Roon problems

aKnyght said:

would be interested to hear your thoughts on the observed SQ difference between aurender conductor player and roon being attributable to the hardware rather than the software?

the $22k aurender w20se has elaborate (exquisite?) power and isolation -- and, i assume some of that to some degree is present in other models down the the chain such as the $8k n10. same for lumin.

the roon nucleus+ is literally the guts of a $575 (retail) intel nuc put inside a custom fanless case -- as stated by roon, nothing audiophile about this hardware.

absolutely no doubt in my mind that audio transports such as the aurender, lumin, etc. will sound better than a roon nucleus, regardless of software.

i assume there is some real difference in how the competing software handles things like up-sampling, format conversion, etc. however, i would expect the results of such differences to be more "flavor" subject to individual tastes than to be SQ in the strict sense.

the real test would be to run the various player software on the same equipment. unfortunately, the proprietary nature of the various manufacturer's software make this impossible.

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When I talk to the folks at Aurender, they are constantly saying “sound first”. Their app is designed with “sound first” as the number one goal.

Not to put too fine a point on things, but I find it incredible that some audiophiles will fuss about cable lifters, fuses and rubidium wall outlets, but the sound of Roon is “good enough”.

You guys will see, one day, those obsessed with sound first, will move away from Roon and at the same time, Roon will move further away from “sound first” by implementing home automation features. I could be wrong and I’m not advocating it, because I indeed sell a lot of “Roon only” devices. But I truly feel this will be the case...one day...and perhaps, one day soon.

Mike said:

When I talk to the folks at Aurender, they are constantly saying “sound first”. Their app is designed with “sound first” as the number one goal.

Not to put too fine a point on things, but I find it incredible that some audiophiles will fuss about cable lifters, fuses and rubidium wall outlets, but the sound of Roon is “good enough”.

You guys will see, one day, those obsessed with sound first, will move away from Roon and at the same time, Roon will move further away from “sound first” by implementing home automation features. I could be wrong and I’m not advocating it, because I indeed sell a lot of “Roon only” devices. But I truly feel this will be the case...one day...and perhaps, one day soon.

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great background info on the aurender app. and, a great point to keep in mind with the (likely) future path of roon.

just out of curiosity, should roon move away from the "sound first" by adding more and more functionality not really necessary for the single-system, 2-channel audiophile, do you think the consequence will be an increasingly noisy digital signal or a (more) buggy user experience? probably both, right?

noise can be effectively filtered from the signal. a buggy UX is another matter.

btw: huge fan of aurender. just wish they would offer SSDs on more of their models -- even better would be m.2 NVMe drives.

Medium sized music library + Qobuz here. I bought Roon lifetime from the first week. Bricasti M12 has worked well from the day I got it.

wired network works best (just the iPad is wireless)
I ditched Win10pro on a fanless i7 NUC to ROCK, and have the files on USB drive
etherRegen connected to network via optical, B side straight to Bricasti, with the NUC on A side
I have Roon re-sample all to DSD128 (max for M12)

I think it’s great, but, when it gets to the point of adding home automation, I probably will look elsewhere too.

aKnyght said:

great background info on the aurender app. and, a great point to keep in mind with the (likely) future path of roon.

just out of curiosity, should roon move away from the "sound first" by adding more and more functionality not really necessary for the single-system, 2-channel audiophile, do you think the consequence will be an increasingly noisy digital signal or a (more) buggy user experience? probably both, right?

noise can be effectively filtered from the signal. a buggy UX is another matter.

btw: huge fan of aurender. just wish they would offer SSDs on more of their models -- even better would be m.2 NVMe drives.

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The storage is very important for over all performance in my view. None of my systems, computers, server, controller, etc., use anything but M.2 and SSDs. Rotating drives are noisy, have vibration, prone to generating heat, prone to fragmentation, and failures. They are also prone to misreads of the files because keeping 100% alignment of drive heads on a drive spinning at 7200 or 10,000 RPMs and reading billions of bits of digital information simply is unrealistic. All of which can and does interfere with sound performance.

Even in my music server PC I have 2x one terabyte M.2 drives for running the software (Windows, Roon, HQPlayer) and storage of DSD files. I also have 2x 500 GB SSDs for storage of PCM files.

Any system, no matter what you choose that is not incorporating SSD and/or M.2 drives is a huge compromise.

Don't even get me started about storing all your music on a NAS and streaming it across a network or even worse WiFi. Streaming services as such are huge compromises. It only stands to reason. The files themselves are stored on some other computer, probably thousands of miles away. Expecting them to get to you unaffected is unreasonable and unrealistic.

Randy Myers said:

Don't even get me started about storing all your music on a NAS and streaming it across a network or even worse WiFi. Streaming services as such are huge compromises. It only stands to reason. The files themselves are stored on some other computer, probably thousands of miles away. Expecting them to get to you unaffected is unreasonable and unrealistic.

