Black Friday Roon Labs

[Decadent_Spectre]

The know devil vs unknown angel

Wanted to pick your brain on this since you seem to know what exactly to do. what is the typical kind of flavour one could add ie is it usually any particular frequency range one can modify on the main signal or is it some kind of harmonics/timbre control etc ?

It's hard to put a name to each flavor but there are so many ways to manipulate the sound that I can't really cover it. Typically adjusting time/frequency throughout the band can yield a lot of differences.

If as you allude, Roon is likely manipulating the signal, that "manipulation" is also termed DSP. DSP is a terminology used to refer to any alteration made, in the digital domain, to the original signal data. At what stage it is done is of no relevance.

Of course it is, but with external DSP you control what you get but with Roon you don't have any control. I can't speak to stage but external hardware based DSP that is designed for the job sounds much better to my ears than PC based DSP.

Are you saying that output that is bit identical sounds different?

IMO if a player produces output identical to the file then that is "normal", if it deviates then it modifies the sound, better or worse is subjective. Note I don't say that it should be identical to the file, rather that I prefer JRiver (even if it is modifying the signal).

Edit : For Roons lack of control I mean what Roon does with it's own DSP turned off.

 

[bloredude]

Not an expert, but Roon's official claim is - "Roon provides bit-perfect audio rendering, supporting all popular formats and sample rates." [Source:

]

Additionally, Roon does provide a DSP engine (a software based).

I hope this adds to the confusion

 

[keith_correa]

Of course it is, but with external DSP you control what you get but with Roon you don't have any control. I can't speak to stage but external hardware based DSP that is designed for the job sounds much better to my ears than PC based DSP.

What hardware based external DSP do you use? I've never seen/used it. How does that work?

Are you saying that output that is bit identical sounds different?

Yes, it can sound different.
I can make it sound different. Subtly, but it's there.

IMO if a player produces output identical to the file then that is "normal", if it deviates then it modifies the sound, better or worse is subjective.

Right. Aka, no DSP.

Edit : For Roons lack of control I mean what Roon does with it's own DSP turned off.

Roon outputs bit perfect by default. It has a DSP engine though, which can be turned on and one can control it too.

 

[MNX]

1 dollar for 3 months was a no-brainer. Will try it out this weekend. Since my primary source is MooDe Audio based transport, will have to see how to integrate.

I was also in the same situation. Anyway to test it, took the subscription and now using it with a moodeaudio based RPi streamer with Ew's Discrete R2R NOS DAC HAT. Sounds good. To get bit-perfect playback use the RPi as a roon bridge since airplay is limited to 44.1/16 (Don't know the difference is audible).

 

[Decadent_Spectre]

What hardware based external DSP do you use? I've never seen/used it. How does that work?

Yes, it can sound different.
I can make it sound different. Subtly, but it's there.

Right. Aka, no DSP.

Roon outputs bit perfect by default. It has a DSP engine though, which can be turned on and one can control it too.

I use something similar to the likes of the popular MiniDSP, but a pro audio based version.

Never thought about this, food for thought for the objective camp if this is true.

Well yes, no DSP is active in the obvious manner but it isn't far fetched to think the player is modifying the signal to "please customers".

You are correct Roon does have DSP but I did not fiddle with it, I'd had enough of it. It's base sound was enough to turn me away.

If indeed both Roon and JRiver are bit perfect and exactly the same output (with all their DSP turned off) then certainly there is a difference in the sound.

 

[Indranil Sen]

First, congratulations to those who have signed up for the Roon subscription. I use Roon with Nucleus plus and in my opinion it is one of the best music streaming and management softwares currently available in the market. Before Roon I used extensively Audirvāna and JRiver for a few months and Roon‘s performance beats both of them. Audirvāna with its latest upgrade is very comparable but Roon appears to have better control when it comes to bypassing the computer’s noisy internal environment (it was Mac Mini for me) and being able to lower the noise floor. No Roon doesn’t manipulate or colour the audio signal in any way.
As per my experience any digital playback system suffers the most from the noisy computer environment that it is attached to. Although Roon software is optimized to a great extent to eliminate unnecessary OS interferences in the music streaming workflow but it will never work to its full potential unless you give it a dedicated purpose built host computer.
The 2nd factor is the isolation. According to Roon you would get the best performance when you isolate following functionalities
1. Core & Music Server
2. Control like Roon GUI
3. Output devices or Roon endpoints that feed the DAC
This is how I got into Roon recommended architecture. First I used a dedicated Mac Mini to host the Roon Core. This headless machine was a great 1st step for me to be comfortable with Roon as a product. I used an IPad for the Roon control i.e the remote. My Bricasti DAC has a built in Roon endpoint which helped me complete the entire architecture w/o having to buy a separate Roon endpoint component. I used Ethernet interface to stream music to my Bricasti DAC. I wouldn’t go to the cabling part because that is a complete different topic. In this architecture the 2 channel audio output was very good and Roon ended up having the best performance in comparison to Audirvāna and JRiver.
After few months I got a dedicated Roon Core, Nucleus plus, which replaced the Mac Mini in the chain. The improvement in the audio performance was significant.
I am very positive that your Roon experience would be nothing less than rewarding. It should sound better from the beginning and there would be a lot of room for improvement as/if you decide to upgrade following Roon recommended architecture. Happy listening!!!

