Maybe next May, Roon is a relic for Taiko, not for others. Why can you say XDMS is better than Roon in other music servers? XDMS is only better in Taiko, only Taiko. However, when Emile can upgrade a new OS, Roon will be back. This happened in the past. No anybody can say it will not happen in the future.
Sound Quality of new roon versions (builds)
- Thread starter christoph
- Start date
Steve Williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
As I said XDMS will easily trump Roon as to SQ and from what few screen grabs I have seen it will be every bit as good a platform as Roon. Roon doesn't give a crap about SQ they are music for the masses. Say what you will about Taiko but my money is all in on Emile and his team at Taiko. As to other music severs, you're right Taiko will be leader of the pack IMHO. You might want to consider having a listen again because you're absolutely correct for once ...."XDMS is only better in Taiko" My guess is that after XDMS is released Taiko will be flooded with new orders from people sitting on the sideline who truly hate Roon. My goal has always been and always be the best SQ. Thats why I am all in with Taiko.
You're correct again. Taiko users are pretty smart audiophiles
This thread was started by a non Taiko user . Did you even read the OP
Yes, this thread is only about Roon while you say XDMS. You can think XDMS is better than Roon but remember it is only for Taiko, not others. Mosaic is the best for Dcs and Aurender, Lumin... are the same. You should not bring XDMS to compare with all.As I said XDMS will easily trump Roon as to SQ and from what few screen grabs I have seen it will be every bit as good a platform as Roon. Roon doesn't give a crap about SQ they are music for the masses. Say what you will about Taiko but my money is all in on Emile and his team at Taiko. As to other music severs, you're right Taiko will be leader of the pack IMHO. You might want to consider having a listen again because you're absolutely correct for once ...."XDMS is only better in Taiko" My guess is that after XDMS is released Taiko will be flooded with new orders from people sitting on the sideline who truly hate Roon. My goal has always been and always be the best SQ. Thats why I am all in with Taiko.
You're correct again. Taiko users are pretty smart audiophiles
This thread was started by a non Taiko user . Did you even read the OP
Steve Williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Why should I not bring XDMS. Everyone in this thread but you it seems has a beef about Roon. Christoph offered a solution to help but rightly stated that every new Roon build brings with some disruption in SQ. If you disagree then I would again ask we agree to disagree. Roon is a giant that has it's tentacles everywhere. Taiko has offered a solution where the XDMS SQ will better that of Roon. I'd say that's a good thing and that is the direction I and countless other have chosen. TAS has been a 2-3 year beta project by Taiko where they listened to each and every desire that users wanted and several iterations of TAS evolved. The big news however is that XDMS learned fromTAS and the platform has been developed and will be released in "final" version 2.0
So I do strongly disagree about your Roon comments but that's what makes this hobby so much fun as one man's passion is anther man's poison
XDMS is the elixir that will rise above Roon IMHO. I do believe that many readers here will take notice of all the reviews by the users and as stated Im betting sales in Taiko will rise by leaps and bounds
So I do strongly disagree about your Roon comments but that's what makes this hobby so much fun as one man's passion is anther man's poison
XDMS is the elixir that will rise above Roon IMHO. I do believe that many readers here will take notice of all the reviews by the users and as stated Im betting sales in Taiko will rise by leaps and bounds
Like I said, if companies put Roon is their core, they will need to optimize their OS to take full use of Roon. In this situation, Roon is the best. If companies create ABC software player to optimize their music servers, ABC is the best.
I know you admire Taiko so much but you can't be blind forever. I also used Dcs but I understood Mosaic was only the best for Dcs and the Aurender app, Lumin app... were only the best for them. Now XDMS is also the best for Taiko. It is the truth. It is so funny if you think XDMS is the best for all
Steve Williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
I never said it is the best for all. I did say “ it is the path I’m following”. Stick with Roon if you truly can say here that after Roon builds you have never heard a decrease in SQ. In that case I agree with YOU because for you it doesn’t matter because you’re not hearing any change for the worse. For those of us here who do hear a change for the worst we are looking for a better path. For you it doesn’t matter. I would bet that most everyone who is reading this thread don’t like the changes they have heard after many Roon builds. so if you’re going to quote please quote me correctly. What I post here are my views. Removing the 3 Roon filters indeed gave a sonic boost but when I went back to TAS which is still beta, to my ears TAS sounded better than Roon even after the filters were removed Having said that XDMS coming in May is going to be better still than TAS.Like I said, if companies put Roon is their core, they will need to optimize their OS to take full use of Roon. In this situation, Roon is the best. If companies create ABC software player to optimize their music servers, ABC is the best.
