From my experience…when I had AURALiC Aries G1 streaming Qobuz, after comparing streaming with AURALiC Lightning DS vs. Roon, the Lightning DS sounded better to me. Slightly. But enough to cancel Roon. I then switched to Lumin U1 Mini. To me Lumin sounded better in my system.
And because I wasn’t entirely in love with the Lumin UI, decided to give Roon another shot. This was about a year after I canceled Roon. I actually ended up liking Roon better than Lumin both sound and obviously the interface just hard to beat. I’ve done comparisons of Lumin to Roon and Tidal connect on Lumin to Roon. In all cases I preferred Roon. Attribute it to Roon’s multiple updates in tbat timeframe I was not using it or just the Roon readiness implementation by Lumin, not sure. But I’ve been using Roon ever since.
Mac Mini was serving as Roon core in both cases.
I would recommend trying Roon for free for 30 days as long as you have an adequate computer to run the Roon core on and it’s on the same network with your streamer you should be ok. Risk free. Especially if you have your music ripped to an external drive.
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?
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Excellent question. Roon is software that offers a system for you to find and organize music. Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon etc are all services leasing access to music. About $25/month for Roon and any one of the 3 music purveyors. Roon also sells streamers. You can buy anyone's streamer if it is "Roon ready" and use Roon with it. Some Streamer companies do not want to drop their drawers to Roon for the Roon Ready approval. Their private secrets exposed to Roon. Making alterations to their company programing-Companies like Linn- is abhorrent to them. Linn recently cut a special deal with Roon and are going Roon Ready too after realizing "If you can't beat'em, join'em". So what should you do? The Streamer upgrade will not improve SQ. The DAC is the thing to shop. The Denafrips Ares 2 is one good value.$800 I chose streaming as my main source and happy about it. I find new music everyday for a minimal monthly fee. The negative about Roon is the absence on any live CS support. Their attitude is- Go ask somebody else in the community. Such BS. You make it, you sell it, you service it. When your internet is down you have no music. I bought an Innuos Zen 3 which streams/Rips/Stores in one box. $2,400 is what I paid 2 years ago. No DAC in it which is what I wanted. DACs are getting better, cheaper every day.
It was explained to me by one very particular small euro company that they found when whatever Roon required to be built in to their product for approval degraded the sound. I believe this guy was telling me the truth. Now that said are my ears capable of hearing this degradation? Or do I enjoy the Roon software enough to say its a trade off I will live with.
I believe that eventually all Streamer makers will fall under Roon's control. People want the service as it is good and getting better.
A Streamer is a computer. Some may be built better than others but your BlueSound is the best value going in HiFi gear today. Sorry for the book but you hit a subject I just finished investigating and am happy to share it. |
+1 @audphile1 If I were you I’d strongly consider upgrading to an Innuos Zen Mk3. Not only is it a much better streamer than the Node, you can load any CDs you have directly into it and have all your music in one place. To your question, by all accounts Innuos Sense sounds better than Roon. I don’t know Roon nor will I likely ever because I prioritize sound quality over convenience. Last, I highly recommend you do a free trial of Qobuz if you haven’t already — good interface, tons of hi-res music, and none of all the unfolding crap and editorializing of MQA, which is a total sham IMHO. FWIW and best of luck. |
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