Thread: Roon 1.8 - a sonic success!

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We’ve made changes to Roon’s buffering and caching infrastructure when playing streaming content. The new implementation is designed to use a lighter touch when interacting with your network and internet connection, making streaming less intensive for your Roon Core.

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Well, Craig suggested I give the new Roon 1.8 listen as they’ve (quietly) made some great strides to improve sound quality (cough, cough).

Well, I decided to upgrade my Nucleus+ at home and do a shootout with the NAIM app.

I had done this shootout before and the NAIM app always sounded far better.

I have to say, this version 1.8 is a game changer. This latest version of Roon puts it back in top. Well done Roon guys, glad to see them finally paying attention to sound. Keep it going.


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I didn't notice much of a sonic change, but I used to have a lot of hanging (spinning death star). This release fixed all my problems with that!

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Originally Posted by Mike

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We’ve made changes to Roon’s buffering and caching infrastructure when playing streaming content. The new implementation is designed to use a lighter touch when interacting with your network and internet connection, making streaming less intensive for your Roon Core.

********************
Well, Craig suggested I give the new Roon 1.8 listen as they’ve (quietly) made some great strides to improve sound quality (cough, cough).

Well, I decided to upgrade my Nucleus+ at home and do a shootout with the NAIM app.

I had done this shootout before and the NAIM app always sounded far better.

I have to say, this version 1.8 is a game changer. This latest version of Roon puts it back in top. Well done Roon guys, glad to see them finally paying attention to sound. Keep it going.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

How does Roon now compare to your Aurender N20?

Originally Posted by Audio 1

How does Roon now compare to your Aurender N20?

The Aurender is still better to my ears, but Roon has improved with 1.8.


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I really want to figure out how to incorporate Roon - I like the interface and have a lifetime sub - but I can't yet figure out how it would improve on “just play music efficiently" from the Lumin L1 and Qobuz (and eventually NAS).

super hard to tell, and any difference is probably very minor or in my head, but I feel like SQ is better using the Lumin app.

I don’t want to disagree with Mike, but I have to. To my ears, the Taiko with ROON, sounds better than the Aurender. BUT, it is splitting hairs.





Maybe it’s because I have already spent $500 on ROON???

Was this using the same DAC and interconnects for both the Taiko and Aurender?

Originally Posted by crwilli

I don’t want to disagree with Mike, but I have to. To my ears, the Taiko with ROON, sounds better than the Aurender. BUT, it is splitting hairs.





Maybe it’s because I have already spent $500 on ROON???

Originally Posted by nc42acc

Was this using the same DAC and interconnects for both the Taiko and Aurender?

I don’t know what each cable was but the Taiko was connected via USB and the Aurender N30SA via SPDIF - both the Esoteric N-05XD. I think the SPDIF was a Nordost Valhalla???

I have a SonicOrbiter i7 running Roon and a Aurender N20. I am using a MSB Premier with the pro usb and renderer modules so it makes it super easy to switch and compare. So far the N20 is ranking king in my system to my ears. I haven’t added the gigafoil yet. I will say Roon does sound much better than the last time I put any time listening to it.

I can agree 1000%. I like the Roon experience much more than the Aurender app. Roon handles metadata so much better. If only it had folder view.

Originally Posted by nicoff

Roon is much more than a one-trick pony. Yes, it is a music player, but it also has the best music data management capabilities on the market today. If you have a big library, using Focus together with tags and bookmarks give you enormous flexibilities (very useful for any type of music, but specially great for jazz and classical music). Add Roon’s digital signal processing (DSP) capabilities that allow you to add powerful FIR and room correction filters, and you have a product with an unbeatable combination of features.

Folks who are not using Roon’s full capabilities are missing out big time.

If only Roon could get its sound quality to Aurender level. I will keep using it as a backup until they do.

Originally Posted by nicoff

Initially I was a bit apprehensive about Roon’s method because (like you) I was used to using a folder structure for my ripped CDs (I spent lots of time creating it too!). But Once I got used to Roon and saw how well it worked, I came to the conclusion that Roon’s method works better.
With Roon you can simply dump all your ripped music in one big folder and Roon can figure out all your artists and albums plus make relational connections (which is great for jazz and classical) that the user probably did not know existed.
Plus if you stream, any Qobuz or Tidal album that you add to your library is seamlessly integrated with your own library.
I still have all my ripped music in folder view (artist, album, tracks), and Roon uses it as-is.

Originally Posted by nc42acc

If only Roon could get its sound quality to Aurender level. I will keep using it as a backup until they do.

