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

I have an Aurender N200 and I can listen to a Qobuz HR track either using Roon or using the Qobuz connection on the Aurender Conductor app. The track played via Conductor sounds noticeably "better" (clearer, etc) than using Roon. I've made sure DSP is off on Roon and as far as I can tell, the comparison is apples to apples except for Conductor vs Roon. 

Have not seen a single person on this site that likes roon over the conductor or sense app for sound quality. 
If one was into conspiracies, they would have to believe that Aurender and Innuos purposely does so to push their own product. 
Kind of hard to register a complaint, once the music gets playing. It gets lost in the weeds, along with all those notes flying around the room. 

g kelly we have had roon servers, from several companies and Innous servers and Aurender. Roons sound quality is directly proportional to the device   running roon 

 

the Innous server running roon sounded better then Aurender as per sense sounding better didn't find that to be better and Roons interface is far superior to sense

if your roon isn't sounding great try a different server.

 

Dave and Troy

Audio Intellect NJ

server specialists