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Audirvana VS Roon, and Mac Mini VS Innuos Zenith MkII

After a year of living with my Innuos Zenith Mk III (thread title should have said Mk III, not Mk II) with Roon, I’ve gone back to do a head-to-head test against my original setup of my Mac Mini with Audirvana, both streaming via Tidal HiFi.

After three hours of very intense A/B testing, the winner is.... Audirvana with the Mac Mini. Here are my findings, primarily testing on the first third of Weird Fishes / Argeggi by Radiohead, which I found to accentuate the differences between the two digital sources.

Innuous Mk III with Roon:
  • More "drive", at all frequencies - everything hits with a heavier hand.
  • Excellent pace and timing - but with that heavy hand I mentioned
  • Snare drum that kicks off the song has more forceful delivery, with more emphasis on the lowest frequencies of the snare, and less emphasis on the upper frequencies of the snare.
  • Guitars on intro are more full, rich, solid, and in your face.
  • Bass may have slightly more bloom.
Mac Mini with Audirvana:
  • More natural delivery, more laid back - but still with good pace/timing.
  • More crisp snare drums and high-hats - you can "feel" the rasp of the snare and it presents more realistically with dimension and air around each of the beats.
  • High-hats hit with more crisp "snap" and less of a full and rich "thwack". You can distinctly hear the high hat detail against the eventual backdrop of guitars and vocals because of this.
  • Guitars are less rich, less bloom, less in your face, and overall not quite as pronounced. May have slightly less detail, or could simply be harder to detect detail due to being less pronounced.
As you can see both have pros and cons. But overall, I feel the Mac Mini with Audirvana is more natural, more musically engaging, and easier to listen to. Hate to use this utterly useless descriptor... But the Mac sounds more "analog". I remember going to CD’s for the first time when I was 13 or so, and feeling like the sound was almost too rich, to perfectly well formed, and too devoid of noise.
Of course, this test did not have the controls in place to isolate whether the differences are due to Roon vs Audirvana or due to the Innuos vs Mac Mini. Maybe a bit of both. Really wish that I could install Audirvana on my Innuos, because I strongly suspect I may simply prefer the sound of Audirvana over Roon. I have no factual basis for why I think this - it’s just a hunch. I also have an unfounded theory that the advantages afforded by the Innuos over the Mac Mini may be nullified by the rest of my system. My Gryphon Diablo 300’s DAC module has features to isolate and mitigate inferior electronics of digital sources. For example the DAC has a super-capacitor (yes that’s a real thing) that ensures that the source’s USB voltage regulator does not need to be used for the USB signal. This means that the Mac Mini’s USB voltage regulator does not need to be relied on by the Gryphon DAC. I don’t know exactly how this all works; just that I know there are features in my amp that mitigate inferior external factors, and this could possibly neutralize the hardware advantages that the Innuos might have over my totally unmodified Mac Mini. Just a theory.

Has anyone else noticed these sort of sonic differences I’m highlighting, comparing between Audirvana / Roon but with the same hardware? Also, should I (or can I) run the same test by installing Roon on my Mac Mini? That could help me isolate what differences are a result of the Innuous vs Mac Mini hardware. Not sure how easy this would be to do? Can I do that with one single Roon account?
Appreciate any other thoughts on this, advice, and theories on reasons for the differences. My system:
  • Gryphon Diablo 300 with DAC module and Phono Stage
  • Clarus Crimson power cable and bi-wire speaker cable
  • Innuos Zenith Mk III with Roon (and Mac Mini with Audirvana for comparison)
  • Audioquest Diamond USB cable
  • B&W 803 D2







nyev
highpeakrider
43 posts
 
Sorry I know you have based this on sound quality.
Can I just ask what did you prefer in terms of functionality and music discovery?
  

nyev OP
1,026 posts
 
I know Roon tries to sell itself on the merits of being a more "curated" platform for your music.  To be honest, I've not found any value whatsoever from that perspective, with the exception of the selection of music that continues to play after Roon has finished playing what you ask it to play.  I do enjoy the new music it chooses to play based on the last thing I told it to play.  However, with this feature I've yet to find a new artist that I actively take note of to the extent that they become part of my regular rotation.  So it's more of a neat feature versus being a game changer.  I do find this feature selects far more interesting music to play versus say Apple Music.
I tried a couple of other tests:
1) Comparing streamed Tidal Hifi on my Innuos Zenith Mk III VS Ripped CD on the Innuos (using default FLAC settings).  To be honest, I had trouble telling the difference.  The ripped version MAY have had a very, very marginal advantage with respect to overall transparency, but I easily could be imagining that.
2) Disabling Roon altogether on the Innuos and using iPeng to play ripped music (on the Innuos).  Results were very similar to my prior test, streaming Tidal Hifi using Roon on the Innuos.  But was too cumbersome to switch back and forth quickly to do effective A-B testing, so again, not too sure of any differences - which, if any, were small.
Even my preferred sound of Audirvana with my Mac Mini had only negligible differences from Roon on the Innuos.  Even though my descriptors that I used in my original post may make it sound as if there are vast differences, those descriptors are only describing minute differences that I can discern.  It's not night and day, but over a long multi-hour listening session, I do find that even minor sonic differences do accumulate and have a greater impact over a longer period than a brief comparison between the two may suggest.
mcroth
80 posts
 
Have you listened to the Innuos with Orange Squeeze/Roon? I am using that with my Zen and noticed a better musical presentation. 

Give it a shot!
highpeakrider
43 posts
 
I also like that Roon continues to play using Radio.
However sometimes the selection is poor.

I've been selecting a track directly in Tidal using "Go to track Radio" then I save that as a temp playlist which gives about 9 hours of music.

I'm thinking of using this method as a replacement for Roon and just using my Lumin D2 streamer.
nyev OP
1,026 posts
 
Thanks mcroth for the tip!  I’ll try out Orange Squeeze.  But in this configuration wouldn’t Orange Squeeze just be a controller of sorts while Roon is still used as the actual player?  In which case there shouldn’t be a difference in sound?  Maybe I’m wrong - I’m not totally sure how all these products work together and which can impact sound.   

In what ways do you find the presentation better with Orange Sqeeze / Roon?
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