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

[bryans]

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

Well given that I am a Roon user I would say that all Roon users are not in agreement. Besides who cares what others think?

 

[Steve Williams]

Well if you have nothing to compare Roon to, I can’t disagree with you and you’re right to say “ who cares”. However when you hear something designed to be better than Roon your comment is moot

 

[bryans]

Well if you have nothing to compare Roon to, I can’t disagree with you and you’re right to say “ who cares”. However when you hear something designed to be better than Roon your comment is moot

As a FYI I have compared Roon to JRiver, Aurender's App, CD direct into my DAC (meaning not streaming), and many others. My point is if you like or don't like a product, that is great for you. You trying to tell me what is better is a waste of time. We all like different things for many different reasons. The notion that someone likes Roon because they haven't listen to something else it just .

 

[caesar]

Thanks to all for the replies. To those who find Roon quality on par with others, consider yourself lucky.

Also very curious about what other features of Roon people are using (which may not be obviously discoverable).
Thanks

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Thanks to all for the replies. To those who find Roon quality on par with others, consider yourself lucky.

Also very curious about what other features of Roon people are using (which may not be obviously discoverable).

You often put a challenge or a conclusion in your posted questions that result in responses you consider tangential. For example, why not have the title of your thread be simply: What features of Roon are worth the price?
The second question incites some people and, apparently, is not what you want to talk about.
(I am trying to be diplomatic.)

 

[caesar]

You often put a challenge or a conclusion in your posted questions that result in responses you consider tangential. For example, why not have the title of your thread be simply: What features of Roon are worth the price?
The second question incites some people and, apparently, is not what you want to talk about.
(I am trying to be diplomatic.)

Hi Kal,

Thanks for the comment. A few thoughts...

First, this is audiophilia. It's a subjective, experiential hobby. Experiences of Musical Presentation by hifi systems - that are rich, complex, ambiguous, multi-dimensional, and impalpable, further drive up the levels of Emotion, and any disagreement with someone's else's experience always seems to raise someone's goat...

Yet as much as folks disagree pretty much about everything in high end audio, there does seem to be a consensus among those with very high-end and transparent systems that Roon doesn't sound the best...

Also, Roon doesn't really dispute that. They are upfront about the trade-off between a feature rich application and sound quality: Roon's "Admission" of "Poorer" Sound Quality and Trade-offs

With all that said, my question is basically about the benefits of other features outweighing the sound quality that may make the app worth using. As you mention, many people have chimed in only about sound quality... And since a lot of the online aspect of this hobby is about debating, here we are... Anyways, I believe that threads that are more open ended , versus those that can be answered with a Yes or a No make things more fun anyways...

Stay Well

 

[bryans]

Yet as much as folks disagree pretty much about everything in high end audio, there does seem to be a consensus among those with very high-end and transparent systems that Roon doesn't sound the best...

Can you please let us know what is the best? Also what is a "very high-end and transparent system" so we all know. If one owns one of these systems by your definition is it possible they might like something that you and others don't? Can they like Tidal, or Rock music, or RAP? I mean given that what people like is a personal choice, why do you feel someone needs to agree with you or others on Roon or anything else?

If you don't like Roon or anything else, don't listen to it. That is your choice. If someone likes Roon, why does it matter to you that they do? If they are getting enjoyment out of it, that is great.

 

[caesar]

If you don't like Roon or anything else, don't listen to it. That is your choice. If someone likes Roon, why does it matter to you that they do? If they are getting enjoyment out of it, that is great.

I could care less what people like or don't like - what fragrance their prefer, their favorite color, their favorite sexual position, favorite pet, etc. If you enjoy Roon , that's wonderful.

 

[toddrhodes]

I often wonder in these discussions, since I use HQPlayer and drive that data out to an HQPlayer endpoint - not a "Roon/RAAT" endpoint - maybe I'm not the target audience?

Because lately I've tried various players like Gentoo, PiCorePlayer, Symphonic MPD, and the stripped down HQPlayer "NAA Image" and they all sound exceptional, with the latter being my favorite for transparency and dynamics. And though I have a slight issue with a DDC I put together, I can improve the sound even a bit more through the use of a device like that.

In short - "RAAT" serves music to non-critical listening environments around the house, while HQPlayer handles the critical listening piece. And I have tried Roon to a roon endpoint with Roon's upsampling and convolution in my critical listening space, and found I prefer HQPlayer. But I'm not surprised by that, given the technical level of software HQPlayer represents and its additional cost.

I would love to compare what I do have to something like an Lumin + app or dCS but frankly, the additional cost of those are orders of magnitude higher than I've invested so I would hope they could provide better SQ.

Lastly, I've not found JRiver or Foobar to sound as good as Roon, however those comparisons were many years ago. That was back when I was even playing with Bughead Emperor - those were the days!

 

[christoph]

I often wonder in these discussions, since I use HQPlayer and drive that data out to an HQPlayer endpoint - not a "Roon/RAAT" endpoint - maybe I'm not the target audience?

