Roon Discussion

Discussion in 'Computer Audiophile: Software, Configs, Tools' started by AllanMarcus, Jul 3, 2016.

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  1. pedalhead

    pedalhead Friend

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    No problem, yeah it's a shame NAA isn't included in the trial. Here's my Roon headphone setup:

    Roon running on Win10 i5 NUC with a 6TB WD Red in a USB3 caddy (backing up to a Synology NAS box)
    DACs - DiDiT DAC212SE and Metrum Hex
    Amps - Wells Enigma and Cary Xciter (and the internal DAC212SE amp)
    Headphones - HE1000
    Roon Endpoint/Bridge - RPi3 running Debian Lite. This works well with the DAC212SE (plug & play), but doesn't pick up the Metrum Hex. I haven't tried NAA on the RPi3 yet but intend to at some point.

    I spent some time A/B'ing my RPi3 Roon Bridge > DAC212SE against a second DAC212 I have here with Roon straight from the core (i5 NUC) and also against JRiver 21 on my laptop. I couldn't detect any variance in soundstage between them. It's a pity there's an issue with yours, not sure what's up with that.

    I'm friendly with one of the guys at DiDiT & they apparently have a side project underway to create an I2S bridge for the RPi3..actually with I2S output compatible with their DAC. Can't wait for that to appear...finally bye bye to USB!
     
  2. pedalhead

    pedalhead Friend

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    No hatefest from me, I've been asking myself the same thing. The price of admission for the mR seems high (especially considering the expensive PSU that's apparently required). Lots of people have been gushing about it online, but bias confirmation is a powerful thing. Not saying they're not all correct, but I've not read any experiences from anyone I know/trust. Would be great if SBAF could get hold of one....
     
  3. landroni

    landroni Friend

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    The microRendu is a pity as it takes ~700$... and you still end up with USB. You would be better off with an Auralic Aries Mini, which will give you SPDIF instead and otherwise perform pretty much the same function. @Torq is mooting a thread discussing some of these transports/streamers, and that'll certainly be an interesting read.
     
  4. pedalhead

    pedalhead Friend

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    Yes please @Torq . The world needs some reliable opinions of the mR in particular.
     
  5. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    If you're getting a difference in sound from Roon vs. some other server configuration then it's either down to your end-point hardware or the connection from your end-point to your DAC.

    Roon's RAAT protocol is provably bit-perfect. And, since you're sending audio over a network that doesn't guarantee frame or packet ordering, any timing issues are not coming from upstream of the end-point either.

    More details will have to wait until I can write up my streamer/NAI stuff properly, but for now, I'll say that I've consistently found that a Pi w/ Digi+ via optical or COAX sounds better than a SonicorbiterSE via either USB or optical and that's true regardless of whether they're configured as Roon end-points or something else. And, for the same hardware, I've not found an audible difference in these units running RAAT vs. DLNA (via blind testing).

    None of the direct-off-the-Pi boards I've tried has been particularly impressive. Workable and cheap, sure, but it's USB-city and that's never been a good thing for me with audio. If you use something like a Digi+ on top of it, that fixes a number of issues - first giving you a proper S/PDIF output and, second, having that driven with clocks matched to the appropriate data rates.

    I have, among other things, a SonicorbiterSE, which I've tried using both USB and TOSLINK connections. It seems this unit does not have a dedicated clock for the optical output, based on the jitter present, so you're probably better off using it via USB (again, not something I'm going to do myself).
     
  6. gaspasser

    gaspasser Flatulence Maestro

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    For some reason I have a different experience with Roon and Volumio/JRMC on the same hardware (Digi +). I even tried Roon and JRMC on the computer direct via GOV2 and heard the same difference. That is why I feel it is a Roon SQ issue.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2016
  7. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    There are only really three possible modalities for Roon (or any other software) to have any sound-quality effect (excepting any bypassing of OS-level audio processing/drivers):

    1. It's changing the bit-level data.

    We know it's not doing that, unless you've gone out of your way to configure it do so.​

    2. It's screwing up the clock.

    Not really an issue with USB, and if it was, you'd expect it to have different effects on different hardware.​

    3. The software load on the end-point is different and that's affecting electrical noise on that unit.

    Again, even if this was the case, it's unlikely that you'd get the exact same effect on hardware as different as a Pi vs. a laptop or desktop.​

    Have you ruled out expectation bias?
     
  8. gaspasser

    gaspasser Flatulence Maestro

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    Yes, because I was hoping and almost expecting Roon to sound the best. I really like the UI and how it works with Tidal. I am bummed that the SQ is not as good for me.

    I secretly hoped you would point out something that I am screwing up and then I would finally hear what everyone is talking about.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2016
  9. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    It's possible you've got it configured in some strange manner, but the defaults will attempt to read capabilities from your DAC directly so you don't hamper yourself there. Things like setting "Exclusive" and "Integer" modes I don't remember the defaults for and may need to be manually selected. And I don't run Windows, so if you are you'd need to look at this yourself but for all I know Roon in that environment defaults to the standard audio stack rather than ASIO etc. (which wouldn't matter in the case of the Pi/Digi+).

    Expectation bias, or perhaps more properly "observer expectancy effects" aren't reliably eliminated or mollified simply by consciously thinking you want something to be a certain way.

    Shame that it's not giving you what you want though.
     
  10. gaspasser

    gaspasser Flatulence Maestro

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    Thanks, I greatly appreciate your help,
    I am running Windows 10. I will explore more tonight and look on the Roon forums. I have another few days left in my trial.
     