I know you admire Taiko so much but you can't be blind forever. I also used Dcs but I understood Mosaic was only the best for Dcs and the Aurender app, Lumin app... were only the best for them. Now XDMS is also the best for Taiko. It is the truth. It is so funny if you think XDMS is the best for all
I rest my case
It depends on companies. If they only have Roon to play music, they will know this. In my music server, I only can use Roon to play music, cannot use others. So they must optimize their OS to take full use of Roon. There is no choice. So Roon never sounds worse in my system each time I update Roon's new version.
Without Roon acknowledging what to optimize, its a needle in the haystack. Roon says that Intel i3 is fine with a medium sized library - an i3 probably just runs fine but it does not sounds better than any high power cpu, like an i9, which many DIY users has found it to be the case. Roon doesn't themselves know what to optimize. All the companies who has optimized has probably found out by trial and error method and its really painful if an update, which is very often these days, has a variance in sound quality between different versions. The problem is Roon is so much deep into UI/library management, AI stuff, that they forgot about the most import aspect of why so many audiophiles uses Roon in the first place.
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I don't know. Maybe you also know after Taiko update their OS, Roon is better than their TAS although all of Taiko users said TAS was better than Roon before with the old OS.
Just discovered this thread due to the heads up of Steve Williams. I haven't read the entire thread but thought I would dash off a quick reply to some of the points you raise in your initial post, Christoph.Hi fellow roon users
After every new roon build is (rarely) hit and (mostly) miss sound quality wise and roon's own forum is completely agnostic and even hostile when it comes to sound quality
For quite some time (tbh from the earliest versions of roon, IME) roon with HQP sounded better than roon alone and that held true up to roon version 1.8 where roon alone all of a sudden sounded better than roon with HQP. Go figure
Unfortunately the joy lasted only for a short period until roon brought versions 1.8 build 903, 904, 911, 913 and 918 in VERY short succession
Roon 1.8 build 898 was IME the last excellent sounding version.
Any of you made similar experiences?
What is your take on the last few roon builds sonic wise?
Maybe together we can gather experiences in this thread to "warn" other users and prevent them from updating prematurely because there is not really a possibility to roll back roon versions
I agree with what you write, though I couldn't really identify a last best Roon build, only that Roon SQ varies all over the place with each new release but generally suffers in direct comparison to any number of alternative playback methods -- dCS Mosaic, squeezelite, HQP, Taiko's TAS, etc.
My experience mirrors yours. In the early days of Roon running HQP 3.xx even in pass-through mode sounded better than Roon by itself. After a while though I got tired of the instability of HQP/Roon and the very idiosyncratic user interface of HQP.
Luckily, I discovered "squeezelite experimental mode" when I started using an Innuos Zenith streamer and found that much superior to Roon by itself. Enough so that I was willing to put up with the max resolution limits of that solution on the Zenith to enjoy the better sound quality.
Fast forward to today -- the Innuos was replaced by Emile Bok's most excellent Extreme streamer two years ago and as soon as Taiko's TAS audio server software was introduced I adopted it and never looked back. Emile's last round of Taiko OS adjustments together with the introduction of the latest Taiko USB driver packages seemed to elevate the SQ of Roon, enough so that I moved back to Roon as my daily driver. I do enjoy the richer UI and it was nice to get back to my Roon playlists and Roon Radio.
However, while I initially thought the gap between TAS and Roon was fairly small, last night when I switched back to TAS to check, I was shocked at how much better TAS again sounded. Not even close.
I'm not techie enough to be able to offer a working hypothesis for this and there could be several factors in play, from the psychoacoustic stuff ocurring between my own ears, Roon's well documented disregard for sound quality, and -- though I haven't discussed this with Emile -- Roon's under the hood changes being too much of a moving target for third parties like Emile to do much more than come up with very temporary bandaids for their customers who use Roon.
Interesting thread I and I am enjoying reading others' experiences. We are definitely not delusional, despite the pushback from the flat-earthers and attack dogs over on the Roon forum.
Steve Z
Big step backwards here, Christoph.How is the latest roon build 918 sonically compared to 903, 904, 911 and 913?
I'm happy listening via squeezelite now and can't be arsed to revert to RAAT to try and compare at the moment
Steve Z
FYI.....as far as i can tell, for the Wadax Ref server version of Roon, there is no dsp tab and no filters (i might have missed it).
however........there is a "Wadax SA----- Server Proxy for Roon 1.0.1." under the "Extensions" tab.
i suppose that's being 'all-in' with Roon.....having it 'baked in'. maybe other server brands also have a proprietary extension too, don't know about that.
however........there is a "Wadax SA----- Server Proxy for Roon 1.0.1." under the "Extensions" tab.
i suppose that's being 'all-in' with Roon.....having it 'baked in'. maybe other server brands also have a proprietary extension too, don't know about that.
