Roon vs Lumin app SQ: My exchange with Lumin's Peter Lie

[reignofchaos]

I suppose it could depend on the system or just personal preference?

With U2, JPLAY is clearly better than Roon, and Roon easily outperforms the Lumin app.

There’s a forum member in another thread who insists JPLAY can’t be better than Roon due to technical reasons. They’ve never done an A/B test but refuse to accept that. In my experience, JPLAY is better than Roon by a small margin (sounds more lively).

I’m not technical, so I can only go by my subjective listening experience.

PS: Roon core was a MacMini M1.

I refuse to accept that as I was part of the group that actually wrote the dlna spec and I pretty much know it inside out. There is absolutely nothing a dlna client can do to sound different from another dlna client.

Knowing jplay and their previous shenanigans, I don't trust them one bit. Plus there is a question of practicality - their app only exists on iOS. I do not have even one iOS device in my entire home.

If roon is sound worse than jplay, something is wrong with your roon server.

 

[ajuvignesh]

I could not make peace with roon despite trying 3 times. It's tricky and needs a lot of it skills and expense. Guys who do well with roon usually have a professional level nw experience (so they get off it), high end roon core budget, linux expertise to fix hqp + dac to match hqp. Altogether you are looking at 4-5 lacs layout+ experience/opp cost of 10 lacs. For those that are not nw processionals(like me), caution is advised.

Thats a complicated process. Looks like Jplay is the option for me.

 

[bhooshaniyer]

Thats a complicated process. Looks like Jplay is the option for me.

No doubt jplay is cheaper and easier to use compared to roon..but then i could never get roon to work successfully long enough in my system to make myself go...hmm this is nice, let me buy this. Who knows may be it's better than jplay( it better be for the price of admission) but what got me finally was that room is not fix it forget it solution..atleast not easily nor cheaply. Direct + indirect you are staring at 10lacs+

 

[sajjad4joy]

I like JPlay better than Roon in my setup too. Jplay just sounds better and fuller. I purchased the life time app of Jplay after trying for 3 months. I still have roon subscription for couple of months. I stopped using it. My roon core is Mac mini M4. But this is only with respect to my setup, YMMV.
But Jplay and Lumin U2 is a killer combination for me, super happy. But I agree that adding LPS to Roon core may help and may be a better network cable, but too many moving parts. As of now super happy with Jplay. The app is still bit buggy, not as fluid as roon but not too bad and keeps improving. I'm using NAS to play from my music library.

 

[bhooshaniyer]

I like JPlay better than Roon in my setup too. Jplay just sounds better and fuller. I purchased the life time app of Jplay after trying for 3 months. I still have roon subscription for couple of months. I stopped using it. My roon core is Mac mini M4. But this is only with respect to my setup, YMMV.
But Jplay and Lumin U2 is a killer combination for me, super happy. But I agree that adding LPS to Roon core may help and may be a better network cable, but too many moving parts. As of now super happy with Jplay. The app is still bit buggy, not as fluid as roon but not too bad and keeps improving. I'm using NAS to play from my music library.

I can see lot of similarities in our setup. I too play out of a 2 bay nas configured for shr of 8tb+8tb. I tried jplay also for sometime, it has some buggy playback while trying to do all fancy things roon does with graphics. For time being i have abandoned both room and jplay. For time being iam using the music player built in with Synology sw called audio station.

 

[reignofchaos]

Hmm.... One thing common between the folks who are claiming other app are sounding better than roon appears to be the fact that they are all using lumin? Maybe lumin roon endpoint implementation is bugged?

Lumin u2 mini sounded pretty average to me when I tried it with roon. So maybe that is what it is.

 

[bhooshaniyer]

Hmm.... One thing common between the folks who are claiming other app are sounding better than roon appears to be the fact that they are all using lumin? Maybe lumin roon endpoint implementation is bugged?

Lumin u2 mini sounded pretty average to me when I tried it with roon. So maybe that is what it is.

That sounds plausible. I did not find sound quality issues with roon. It just was too messy/loaded cost. So the lumin has a heavy handed volume control implementation built-in
May be that's messing with roon? Two sw volume controls may be not playing well together.

 

[fLUX]

Isn't roon endpoint a standard implementation which is certified by roon for streamers across. Seems strange that certain device do better on roon vs others,

I will be getting roon soon so will be able to better comment using a sotm sms200 and u2 mini, i strongly doubt a streamer a vs b will be differenent because of roon. But then stranger things are noticed in this hobby so won't be surprised if it's actually the case too.

 

[fLUX]

That sounds plausible. I did not find sound quality issues with roon. It just was too messy/loaded cost. So the lumin has a heavy handed volume control implementation built-in
May be that's messing with roon? Two sw volume controls may be not playing well together.

That can be disabled easily , it's there on a need basis.

 

[bhooshaniyer]

That can be disabled easily , it's there on a need basis.

Hmm may be that implementation is buggy? I did imagine that it will be a feature that can be turned off and on either within the streamer or from roon..it just may be levels deeper and involved than simply flagging off.

 

[reignofchaos]

That sounds plausible. I did not find sound quality issues with roon. It just was too messy/loaded cost. So the lumin has a heavy handed volume control implementation built-in
May be that's messing with roon? Two sw volume controls may be not playing well together.

In my case, sound quality improved over roon compared to dlna apps. I tried dozens of them and they all sounded the same while roon was a clear step up. Roon's custom protocol should be better than dlna if they coded their app properly as dlna is very basic http streaming in almost all cases.

 

[fLUX]

Hmm may be that implementation is buggy? I did imagine that it will be a feature that can be turned off and on either within the streamer or from roon..it just may be levels deeper and involved than simply flagging off.

I doubt it has anything to do with volume levels incase it's buggy. The issues might be to do with the actual integration rather than signal loss due to volume IMO if any. For all we know there might be some kind of custom filters being applied by the streamer which might cause some variations across same device or across different streamers via roon.

For me the value of roon is via their library handling and easy server/ client implementation hence thinking of going for one. I had previously tried Roon on ifi zen stream & did not feel the need for it purely for SQ but now the local library has grown so going for one.

 

[reignofchaos]

sorry for the off topic. How do you guys subscribe to roon? I wanted to try roon trial and tried with visa, mastercard and diners club credit cards from sbi, hdfc and standard chartered banks. All banks rejected payments to roon.

I want to use roon to play Qobuz to roon enabled endpoint. should I still need a core to run somewhere in the network or iphone app and endpoint is enough?

For payment, you need to ask them to raise a PayPal invoice. Direct payment does not work!

 

[ajuvignesh]

For payment, you need to ask them to raise a PayPal invoice. Direct payment does not work!

Thank you sir.

 

[square_wave]

Since many roon enthusiasts are on the thread, a question to you all.

From the context of sound quality, does Roon bring anything to the table?

Lets say, you have a Lumin device with a properly isolated networking system, will adding roon give you anything apart from the interface and music management?

 

[bhooshaniyer]

Since many roon enthusiasts are on the thread, a question to you all.

From the context of sound quality, does Roon bring anything to the table?

Lets say, you have a Lumin device with a properly isolated networking system, will adding roon give you anything apart from the interface and music management?

That's sort of the underlying discussion in this thread?! Have you read it all?