Playing Roon over RAAT - Does the server matter for SQ?

[thijazi]

I've seen a notable improvement in sound quality when I moved from a HTPC connected via USB to my DAC to a ROCK NUC build which sits far from the Hi-Fi rack (ethernet connectivity streamed via OpticalRendu).... The other time I noted an improvement was when I stopped using the NAS as the location of the FLAC files that the Roon Server was pointing to and instead connected the library directly to the ROCK NUC via a USB hard drive, I found out that this was also the recommended way to set this up according to the Roon literature.

 

So for me, yes, I noticed improvements in these steps.

[thijazi]

19 hours ago, miguelito said:

The improvement from NAS to USB connectivity - I assume you heard this improvement with the NUC, as you say, not HTPC+NAS to NUC+USB disk?

Yes, I had the storage attached directly (USB) to the NUC.. It appears that when I had the Roon storage configured via a NAS drive, it worked but slowed down things, and some of that extra work the Roon Server had to do may have impacted sound quality. When I connected the drive directly to the Roon Server things improved in a notable way, plus the Roon UI became far more responsive and less sluggish.

 

[thijazi]

On 10/16/2022 at 6:02 PM, Kal Rubinson said:

With an entirely different array of componentry, I have the same observation.

IMHO, something must be amiss/faulty/suboptimal in your connections (or the hardware in your Roon server host) for this to to be the case.  

 

Could be... I did speak with Roon about this, and they are the ones that shared with me that their recommendation was to avoid the NAS route if possible... So I did..