Because lately I've tried various players like Gentoo, PiCorePlayer, Symphonic MPD, and the stripped down HQPlayer "NAA Image" and they all sound exceptional, with the latter being my favorite for transparency and dynamics. And though I have a slight issue with a DDC I put together, I can improve the sound even a bit more through the use of a device like that.

In short - "RAAT" serves music to non-critical listening environments around the house, while HQPlayer handles the critical listening piece. And I have tried Roon to a roon endpoint with Roon's upsampling and convolution in my critical listening space, and found I prefer HQPlayer. But I'm not surprised by that, given the technical level of software HQPlayer represents and its additional cost.

Hi Todd
I more or less use roon and HQP the same way you do.
Can you elaborate the stripped down HQP NAA? On what platform does it run and can you chose between roon endpoint and HQP NAA?
I run two of my endpoints on RPi4 with ropieeeXL and their I can switch between roon "RAAT" endpoint and HQP NAA.

The Server with roon and HQPlayer on it is located in main system and driving my Lampi Pacific DAC directly (via USB or Ethernet-in) and I can chose between an HQP zone and a roon WASAPI and a roon ASIO zone, directly through the roon remote on several different tablets, phones, PCs and Notebooks.

In other rooms/systems I have (amongst other endpoints) the RPi4 ropieeeXL endpoints, where I can aslo chose between HQP NAA and roon RAAT (but there I have to do the switching via the ropieeeXL webinterface and via VNC on the servers HQPlayer interface).

Does your HQP NAA image allow switching between roon and HQP as output?

To make a long story short: I like roon for the interface and management of my locally stored music and Qobuz and to control my various systems/rooms and I love HQP for it's sound quality. Best of both worlds

 

[joel_hifi]

Greetings from Lake Geneva,

I’m an avid Roon user, sources are Qobuz, Tidal and files on the local drive, streaming with the Innuos ZENith Mk3 (Roon core). I think it's a fantastic platforms' aggregator and besides their music search and management offering I thoroughly enjoy their music generation algo, which I find pretty accurate.

I do however agree with earlier comments on this thread that on the Innuos the SQ of Roon alone is sub-par to the one offered by the iPeng player. But Roon SQ improves significantly when set as a Core and paired with the Squeezelite player. Maybe not to full parity but close enough so one can enjoy all the interesting functionalities Roon has to offer...

 

[toddrhodes]

Hi Todd
I more or less use roon and HQP the same way you do.
Can you elaborate the stripped down HQP NAA? On what platform does it run and can you chose between roon endpoint and HQP NAA?
I run two of my endpoints on RPi4 with ropieeeXL and their I can switch between roon "RAAT" endpoint and HQP NAA.

The Server with roon and HQPlayer on it is located in main system and driving my Lampi Pacific DAC directly (via USB or Ethernet-in) and I can chose between an HQP zone and a roon WASAPI and a roon ASIO zone, directly through the roon remote on several different tablets, phones, PCs and Notebooks.

In other rooms/systems I have (amongst other endpoints) the RPi4 ropieeeXL endpoints, where I can aslo chose between HQP NAA and roon RAAT (but there I have to do the switching via the ropieeeXL webinterface and via VNC on the servers HQPlayer interface).

Does your HQP NAA image allow switching between roon and HQP as output?

To make a long story short: I like roon for the interface and management of my locally stored music and Qobuz and to control my various systems/rooms and I love HQP for it's sound quality. Best of both worlds

Hi @christoph - Miska/Jussi's HQP NAA images can be found here: https://www.signalyst.eu/bins/naa/images/

On my Pi4, I specifically run this image: https://www.signalyst.eu/bins/naa/images/naa-4112-raspberrypi4.7z

They are essentially a stripped down Linux OS with the only components running being those required for audio throughput. My Pi4 is basically just a USB passthrough off to my DF Venus II DAC at very high rate PCM or DSD256. No wifi, no SSH, no roonbridge, etc... So in that spirit, it is not possible to toggle HQP endpoint or Roon endpoint on his image. But, I suppose swapping out the micro SD card to one that is a Roon endpoint O/S could be useful for A/B comparisons.

And my feelings around Roon and HQP mirror yours. I like Roon for its UI, its facilitation for finding new music, its integration with Qobuz, and for other, non critical zones I do like its DSP features and such. But for critical listening I'm very happy I tried HQPlayer on my end - it really transformed my appreciation for digital audio and pushed me to overhaul that entire side of my chain. My poor turntable is collecting dust at the moment

As for my setup - I have Roon core on a Ryzen PC that runs the rest of things in our house - media serving, plex, data storage, file automation, etc... Pretty much right next to it is a stripped down W10 machine with an i9900k processor and a middling GPU whose only job is HQPlayer processing. It can do ASDM7EC at DSD256 and Sinc-L on higher bitrate stuff, and Sinc-M on the 44 and 48 rates. I keep meaning to trade out my gaming GPU into that box as I haven't really been playing games lately, and it would buy me some additional horsepower on the filter and convolution side. I do use convolution as well - its a subtle but welcome improvement in the bass region and I think it tightened up the image stability as well. I gathered my convolution files from REW.