  11. Wfojas

    Wfojas Friend

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    @Gaspasser , @Torq I concur that I hear perceptible differences also between Roon and JRiver when using a microrendu as an Endpoint / DLNA renderer (which should be inferior, based on spec) with all things the same. I need to verify again how it sounds a) using an RPI/Digi+ board USB or SPDIF and b) from a notebook direct (Roon/JRMC). I detected a change when Roon released 1.2 earlier this year. I have to nail down the specifics, but after extended listening Roon seems less involving. Anecdotal, I know, so not much help.
     
  12. JeffYoung

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    So I finally got around to signing up for the free trial of Roon, and thought I'd give my first impressions.

    The thing that finally compelled me to give up iTunes + BitPerfect was the harsh drop-out when pausing or stopping a song. Sadly, Roon doesn't have an auto-fade setting either, so I'm still unhappy on that front.

    On other fronts, the UI is indeed very nice. I didn't think I'd get that much out of the metadata as I don't sit at my computer when listening to music, but it is kind of neat to browse.

    Roon's "Radio" feature is on by default. Based on the suitability of iTunes "Genius" playlists (which rarely play what I would have), I immediately turned it off. But then I thought I should give it a go, and it was quite an eye-opener. Not only was it way better than Genius, it was so good that I could even see myself changing the way I listen to music. (I started with a Chapterhouse song, and it went from there to Cocteau Twins, Jesus and Mary Chain, My Life with Thrill Kill Kult and then Moev. Moev in particular never would have occurred to me, but I must say it fit right in.)

    I had some issues with Roon not finding album art or getting song playing times right on music I scanned into iTunes after getting Rune Core up and running. But Edit > Rescan Album and Edit > Identify Album fixed those up very smartly.

    Cheers,
    Jeff.
     
  13. JeffYoung

    JeffYoung Friend

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    How about using our community to lobby for features/changes/bug fixes? When one of us posts a feature request or bug report on the Roon forums, we could link to it here so that others of us who agree could add our "weight" (via +1's or likes) to the post.

    Thoughts?
     
  14. JeffYoung

    JeffYoung Friend

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    So.... bad idea, or just no one watching this thread?
     
  15. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    I don't think it's a bad idea so much as that there just aren't that many Roon users here.

    For me, I generally just communicate with them directly - but that's an entirely different matter.
     
  16. JeffYoung

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    Wow, I was just made "new user of the month" over on the Roon community forum, so I guess I'd better get this started. ;)

    If you'd like to see a 0.2 second (or something) fade when stopping/switching tracks (and perhaps when changing the software volume), please comment here:
    https://community.roonlabs.com/t/skipping-track-fadeout/3928

    If you'd like to see metadata such as lyrics and song titles unaltered (i.e.: profanity and all), please comment here:
    https://community.roonlabs.com/t/lyrics-issues-adding-parts-of-other-songs/647/5
     
  17. Tobes

    Tobes Acquaintance

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    @JeffYoung do you find the basic playback of Roon clumsy?
    By that I mean the way it requires confirmation of immediate playback when you click on a song - instead of just playing the song....and then the following song etc (which also requires the user to select and confirm).
    I just can't get used to this. I know Roon's answer to this 'issue' is that they're queue centric - but is this how most people play their music, from queues?
    I've used Roon on/off for about a 9 months and hate this.

    While I like some of Roon's features I find Audirvana much more user friendly for basic playback - which is pretty important to me.
    I'm also one of those not that impressed with Roon's SQ. It definitely sounds better to me with HQP - though HQP adds lag to playback response, effecting usability for me.
     
  18. pedalhead

    pedalhead Friend

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    Yeah I'm one of the people on the Roon forum whining about not having one click playback. It's really annoying imho, and one of the features that are preventing adoption of roon amongst other members of my family. I get why people want to protect their queue, but they should give us a choice of how we want the play button to work.

    Whilst I'm whining, the other irritating thing is how roon won't continue with album playback if you play an individual track in that album. Again, there's a multi-keypress way of doing that, but totally non-intuitive for non-geeks.

    Final whine... if you're curious about ROCK, my advice would be don't bother. I migrated from Windows 10 to ROCK, no hardware changes, and response times in Roon are noticeably slower. Honestly, I don't think mono is anywhere near as efficient as .Net.

    Oh, and my backups were screwed up somehow so I can't restore my database. I've had a case open with Roon support for a month with no actual progress.

    Other than that lot, I think Roon is awesome :)
     
  19. JeffYoung

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    @Tobes , I found it odd at first, but it doesn't really bother me. I don't really understand the whole kerfuffle about the queue as I never use it. (I don't ever play individual songs either.) But I have used a lot of touch-centric UIs, and they do tend to require more tappety-tappety with ones fingers.

    My two "modes" of listening are either to pick an album and play it, or pick a song and start the radio from it. The two-click play is somewhat useful in that regard, although it could also be done with two separate buttons on the album page.

    As somewhat of a counter-point to @pedalhead , my 16 and 19 year-old daughters both love Roon. My wife, not so much. ;)

    I also passed on ROCK. I'll be installing Arch Linux on my fanless PC once I get the rest of the parts for it.
     
  20. Tobes

    Tobes Acquaintance

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    @JeffYoung, I have a few different modes of listening.
    When I'm playing whole albums of course the multiple clicks are not an issue. But one of the great things about Tidal is discovery of new stuff - where I'll sample music from albums, and if I'm enjoying let it play. I find Roon a real PITA for this type of listening.
    Another gripe I have is viewing the album cover - 2 presses to bring up the full size cover if in album mode, but if playing from a playlist I've got to load the album up and then multiple presses to view cover full size. This may be trivial to some, but I come from vinyl listening and the cover art is part of the experience for me. In Audirvana only one click on the thumbnail required and the same for playlists - where it can be left on the full size cover and change as the list plays.

    Like I said above, some of Roon's features are nice but the experience just comes off mediocre for me. I guess nothing is going to be to everyones taste, but the love for the Roon user experience just surprises me.
     

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