Sound Quality of new roon versions (builds)

[Alrainbow]

let me say this and hopfully it makes sense to most or some lol . in analog there is simple ques to make it good or bad if things are not setup well or something bad in the chain . in digital its far more complex , some like smooth where i hate the term much less the sound . real music is not smooth to my brain while it flows smoothly its sharp while pleasing . some love smooth digital and i can see why if there digital is not setup well it gets offensive at times . to smooth this out seems fixing it and there are many ways to smooth digital in its sound . so to me we each not just hear diffrent our systems have alternet needs as well . any roon by itself its not offensive to me , but lacks in ways i want my system to fully reproduce .
music that can make me jump in pure dynamics at times . not scream but just a fast impacful jump at you sound . some may hate this type of agrresive sound for my lack of better words . when i add hq player it adds what is missing in some ways , fine details smoothed over on just roon . now i know some servers just use roon and i dont own them and in no way am i saying theres is not great on roon alone , im sure they are . with lucas help over many hours and days he knows what i like and tells me stories of what others like . very expensive and well setup systems . we dont all agree period , and i know there are some here who have far more experince then me . and ill bet there view is more accurate then mine too . but its my system so i get to like it or not . last i spoke to him he felt the new was sowrse in some ways but better in others , and mostly it messed with some dual main board setups he likes as mine is one of them . i have not upgraded yet but ill bet they get me soon enough .

 

[Blue58]

All DSP filters deleted here but possibly more important is deactivating Roon Radio via the edit play actions screen for each action. Radio is a feature I can do without.

 

[christoph]

All DSP filters deleted here but possibly more important is deactivating Roon Radio via the edit play actions screen for each action. Radio is a feature I can do without.

Wow. Never heard of that "hack"
You mean that roon radio does not show in the right click/3 dot menu?
Can you please elaborate?

 

[Blue58]

Wow. Never heard of that "hack"
You mean that roon radio does not show in the right click/3 dot menu?
Can you please elaborate?

As far as I know there is no global ‘ Radio off ‘ button. To turn off Radio enter Play actions from the left hand settings menu and for each subsequent action select customise and turn off Radio if that choice is available.

I must be one of the few who dislike radio or some algorithm telling me what I should listen to.

cheers
Blue58

 

[Alrainbow]

I love the radio feature when an album is done
it knows music I don’t have but might like
it then plays tracks.
i find a lot of new music this way. i use history to go back to find the ones I loved.
does it have an effect on sound ?

 

[christoph]

As far as I know there is no global ‘ Radio off ‘ button. To turn off Radio enter Play actions from the left hand settings menu and for each subsequent action select customise and turn off Radio if that choice is available.

I must be one of the few who dislike radio or some algorithm telling me what I should listen to.

cheers
Blue58

But does removing those menu items (roon radio) really make roon sound better?
I find that hard to believe
But then again, deleting already disabled dsp filters doesn't make much sense either

 

[Gjo]

I must be one of the few who dislike radio or some algorithm telling me what I should listen to.

cheers
Blue58

One has the freedom to play whatever one chooses at any time when using Roon, whether Roon Radio is enabled or not.

I have discovered lots of new music via Roon Radio. It's a wonderful resource.

 

[Kingrex]

I love the radio feature when an album is done
it knows music I don’t have but might like
it then plays tracks.
i find a lot of new music this way. i use history to go back to find the ones I loved.
does it have an effect on sound ?

I find a lot of my music this way too. When I hear a good track, I save it to a mix file. Later I may find the album.

 

[christoph]

Hi guys

There is a new update out for roon 1.8 (build 931).
Any of you brave enough to try it?

 

[cat6man]

But does removing those menu items (roon radio) really make roon sound better?
I find that hard to believe
But then again, deleting already disabled dsp filters doesn't make much sense either

Actually, it might make sense.
If the dsp filters are not bypassed but still implemented with an impulse response that does nothing, the musical signal will be unchanged but the extra cycles of processing with the null filter will generate power supply noise.

Just speculation though as we know nothing about how the software is structured, but this is one possible explanation.

 

[Alrainbow]

Actually, it might make sense.
If the dsp filters are not bypassed but still implemented with an impulse response that does nothing, the musical signal will be unchanged but the extra cycles of processing with the null filter will generate power supply noise.

