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?  

troidelover1499

Showing 2 responses by sonic79

Roon is pretty well unrivaled in terms of options, interface, and usability. It is, however, a very heavy software. Roon prioritizes features and end user experience over sound quality (although it has improved over time).

There is a tremendous amount of network activity occurring within Roon. High amounts of network activity can contribute to the "harsh" sound often attributed to digital audio. Minimizing network activity within the server can net positive gains. I believe this is a major reason why alternatives such as Sense, Lightning DS, and Stylus are reported to sound better. Taiko set out to mitigate the impact of network activity on sound quality in their proprietary TAS software. This was a major focal point for them, and many SGM Extreme users report that streaming from Qobuz/Tidal now sounds indistinguishable from playing local files.

@antigrunge2

To counter that point, there is also a school of thought that more processing power brings higher resolution, expanded soundstage, and greater dynamics. Taiko and Pink Faun are subscribers of this philosophy. Quite a few audiophiles whom have built their own music servers have come to this conclusion. Both approaches can net great results, but I am seeing a trend where more processing power = more noise is being challenged.