Caesar and still have a cd transport for playing all my silver discs. I don't stream too much because of a very slow internet. My Sonic Transport i9 has 10tb of my music, some from burned cd's, some from recorded vinyl at higher resolutions, and for that I use Roon. I'm so thankful for the way Roon allows me to listen to my recorded digital files AND hand the I-pad to company and let them chose their favorites. Digital has come so far in the last 10 years and Roon makes things so easy.

 

[MadFloyd]

I find the changes Roon made for 1.8 to be absolutely terrible. More so if you like classical music. Really amateur stuff. I scream out loud at least once per day because it's so frustrating to use now.

 

[toddrhodes]

I'm sure I could do it with other solutions, but I was able to add a zone to our house for my kid's room last weekend. Took a Pi I had laying around the house, slapped a $28 DAC/HAT on top of it, and bought a $40 pair of in-ceiling speakers. We pre-wired every room in the house for speakers back when we built 15 years ago, so that certainly helps.

But all I had to do from that point was flash the Pi as a Roon endpoint and the deed was done. Now my kid - she's 6 - has been playing music through her hand-me-down device with the Roon app and Ive heard her listening to Stone Temple Pilots, the Trolls soundtrack, Timberlake singles - and her friends are playing DJ through the phone. We use Qobuz for streaming, in addition to a few TB of digital files.

To me, that's where the value of Roon comes in. Integration, flexibility, and when it needs to get out of the way and just supply music? My dedicated room has a dedicated PC for HQPlayer processing and an HQ Player NAA that interfaces to my DAC.

As an ecosystem that I can mold to whatever I need it to be for different parts of the house? I feel I'm getting my money's worth.

I've also been on a Classical Music kick lately and I find the integration with Qobuz to be indispensable, as discovery within that "genre" is intimidating and time consuming to say the least.

 

[70smidfiguy]

Hey all,

I'm a Roon early adopter. Now streaming my own library of 24bit/xxx & DSD through multiple Dacs to multiple stereos. I run Roon Core on a Dell Powerdge server running Server 2019. Clients are Windows 10, Android and a Mac. Sound quality seems bang on, so not sure where this sound quality issue being discussed stems from?

 

[rDin]

Sound quality seems bang on, so not sure where this sound quality issue being discussed stems from?

It's quite easy to test, either via streaming from non-Roon sources, or from a local source, such as a USB stick on your endpoint (although that test might be more about local vs ethernet). Just make sure that whatever you test with that the volume is the same for all sources, eg disable any Roon DSP etc.

Hint: don't test - you may not be satisfied with Roon afterwards...

 

[bryans]

I must say this whole Roon SQ is much to do about nothing. You can replace Roon with MQA, Tidal, Qobuz, Streaming Music, LPs, CD, etc. The answer is quite simple. If one doesn't like to sound of <whatever>, don't listen to it. If you read through all of the topics on different forums, it seems what people are really looking for is for someone to agree with them.

I know when I go into my room and listen to music, I could care less what someone else likes or dislikes. I suggest everyone do the same. Who cares what someone else thinks. If your music sounds good to you, then it is good.

 

[Steve williams]

I must say this whole Roon SQ is much to do about nothing. You can replace Roon with MQA, Tidal, Qobuz, Streaming Music, LPs, CD, etc. The answer is quite simple. If one doesn't like to sound of <whatever>, don't listen to it. If you read through all of the topics on different forums, it seems what people are really looking for is for someone to agree with them.

I know when I go into my room and listen to music, I could care less what someone else likes or dislikes. I suggest everyone do the same. Who cares what someone else thinks. If your music sounds good to you, then it is good.

I would bet that pretty much all Roon users here are in agreement that the SQ of Roon began going down hill last year