2. digital
  3. 184060-40

Shootout: Roon versus Plex, Qobuz versus Tidal: Who Won?

After a good bit of up front reading and preparation, a first ever (for me) digital streaming competition took place this weekend at home involving the contenders above. It put many of my preconceived notions about digital streaming these days to the test and was quite the eye opener!

I started with Plex and my personal music library of mostly CD resolution FLAC files. Then I added Roon, Tidal and Qobuz and had it out.

It’s mostly over now. The results were clear.

How did it end? Roon soundly thrashed the spunky upstart Plex. Then Qobuz beat out Tidal mainly based on cost.

Lots to talk about.

Key Findings:

  1. Plex could not match Roon for overall sound quality or overall listener experience.
  2. Sound quality to my ears was a wash between Qobuz and Tidal so Qobuz wins mainly based on cost (and no need for MQA though my streamer delivers full MQA compatibility).

I enjoy and tested all genres of music.

​​​Test system was Cambridge Evo 150 to Ohm Walsh F5 speakers in larger main listening room and to KEF ls50 meta speakers + sub in smaller 12x12 room.

128x128mapman

Showing 1 response by soarnatti

soarnatti
17 posts
 

Mapman,

Thanks for the comparison’s. I have done the same, with my EVO 150, between Tidal and Qobuz and came to the same conclusion as you have....sound wise it’s a wash so Qobuz wins on being the cheaper option, although, from what I’v read, I think Tidal may have the larger catalog

The MQA makes it a difficult choice though as it is an easier load on the/my network even though my provider is fi-optic.

Curious as to what Roon input settings you used, did you bi-pass MQA in comparison, as I did? If so did you stream using DSD up-sampling settings, which is what causes clipping and freezing on my network? I seem to gravitate to the DSD settings when available. It seems as if MQA diminishes the choices of Roon upsampling to no choice?? Do you agree, about MQA diminishing the choices, or am I missing something, which is entirely possible.

I recently, after the comparison, got new speakers LSR+ replacing the older LSR. I have now discovered that much of my fiddling was due to the hi-mid frequency roughness of the LSRs. Plus my room has 16 windows so that roughness was exaggerated 4 fold. Now I care much less about settings but I am still curious what settings you and others use with the EVO or any equipment that has a MQA upsampling DAC.

 

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