It seems to me reading all of this that the computational power required for full Roon implementation is per se detrimental to good sound quality. Hence the need for separating the (noisy) core and the clean end point. Other than the associated cost and cable dependency the question arises why going with the slimmed down processing power of say an InnuOS server wouldn’t be the more elegant solution from a sound quality perspective, fully acknowledging Roon’s superior customer interface.
Sound quality of Roon
I am considering trying Roon. I have been using my Bluesound Node but I am going to upgrade as I do enjoy streaming more and more using Tidal. It is quite an investment to get a NUC or Nucleus and then have a separate tablet to control it all.
But apart from the cost I have read some people say Roon does not sound good. Their streamer by blah blah sounds better. Is this true? For all that is required to use Roon, the hardware, the subscription and all, would Roon be popular if it made digital streaming sound bad?
I would love to hear people who have experience comment on this. There is info on the Roon Labs discussion site but as you can imagine it is saying this is BS Roon sounds great. I guess Roon as a software also has had updates, so maybe this is a thing that might have been true in the past?