Audirvana vs Roon

well now.. I have not tried Roon... but my system is similar to yours...Furman PL-8 power conditioner > MacBook Pro > Tidal running on Audirvana + > Wyred4Sound Reclocker > SMSL SU-8 DAC > XLR outputs to JBL 310S > JBL 305s = MTM orientation on AirPulse A200. Sounds awesome. I do want to try a tube buffer-preamp for a bit more vibe... Klipsch speakers are next

edit: Macs will not run DSD in Audirvana, unfortunately

Thank you. So far the consensus of opinions posted here favor Audirvana over Roon for sound quality and Roon for interface, Roon radio and additional info on the music played. As one poster stated, Roon support suggested modifications to the output to enhance the SQ.  Anyone have suggestions to tweak the Roon output?  I’m all ears. Seriously. Born that way. 😁

You might want to try Euphony Stylus, just download the 30 day trial on a USB stick. In my system SQ is improved over those you mentioned.

Thanks. I see the endpoint license is about $144 and there are some issues with Mac computers. I’ll check back with them in a while. 

Prefer Roon for sound quality and great DSP features! 

No issues with Roon on my Mac here.
I also own Audirvana but Roon wins in my book.

I love Roon, but in my case, upsampling did not sound very good, to either PCM or DSD. 

Roon is usually light on the server, except for upsampling.

I did find the DSD / EQ capabilities of Roon quite nice, and let me match my speakers, remove boom and lift the bass in the digital domain.

@grannyring 
thanks for your input
@onesonido
thanks for your input. Preference is both SQ and features?
@erik_squires 
thanks also. I’ll try letting the DAC upsample instead of the software. 
Much appreciated. TG 

Will your new Mac have 8 gb of RAM?

I like the software that loads the songs into RAM and plays from there and not the hard drive. Does Roon do this?  I couldn’t be sure from the website. 

Roon works seamlessly, easily and consistently. I couldn't say the same for any of the other applications.

As far as sound quality, I preferred Amarra, PureMusic and Audirvana on different days. There seemed to be no consistency. One day Audirvana sounded great. The next day Amarra or PureMusic sounded better.

Roon sounds tremendous.

Sometimes I find myself preferring the SQ of Audirvana, but not consistently. I'm not upsampling, just native rates, so its baffling that they sound different at all (2012 Mac Mini with Uptone JS-2 LPS). 
For user experience and exploring music, Roon is streets ahead.
The Roon look and interface makes Audirvana look like something from the 90's (wish Damien would get rid of that lame 'galaxy' background and make it plain blue like the preferences window).

I know nothing about Audirvana, but am now three-fourths the way through a month-long trial of Roon. I previously used LMS (the Squeezebox management software) to manage my music -- I'd used that for about 15 years.

I'll start by saying that Roon sounds just fine, but I find it no different than what I heard via LMS. I know that's not the correct "audiophile" answer, but I don't care. To me, the choice between Roon and other music management programs is about the user interface and the ease of finding the music you want.

I have mixed emotions about Roon and still haven't decided if it is a keeper. The thing I like the most is the way, once you have specifically selected some music to play, it will continue to play other tracks in the same vein one your initial selections are finished. That's great when you want continuous background music, such as now when I'm working from home.

It is also nice the way it shows you artist bios and info about other musicians and people on an album, sometimes along with an extra photo or two, but that's not worth a paid subscription to me.

The negatives are that for a long time I have primarily selected my music via folder browsing -- I'd see an artist's name and say, "Yup, that's the person I want to hear right now." Roon doesn't show folders. It'll come up with lots of suggestions and its search function is great, but it is just not the same. If I don't keep Roon, it'll be because I'm too set in my ways.

I have about a week left on the Roon trial. Still not sure what I'll do.

I used Roon for about a year.  It worked well but after a while I began to wonder why I needed it.  I decide to try Audirvana, which is considerably less expensive.  Based strictly on sound quality I saw no reason to continue with Roon.  I dumped it and have never regretted the decision.

Thank you all. 

Just started a trial with Audirvana.  So far, I like the looks and the sound.  Not really impressed with usability like making playlists and "working" with the music.  I'm not ready to pay Roon prices yet.  Wish we had more options.  Foobar still works but no way to control with my phone. 

I find Audirvana to be a better choice when run directly from my imac to a connected USB DAC. When operating over the ethernet/wifi using A+ to separate systems I suffer performance issues. In those cases Roon works better for me. The Roon interface is far better, but for a backup program I really like Audirvana. I’ve basically abandoned JRiver MC at this point.

I don't use Audirvana every day, yesterday fired up the latest version on a Win10 PC, UpNP to a Lumin U1.

Took about 15-20 minutes to sync the library adding some 50 albums or so, mainly redbook, nothing happens until the sync has stopped. The recently added titles are under playlists, but they're in alphabetical order, not from the filename date...... used Jriver to find recently added and manually searched in Audirvana.

Played a few albums while doing some chores, all looked good.  
Let the system stay idle for a few hours then played a redbook album, 5s of music then white noise from the speakers. F$ck.

Useless software, honestly. Imagine if the levels were straight to a power amp, blown tweeters to replace. It's not as if it was a hardship to play a redbook album.

Quit Audirvana, and played Roon without issue. If Roon falls over and this is very rare, the output is muted with file playback just stalling. In this case, restart the Roon core and all good.

I don't have SQ or transport issues with Roon, there's no upsampling, EQ, DSP, just playback as is. Some operational 'features' with Roon are annoying, but not to the extent of  how Audirvana can fall over. 

If Audirvana was as reliable as Roon, I would use it more often, but now I'm very tempted to remove Audirvana altogether.  

I know and appreciate some of you will find Audirvana works fine, you're fortunate that it works, and it must be something wrong with my system. I play Jriver, Roon, VLC without the problems of Audirvana. I don't need the hassle.

I once noticed that Roon clearly sounded different than LMS. Turned out it was a different implementation of replaygain. 🙃

i was having issues with long tracks typically over 5 minutes causing crackle sounds while playing Audirvana. I was also having these issues on Youtube while Audirvana was open and not engaged. It did not matter if the file was streamed locally or internet. I posed the question on the Audirvana forum and was recommended to change the file buffer setting in Aud+ Preferences to about 20% of full buffer. That got rid of the noise.

MacBook Pro> USB to SMSL DAC > XLR out to powered Monitors