How do you know it isn't? Since you can't run Roon on an Aurender is there anyway to actually compare them? It seems like you are comparing Roon and the Aurender/Conductor using different hardware.

Please see post #11 for my setup.

Originally Posted by dminches

How do you know it isn't? Since you can't run Roon on an Aurender is there anyway to actually compare them? It seems like you are comparing Roon and the Aurender/Conductor using different hardware.

Originally Posted by nc42acc

Please see post #11 for my setup.

I did see that. Maybe I don’t understand your setup but it seems like you are running Roon on one piece of hardware vs Aurender’s SW on the N20.

Great to read that the Roon Rel 1.8 is a game changer in terms of audio quality. I had Roon for a year ended up cancelling the subscription. Will try out the new release at Mike’s.

Perhaps I should stay out of this but I feel I upset or confused people with my comments.

I agree with Mike that the latest version of ROON seems to have improved its intrinsic SQ. You can ONLY make that comparison with one ROON core setup - in this case me on my system and with Mikes Taiko system running ROON. It’s not a scientific conclusion.

It cannot be extrapolated to mean it is better than any other software players.

I did feel the Taiko with ROON had a slight advantage over the Aurender N30SA as I did hear them both side by side. BUT it was slight and that is comparing two equipment setups not the software they use. Also, if I had an Aurender N30SA, I would not likely move to the Taiko and vice versa. It was not a contest, only a comparison. Both the Taiko and the N30SA are at the top of digital server mountain.

I think the Roon vs Aurender is subjective and to each individuals system and preferences. I never said Roon sounded bad I just said I preferred the sound of the Aurender N20. I am a huge fan of the Roon interface and after adding the Gigafoil to me it now sounds “different” from the N20. I like having the ability to use either. Some nights Roon, some nights Aurender. Life is good

Yes, yes and yes.

Peace guys.

Mike is awesome!

Has anyone here tried a two server setup as an example Roon to hq player
Roon core on one and the second pc is a hq player to dac ?

Originally Posted by Puma Cat

I would very much agree, Marty. My Roon setup sounds really, really good, too. And some nights, it's Roon, other nights, it's the N20. Life IS good, as you say. Couldn't agree more.

As much as I love my Roon set-up, and here's the operative point, I still do, I still think the Aurender N20, especially when powered by an Everest and connected to my network with a Shunyata Omega Ethernet and Alpha USB cable, sounds a bit better than my fairly sophisticated Roon/SOtM set-up. I might change that view if I got my SOtM upgraded and added a good clock to the system. Even though the SOtM SMS-200 UltraNeo already has a very good clock, as does the EtherREGEN, I think the Aurender, with it's temperature- compensated OCXO, "push mode", sophisticated and isolated power supply, and other cool engineering features, especially Critical Listening Mode, wins the day in terms of absolute outright audio quality. And, I've been living with both for a good 6 months now and can make a pretty tightly controlled "experimental" comparison.

I agree that having the ability to use either is really nice, I should point out that some folks, including personal friends of mine that are also pretty high-end audiophiles, think that using one obviates the use of the other, and it absolutely does not. In fact, in my case, it would be really easy to set up system that does both. I could use my SOtM going in to the Lampizator's USB input, and an Aurender using a S/PDIF interface. With the push of one button on the front panel on the Lampizator, I could switch from my SOtM/Roon to Aurender/SSD hard drive.

Easy-peasy.

Are you liking the S/PDIF over USB in the N20 ?

I have been reading what I can find on the Roon upgrade on all of the usual forums.

I ran across a thread on WBF where a member named Christoph mentioned removing the disabled filters made a difference in the sound quality.
Not sure why removing disabled filters would matter but for me it opened up the sound stage more and cleared up the sound I didn't think needed cleaning.

It is simple if I can do it and you can add them back as easily as removing them.

If you click on the speaker in the lower right corner of the main screen.
A small bar will open.
Click on the DSP and it will take you to a screen where the filters will be on the left side in their own window.
They will say either enabled or disabled under the filter or function.
Click on each disabled filter and a window on the right side of the page will open.
In the upper right hand corner there is an X and it says remove.
Click on each one and the disabled filters will be removed.

Should you change your mind you can put them back using the add filter button where the filters were.

I currently only use Roon not with HQP even though my SonicTransporter has it installed.

Thanks for the heads-up. At this time I choose not to remove the Parametric Equalizer as I have been using a "small" bump in the 70-80hz range for some time now. I did go ahead and remove the Audeze and Crossfeed filters as I never use headphones.