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Is Roon The Best Sounding Option For Us?

I am a bit hesitant to post this question, but it is based on experiences I had in my system this weekend.

I have a lifetime subscription to Roon I bought a couple of years back, so I do have a financial interest in it excelling. I also bought a copy of Audirvana 3.5 which is now a legacy platform. In the past I have found small but interesting differences between them, but ran Roon for the last couple of years. 

Now my computer system may be the issue here. I am using a late 2014 Mac Mini with PI Audio power cord built for use with the Mini. I am planning on a streamer sometime this year, but do not know what or when. 

what I am finding sound wise is that Roon presents as more precise, and superior at fine detail. But it sounds compact and closed in with a reduction in acoustic space. On the other hand, Audirvana does space so so much better, and the music feels like it flows better with texture and harmonic decay. The differences are not subtle, and it surprises me they exist. 

Roon is the 800 pound gorilla in our hobby now. But I wonder if others have done any comparisons to alternate music playback forums and what have you found? I know Roon should only be a origination system, and can run in front of a streamer as a library, and that digital is just packets of information, but its hard to deny what is in front of your face when both programs are run one after the other. . I wonder if it has become a hardware problem where the demands of the Roon system has outstripped the capabilities of the computer. 

neonknight

Showing 2 responses by neonknight

neonknight OP
430 posts
 

@sns Any chance you would share what digital rig you are running now? 

neonknight OP
430 posts
 

I use a Cen.Grand DSDeluxe 1.0 DAC which does all the upconverting at the DAC level. I have been through my options and selected DSD256 non-rising as my playback configuration. So this means there is no processing being done at the computer level. All controls are turned off, its just a player.

When I boot up I can open Roon and then Audirvana 3.5 at the same time. I have one opportunity to play tracks on Roon and I can directly switch to Audirvana and relisten to those tracks. When i try to switch back to Roon it says "device in use", so I have to close Audirvana to continue the comparison. So I can go A/B/A at best. But even with those limited comparisons the differences are easily apparent.

There are significant differences. This morning I used Chant by the Benedictine monks of Santo Domingo de Silos. In Roon the vocal passages were more precise, the phrases are noticeably more defined. But the cathedral is missing. In Audirvana you can hear the venue with reverb and decay. The sound is spacious in a way Roon does not present. I am no computer guru, and what the difference is I have no idea, but it is clearly there. The Mac Mini I use is a late 2014 with i5 processor and 8 GB RAM. It should be sufficient to run any of these programs. The chain is router/ethernet cable/Mac Mini/USB cable to DAC.

This whole process is what is making me consider a dedicated streamer. I just have not come to any firm ideas of whose streamer, or if I want to invest in a Roon core running Rock in a headless configuration or stick with proprietary software on the streamer.

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