Article: Major Changes For Roon in Version 1.8

[ASRMichael]

Nothing about sound quality improvements. It’s a pity I would love to use Roon again. 

[ASRMichael]

2 hours ago, InVinoVeritasty said:

What is the sound quality issue with Roon?

Use search on forums & find out. 

[ASRMichael]

1 hour ago, InVinoVeritasty said:

That’s what I thought. I will as soon as I finish tuning my ethernet cable.

If you don’t notice then lucky you. Keep it that way. In a way I actually regret trying something else, otherwise I may still be using Roon. But I can’t knowing the step up from other media players out there. Just my opinion. 
 

I tune my Ethernet cable once a year roughly! That usually involves upgrading my Sablon cable. 😂

[ASRMichael]

36 minutes ago, bbosler said:

 

I second that, ... they do tend to play the same things over and over.. 

 

I'm also disappointed in the album/artist information they provide. It all comes from AllMusic which is extremely limited on artists/albums that are less main stream so they have nothing about a  lot of what I listen to.

 

Concerning sound quality, It can be easily shown that the data delivered from Roon is exactly the same as the data delivered from other music players. I don't dismiss the possibility that the different ways these programs interact with the operating system may affect some aspect of the timing of the data, but I put that on the DAC's inability to handle it. In my experience trying just about every kind of clocker, re-clocker, cable, server, etc. known to man... it's all about the DAC. YMMV.

 

If Roon sounds different, another possibility is that the digital processing functions of Roon have been inadvertently turned on. If you click on the volume control icon (little speaker lower right corner) in Roon and select DSP it will show you what if anything is enabled.

 

 

Not sure & many others here would agree. I know many here that use Chord Dave DAC, I myself TAD DAC. High end DACs. Doesn’t make any difference how good your DAC is. The fact remains Roon sound quality compared to other players like Euphony, HQPlayer to be inferior! & now TAS (from initial reports)
 

Taiko has designed its own software because of the variable sound quality from Roon’s updates. 
 

I”ll leave at that! If happy with Roon SQ then you’re happy. That’s great. Enjoy! 

[ASRMichael]

Can I clear up a few things...

 

I am not trying to offend anyone who is using Roon. I’m giving feedback from my experience with Roon that’s all. 
 

I’m also trying to say there is ways to get better SQ out of your existing gear by not using it. I appreciate that only applies to people who think SQ is the most important factor. If it’s not or user experience & SQ are on par then yes continue using Roon. After all they have the best user experience out there...no doubt about that. 
 

What disappoints me is the lack of care when rolling out updates with regards to SQ changes! After all many people spend their hard earned money on hifi gear to sound the best. I just read on WBF a user from here posted a question regarding SQ & it was removed/snubbed! 
 

Hopefully Chris asked them the difficult question on SQ in the next podcast. E.g. Do you have a rigorous process to ensure Roon sounds the best, & if so what is the process for beta testing? If it’s not a priority then just say so & we can move on. 

[ASRMichael]

1 hour ago, bbosler said:

 

Maybe I'm a little slow.. I understand you prefer Roon with HQPlayer enabled, what I'm not sure on is if you are processing with HQP or just passing the data through it. Curious what settings you use that cause you to hear an improvement. I also use HQP with Roon upsampling to maximum power of 2 with Poly-sinc filters. I slightly prefer the sinc-M filters but the processing delays cause songs to be cut off when using Roon radio,

 

Also curious if this result would be the same no matter what front end you were using for HQP. In other words, is HQP making up for some inherent issue with Roon, or is it that you just like what HQP is doing no matter what comes before.

 

Euphony / HQP sounds far better than Roon / HQP. By long way. (Using same HQP settings). 

[ASRMichael]

I’ve tried Roon on various servers. From NUC to full blown servers. On everyone of them Roon does not sound as good as other options out there. I love Roon interface, I would be using it if it sounded as good but it doesn’t. Just my opinion. 
 

I like to think I don’t deal in absolutes. I like many others here have tried various OS’s and sure I’ll continue..It’s one of the few things that doesn’t break the bank to increase SQ. As I’ve said above, if your happy with Roon SQ then great! But you’ll only understand what I’m saying and many others have found by exploring other options. 

 

Euphony had free 30 days trial. Put onto usb stick & try for yourself. I’m sure your Roon Nucleus will boot Euphony. 

[ASRMichael]

7 minutes ago, bbosler said:

 

 

 

ok, fair enough... so if I get it.. Euphony is not a player, it is an OS. So how are you playing your files once you boot up Euphony?

 

 

Using built in media player on Euphony OS. It’s called Euphony Stylus, clunky media player but sounds great! You can make various tweaks to improve SQ also. Add OS to RAM, Buffer tracks before playing, core isolation. CPU frequency settings, Ethernet settings.