 

[sajeet]

Though SQ, meta data are all good, Roon really sucks in 'Search' department, you have to make multiple permutations & combinations

 

[OM_2K19]

Though SQ, meta data are all good, Roon really sucks in 'Search' department, you have to make multiple permutations & combinations

Search is currently broken, Roon is working on this.

 

[ssf]

Search is currently broken, Roon is working on this.

I am facing the search problem too. Songs that I can easily find on Tidal, I cannot find in ROON. Also, playlists in Tidal are not visible in ROON unless it is added to favorites. For example, 'My Daily Discovery' in Tidal cannot be found in ROON unless I save it as a playlist.

Any workarounds ?

 

[Kannan]

those who have availed the 1 dollar offer and do not wish to renew or wish to keep that option within your control, can disable auto renewal by logging into your Roon Account.
The default is auto renewal for 1 year, so you need to disable it manually.

 

[OM_2K19]

Any workarounds ?

Not that I am aware of, but per the Roon forum, the Devs are on this...

 

[msankadi]

Not that I am aware of, but per the Roon forum, the Devs are on this...

A bit off topic but do you know if I can edit tidal playlists through roon... Example i have added 100 songs to a playlist to try on tidal. Now i want to listen to each song and keep the ones I like. I can't find a way to delete songs from tidal playlist through roon

 

[Indranil Sen]

Also another note on streaming as I found out... Streaming the locally stored music file sounds better than streaming files from external sources. I used Qobuz for this experiment using Room only. The same DSD file stored locally sounds relatively better, much warmer and fuller, than the one streamed from Qobuz. When I brought in the Room Nucleus plus this difference was significant and I decided to give up my Qobuz subscription.
Now, may I ask a question to you guys? Is there any good site where I can get Hi-Rez Hindi/Bollywood songs to buy or stream? I bought a bunch of digital old Bollywood songs from Sa Re Ga Ma website and they really suck. I couldn't find a second company like Sa Re Ga Ma/ old HMV who is so careless in archiving their huge collection of Bollywood albums from the golden musical era of 1960-1990. They hardly have any original master tape of these albums left at their disposal which could be remastered for bringing out Hi-Rez digital files like DSD or even good Vinyls. Very frustrating.

 

[OM_2K19]

A bit off topic but do you know if I can edit tidal playlists through roon... Example i have added 100 songs to a playlist to try on tidal. Now i want to listen to each song and keep the ones I like. I can't find a way to delete songs from tidal playlist through roon

Right now, many things are broken between Tidal and Roon (Tidal upgraded their SDK), so it's difficult to see what is supposed to work or not. I can't recall on the top of my head, but the things you can do with the Tidal playlist within Roon are pretty limited. Also, drop a note to the Roon forum if someone there has a way to do this.

 

[dr.karaan]

Roon was the single biggest positive influence in my system and at this price worth trying!

in what way? SQ is better with roon or is it just convenience of all files and tidal

 

[dr.karaan]

Please be aware that after the 3 months the subscription cost comes around $120 or so for annual membership

Roon is an addiction and once you get hooked up to it then no going back

yes feeling the same, i dont know whether its placebo or for real bt, SQ is greatly improved the tonality and the bass, my system became more musical.. dont knw whether its real or new gear syndrome

 

[dr.karaan]

Grabbed the offer.! Anything like this for Tidal? Ive explored the 30 day trial already.

join some family group for tidal it will be hardly 100rs per month u can get members in TIAf group on fb

 

[dr.karaan]

Once you are in, you don't want to go back...

but why due to SQ or due to the ease in everything roon do

 

[dr.karaan]

Fair enough... I for one find a huge improvement in SQ vis a vis the details, openness of sound in Roon versus the Jriver.. It's the bloody price which I hate and which makes me stick with Jriver..

me too liked it over volumio for SQ

 

[keith_correa]

A bit off topic but do you know if I can edit tidal playlists through roon...

You can make a copy and edit it but if what you mean is a synched Tidal playlist then AFAIK no. It was on the "to do" list but they didn't give this much priority.