Coming to this late but based what I heard last night build 918 has worse sound quality than the previous several builds.
I should have realized something was going on because while I initially had though Roon sound quality had improved and was quite listenable with the initial release of Roon v1.8 the last several listening sessions coinciding with several Roon build releases I found myself just not as emotionally engaged with my music as I had been.
Steve Z
I understand and respect what you are saying, however, how can a company "optimize" their OS when each Roon release seems to be a moving target, SQ-wise (your experience not withstanding).
As far as Roon's UI, I agree, but I do not agree with the last part of your statement that people hearing changes in Roon's sound quality is due not to the changes Roon has implemented with each build but rather to the failings of the manufacturers of non-Roon equipment.
By that logic, if one is using one of the Roon-branded hardware servers that should provide the absolute best sound quality because after all Roon must be providing the "best" and most optimized hardware platform for their own software, and I think most of us can agree that is definitely not the case. There are reasons folks adopt other server platforms than Roon's and sound quality is a big part of those decisions.
As Steve W says, we can agree to disagree.
Steve
I will not predict XDMS will be better (for Taiko Extreme users) than Roon or anything else, but I would be shocked if it wasn't the best for the Taiko platform, given the past history of OS, driver and software releases from Taiko.
However, in my case at least though you state Mosaic is best for dCS users I have to point out as a dCS owner that I have compared Mosaic to Roon and Mosaic is superior for sound quality, when I compare Mosaic to Extreme/TAS, TAS is clearly superior.
So there is that.
Steve Z
Yes. And now, after multiple Roon build releases, Roon's sound quality has once again deteriorated to the point where TAS is decisively and very emotionally satisfyingly better than Roon build 918.
So a manufacturer is to continually chase Roon, trying to figure out what Roon have done and how to minimize or correct the impact for their Roon-using customers? I agree with you, they better if they are married to Roon as their only playback option. What will you do if the day arrives that your Roon-based server's sound quality is suddenly broken by a Roon update? I guess hope that your manufacturer discovers how to fix it.
I applaud manufacturers who have the foresight, resources and expertise to make the attempt to provide their own optimized player for their server customers. It's a daunting task and Roon's UI is very full-featured and seductive (and not without it's own ongoing problems -- accurate search function, anyone?). However, long head start not withstanding, the world doesn't stand still and many smart people, not just at Taiko, but at Innuos, Antipodes, Lumin, Aurrender and elsewhere are working on this.
And these folks' primary aim, besides being able to control their own destinies and not having to constantly devote time and resources to continually patch things after Roon breaks them, is sound quality first.
I am truly happy that you have found a solution for musical enjoyment that makes you happy and that seemingly has insulated you from the vagaries of Roon software updates. In this avocation there are many many paths to emotional enjoyment of ones favorite music, and all are equally valid for their owners. I've been privileged to hear many fine systems and owned a few myself -- tubes, horns, solid state, electrostatics, planars, cones, they can all sound superb.
I'm not going to argue with you about which software player is "best" -- for you and others, Roon is it. For me and others, it isn't.
Steve Z
When you compare Mosaic to Extreme/TAS, TAS is clearly superior. I agree but it means Extreme is better than Dcs, not TAS is better than Mosaic.
You said: "I'm not going to argue with you about which software player is "best" -- for you and others, Roon is it. For me and others, it isn't." I absolutely agree with you. I'd like to make it clear, just for the record that it depends on music servers.
You mean 918 is even another step worse than the already bad versions 903, 904, 911 and 913?
Or all 9xx versions are worse than 89x?
Is 918 better or worse than 903, 904, 911 and 913?
To me the answer is yes, the former. And I would say 918 is worse than the 9xx builds that came before.
I can't speak to 89x because I'm not sure what build Roon was on at the time Taiko rolled out their latest OS settings and Taiko USB driver packages. When that occurred I was one of the ones that though perhaps Roon sounded better than TAS or at least close enough that I moved back to Roon full time.
For a few weeks I was enjoying Roon UI and sound quality in a non-critical way -- as long as I can make an emotional connection with my music listening sessions for me are very enjoyable. However, and as happened much earlier once before, over time things just didn't seem to be clicking for me emotionally as they had before, even with music I know is engineered with great sound quality as well as musical value. Finally, last night when I was kind of "meh" about what I was hearing I switched back to TAS and was shocked at how much better it sounded than Roon. And all of the emotional connection came back without any listening effort at all.
So somewhere along the line of 903, 904, 911, 913 and finally 918 SQ started deteriorating for me and last night had really taken a dive off a cliff.
Now, this is just one guy's impressions and I hardly offer it as gospel.
Steve Z
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