I have had it with Roon, their lack of support, their user forum, and it's users...

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On 7/7/2021 at 7:59 PM, AudioDoctor said:

 

Just as a control point, my server runs linux. The crash was due to the non standard theme. 

 

edit: My server has been up for 1 day and 5 hours, it is using 9.5GB of RAM in total and Roon is using 3GB by itself. However, RAM usage isn't the problem, it's the background processing that causes a loss of sound quality.

I've run Roon core on Windows 10, Ubuntu and ROCK (MOCK) over the years. Windows is by far the most efficient. Ubuntu and ROCK are seemingly always busy doing something. ROCK in particular makes ~10x more DNS requests than Windows (same db and music files). Roon uses a framework that is compatible with all but native to none. I've forgotten the name but I think they made a grave error back in the day hitching their horse to this model of non-native apps. They seem to continually chase their tail trying to fix issues because of this and it takes away from 'advancing' the product. All of this is in my 4 years experience opinion.

 

Try a Windows machine, even a virtual one, with your db and see if the activity is less. No need to ever activate Windows to just host RoonServer. My lowly i7-3770 with 8GB settles to <1% activity 10 minutes after startup and stays there throughout playback. I have HQPe and NAA on separate machines.

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I've played a few tracks in HQPe without Roon involved and I frankly don't hear any difference with Roon feeding HQPe. In both cases there is a separate NAA endpoint device connected to the DAC via USB. Unfortunately, for me using HQPe alone or with HQPDControl is untenable. I ran Foobar2000 for a long time and it reminds me of those days way too much ;) but Foobar does sound fantastic.

 

EuphonyOS sounded great to me too but it's based on Audio-Linux which is NOT supported by Jussi. Jussi does Debian (I believe) and AL is Arch. I also ran Audio-Linux from Pierro for a few years before finally giving up as it only caused HQPe and RoonServer grief.

 

I do enjoy upsampling to high rate DSD with heavy modulators but also feel the sound of HQPe with no upsampling sounds better than Roon alone or Roon with Roon Bridge.

 

Frankly, I find Jussi's custom kernel bootable image the best and absolutely the least effort. This is for HQP Embedded though and I believe you have Desktop license.

 

I find my life is much happier avoiding the Roon forum. The leaders only want to do it their way and aren't open to suggestions. It's a small group and apparently they are succeeding in gaining more and more market share...and this seems to be the primary driver. It begins and ends with Eno and Danny.

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11 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

Did you completely disable Roon so it wasn't running in the background? I issue a shutdown command in terminal via SSH to shutdown Roon completely before listening to music.

Roon runs independently on another computer from HQPe and NAA. It's just a machine on the network and thus has no impact on the data/sound when playing music with HQPe.

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2 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

I run AdGuardHome on a Pi4 on my network, it acts as the DNS server and after reading the above comment about Roon's DNS requests I went and checked to see how often my server was making DNS requests, and I discovered that it is constantly making requests whether or not music is playing.

I run Pi-Hole on a Pi4 running DietPi for the same functions. I have no idea what they are doing differently with the Linux builds vs. Windows but it's definitely different.

 

Last evening I rebooted Windows and observed Roon network activities at startup. It was very active, ~20Mb/s for nearly 20 minutes but then settled to near zero. My library is 10k albums (3/4 local, 1/4 Qobuz, 100,000 tracks. I've used Tidal in the past and Qobuz currently. The db is never purged of data so all the Tidal entries are still there (the db admin in me dislikes this fact). It's 14GB. It's accessible and music playable via wifi client within 2 mins. of startup. The library scan completes within a few more minutes (internal 4TB Sata). 

 

While playing local or streaming content, cpu usage for RoonAppliance.exe is <0.3%, total system cpu time <1%. Much more efficient than on Linux. I do zero processing in Roon, all is done in HQPe (convolution and upsampling). It may light up and 'do things' during the day/play time but it's never been noticeable nor have I noticed the resource usage. I do have the Windows machine shutdown HQPe machine via curl and itself nightly via scheduled tasks but prior to doing this I've never noticed any memory leaks.

 

The sound differences could certainly be system dependent. My setup is Roon alone on Windows 10 feeding HQPe bootable OS on high-powered mildly overclocked 10th gen Intel i5-10600k with convolution and upsampling to DSD256 with ADSM7EC and EXT3 or poly-since-gauss-xla (my current fav) then on to NAA running on UP Gateway (Intel Cherry Trail SoC) USB to NOS May DAC. I believe the separate NAA device is key as I realized a nice uplift vs. HQPe directly connected USB to DAC. Not night and day but those subtle details that the brain senses over time, better. Time and space. I don't have the words to describe what I hear or feel.

 

I've come to terms with my frustrations with how Roon does business, support, et al a couple years ago. I do like the interface compared to the alternatives and nowadays I mostly stream and listen to internet radio...plus I own lifetime.

 

Of course I'm always open to something better but the convenience and integration needs to be there too, for me. I'm also 54 and have not always taken care of my hearing. I have tinnitus and very much dislike aggressive sounding upper mids!

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6 hours ago, Pappy Boyington said:

 

I haven't thought about Baa Baa Black Sheep in decades. I enjoyed that show and the Corsair(s).