Just speculation though as we know nothing about how the software is structured, but this is one possible explanation.

Im guessing it’s not PS noise but cpu processing and it’s demands. But coders can give us more details. The overall point is the Roon gods are deaf and it’s all about features

 

[Devg]

Im guessing it’s not PS noise but cpu processing and it’s demands. But coders can give us more details. The overall point is the Roon gods are deaf and it’s all about features

Yes, more cpu processing demands will likely change the sound signature a bit depending on what cpu you are running. The lower the power, the more the effect will be. I don't think Roon is deaf - they have the right potential to make it a true first class audiophile music playback software, its just that their business direction is somewhere else. They want to make more non-audiophile customers which has a much more larger base. Sadly, this means more jazzy ui, more feature set, more AI, and anything that's not related to sound quality.

 

[Superdad]

Sadly, this means more jazzy ui, more feature set, more AI, and anything that's not related to sound quality.

While I am a Roon user, I find its user interface to be too busy and inflexible. My biggest complaints are:

a) In artist browsing mode, why on earth can I not see a list of the nearly 1,000 artists in my library? It is completely ridiculous that I have to scroll through giant circles of artist photos and read rows of names left to right!

b) And when one chooses an artist, the screen completely changes, presenting this giant header, with some full-width photo, a bunch of text and tags I don't care about, and then worst of all this random list of selected tracks from various albums--under the heading of "My Library." So just to get to my actual list of the albums for that artist I again have to scroll down.

c) Then, once in an album there are these distracting checkmarks by the tracks that Roon somehow deems the "most popular."

To my knowledge (I have studied and played with every possible option in the Settings), none of the above is changeable.
If anyone here knows how to adjust any of the above, please tell me.
Otherwise I will begin to consider alternatives for my network audio setup.

What is crazy is that the [now ancient] Apple iTunes (now just "Music") Column Browser mode continues to be the fastest, most flexible music browsing/sorting/metadata management interface I have found (on Mac).

End of rant.

P.S. Yes, I too have noticed variability in SQ of different Roon builds. But at least they have in recent months dialed down the RAAT protocol's impatience with polling of the endpoint--wherein any small amount of network latency and Roon would complain that it lost connection.

 

[Daverich4]

I don't think Roon is deaf - they have the right potential to make it a true first class audiophile music playback software, its just that their business direction is somewhere else.

It isn’t necessarily that they are deaf. But they have made it clear on their forums that they don’t agree with you. For instance, at one point there was a choice to disable all DSP filters at once as well as individually. There was so much back and forth on their forum about the massive changes to the sound produced by making sure that was off as well as the individual filters in spite of Roon’s insistence that it could not, they just said screw it and removed it completely. I haven’t brought it up there but it would surprise me if @Danny thought there was any possibility of there being a change in the sound brought about by deleting the DSP filters instead of just turning them off.

 

[Alrainbow]

I think a view also is a partnership with hq player
I don’t know why it can be but if one zooms out to look it’s there
when I say deaf it’s not a hearing thing it’s a type of agenda like woke ideals.
ask them about iso playback lol. there are groupies to quickly post how to extract to various formats for playback
not one of them says why
, to aggravate them more I asked so as iso is a more simplistic approach and if we use software to rip into tracks this alters the sound always and is directly changed by the software used. It’s math but not complete coversions. It’s all an approximation process.
I know I miss spell and annoy folk but I’m
honest and do accept changes to my thoughts.
Roon is not in this camp. it’s all them and done

 

[Devg]

was anybody brave enough to update to the latest 931 ?

 

[Alrainbow]

was anybody brave enough to update to the latest 931 ?

Not me lol.

 

[cat6man]

Im guessing it’s not PS noise but cpu processing and it’s demands. But coders can give us more details. The overall point is the Roon gods are deaf and it’s all about features

I think we're on the same page. I believe the CPU processing causes more short current spikes from the power supply, hence noise

 

[christoph]

was anybody brave enough to update to the latest 931 ?

Not me

 

[the sound of Tao]

Not me

Not me either… no way… 931 is a 13 aka a 4 in numerology… can I get any scarier lol

Using arcane divination is the only way to know how a Roon update might go