Overall it's been an absolute joy to hear how all these things work together now. And hopefully soon I can be reclocking that Pi4 usb output which is hard to describe, but there's just an extra gear in the grunt and feel of the upper midbass and lower midrange - bass guitar middle strings I'm thinking - when I have that in the chain.

Anyway, hope that helps!

 

[maxwerks]

Forgive me all if that question / subject has ben raised before , as I am an older audiophile new to the Computer world ...I a waiting to receive my Antipodes server/ renderer . Do I take it that Roon , besides excelling at server / management functions, can only integrate with Tidal and Qobuz Streaming services ? What about Amazon Music HD ? I didnt see it mentioned on the Roon site ,but is it in the works ? ( to really sure YET if Amazon HD will stay as my streaming choice but till I rip my CDs and et my system up , it is the only service I currently have . Your comments and advise ar greatly appreciated . Cheers , Max

 

[the sound of Tao]

Hi Max,
My understanding also is Roon works only with Tidal and Qobuz and any files that you have and the radio stations... no mention of Amazon HD availability on the Roon labs site though and it seems though to not be something planned. I wouldn’t plan on it from the relative silence from Roon to other’s questions over the last year or two.

Wherever it sits, the Roon Core will manage the music from all of your digital sources: Tidal, Qobuz, NAS drives, HDDs, USBs, iTunes and live radio.

Cheers
Graham

 

[bryans]

You are correct, No Amazon HD

 

[maxwerks]

Thanks to you both , I guess when I am done setting up the Antipodes I would have to go to Tidal for Streaming given the integration with Roon. Having said that , this the first thread where I am reading that some are questioning the playback quality of Roon . It seems to have quite an accolade when it comes to its core and management , but I never heard that the playback quality is anything but stellar , but then again I am a newb when it comes Computer audio. I will find out soon.

 

[Daverich4]

Hi Kal,

Thanks for the comment. A few thoughts...

First, this is audiophilia. It's a subjective, experiential hobby. Experiences of Musical Presentation by hifi systems - that are rich, complex, ambiguous, multi-dimensional, and impalpable, further drive up the levels of Emotion, and any disagreement with someone's else's experience always seems to raise someone's goat...

Yet as much as folks disagree pretty much about everything in high end audio, there does seem to be a consensus among those with very high-end and transparent systems that Roon doesn't sound the best...

Also, Roon doesn't really dispute that. They are upfront about the trade-off between a feature rich application and sound quality: Roon's "Admission" of "Poorer" Sound Quality and Trade-offs

With all that said, my question is basically about the benefits of other features outweighing the sound quality that may make the app worth using. As you mention, many people have chimed in only about sound quality... And since a lot of the online aspect of this hobby is about debating, here we are... Anyways, I believe that threads that are more open ended , versus those that can be answered with a Yes or a No make things more fun anyways...

Stay Well

This quote is from the link you provided.

”At Roon Labs, we aren't willing to sacrifice user experience or functionality at the altar of sound quality--we are determined to provide both at once.”

They then go on to explain how to set up and accomplish that using their software. I didn’t find anything in that link about Roon admitting something about poorer sound quality In exchange for more features.

 

[marty]

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

Agree. I think there is broad agreement (except by the Roon folks!) that Roon SQ did in fact decrease with version 1.7, build 610, last year. However the recent build with v1.8 is widely considered to be improved (again, except to the Roon folks who maintain their product is bit perfect so how can you improve on that? ).

In addition, if you are a Extreme/TAS user, the new TAS drivers improve upon Roon's SQ even more so. As anyone with TAS knows, once you hear the improved SQ with TAS over Roon, you can't un-hear it. But Roon 1.8 + the TAS drivers combined with Roon's interface is a damn good default system for many of us. A lot depends on how you listen to music.

The other night I as listening to Francis A & Edward K and came upon the last track "Come back to me" with Sinatra in his prime with the Duke Ellington Orchestra that has a fabulous chart by Billy May (one of Sinatra's favorite arrangers/conductors). I then suddenly wanted to listen to other Billy May arrangements performed by...anyone!. Try doing that on TAS. Ain't gonna happen, at least for a while. So for me, there's a lot to like about Roon and it continues to serve me beautifully.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Extreme/TAS

What is that?

 

[marty]

What is that?

Kal,
That refers to the Taiko Audio Extreme server and the Taiko Audio Server (TAS) software.
Here's the thread and although its arguably longer than the New and Old Testament combined, the TAS software stuff is toward the back end since it's a relatively recent development.

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/taiko-audio-sgm-extreme-the-crème-de-la-crème.27433/