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Disagree. (Other than that WiFi can indeed be problematic.)

Roon also advocates a streaming model where the Roon Core sends music data via RAAT network protocol to Roon Ready endpoints.

Just because a network data method is supported does not mean it performs as well. Sending data across any network is not as good as having it stored locally. Any data traveling across extra, extended wires can and does have packet losses (error correction routines) and certainly is much slower than having it stored locally. All things that infringe on data transmission and delivery can and do influence digital music.

Randy Myers said:

Just because a network data method is supported does not mean it performs as well. Sending data across any network is not as good as having it stored locally. Any data traveling across extra, extended wires can and does have packet losses (error correction routines) and certainly is much slower than having it stored locally. All things that infringe on data transmission and delivery can and do influence digital music.

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Pretty much what you are saying is totally depending on the cable company ( internet provider) one has and their communication structure. Having been in the business not a cable provider, but telecommunications, the amount of data failures over the network is greater than people realize and then you have the cable companies and their hap hazard maintenance structure, limiting speeds on a whim, maintenance throughout the day is a common occurrence. So people that experience drops out, I would first look at my local providing network before jumping on a service provider, QoBUZ, Tidal or their equipment, sure they have server issues, but most of the time your network ( cable provider) could be at fault. Data in is only as good as the total network. Pretty much the same of power, dirty power in, equals poor results.

CPP said:

Pretty much what you are saying is totally depending on the cable company ( internet provider) one has and their communication structure. Having been in the business not a cable provider, but telecommunications, the amount of data failures over the network is greater than people realize and then you have the cable companies and their hap hazard maintenance structure, limiting speeds on a whim, maintenance throughout the day is a common occurrence. So people that experience drops out, I would first look at my local providing network before jumping on a service provider, QoBUZ, Tidal or their equipment, sure they have server issues, but most of the time your network ( cable provider) could be at fault. Data in is only as good as the total network. Pretty much the same of power, dirty power in, equals poor results.

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Completely agree, of course. The entire idea of a digital signal travelling across a line can and does loose data packets, many times error routines catch these lost packets and have them re-sent. This is an ongoing process and getting the signal 100% to your system is not always a smooth process. This occurs within a closed network such as inside of your home, and of course much more often using a streaming service, both from your ISP and all of the lines and over air transmissions that the signal travels along while getting to your system. All of this can and does affect what you are hearing in your digital music. The best chance of getting the cleanest signal to your DAC is from internal storage, which can also have data transmission issues, but at a greatly reduced rate of occurrence.

Randy Myers said:

Any data traveling across extra, extended wires can and does have packet losses (error correction routines) and certainly is much slower than having it stored locally. All things that infringe on data transmission and delivery can and do influence digital music.

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Packet loss with retransmit (reliable network protocols) with early-enough / fast-enough delivery will not impact the quality of playback regardless of being "locally" or "remotely" stored. Those aspects will not have any influence on the playback quality of the music.

If there is some other side-effect, like the use of the Wi-Fi module introducing noise into internal circuitry, that is different. But not the function of retrieving the data from a remote location or the use of a reliable network protocol that provides the data early enough or fast enough for uninterrupted playback.

CPP said:

Having been in the business not a cable provider, but telecommunications, the amount of data failures over the network is greater than people realize and then you have the cable companies and their hap hazard maintenance structure, limiting speeds on a whim, maintenance throughout the day is a common occurrence. So people that experience drops out, I would first look at my local providing network before jumping on a service provider, QoBUZ, Tidal or their equipment, sure they have server issues, but most of the time your network ( cable provider) could be at fault.

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When looking at millions or billions of transfers a day, there are a small number of errors in transmission that cannot be rectified only using the error detection and retransmit feature of the reliable network protocol. This set of errors is a very small subset of the larger number of data errors that occur.

But with extremely high success rates those will be detected and the data transfer will be considered a failure, resulting in playback being stopped or interrupted. So high I would never worry about it as an individual user. It will not result in incorrect or altered data being played back.

Clients can be programmed to silently retry in order to make it so the end user doesn't even realize a failure occurred, but even if it doesn't do this, on an individual basis the likelihood of hitting an unrecoverable error within a single transmission is extremely low unless there is a network or service outage or other larger failure scenario in play.

NekoAudio said:

Packet loss with retransmit (reliable network protocols) with early-enough / fast-enough delivery will not impact the quality of playback regardless of being "locally" or "remotely" stored. Those aspects will not have any influence on the playback quality of the music.

If there is some other side-effect, like the use of the Wi-Fi module introducing noise into internal circuitry, that is different. But not the function of retrieving the data from a remote location or the use of a reliable network protocol that provides the data early enough or fast enough for uninterrupted playback.



When looking at millions or billions of transfers a day, there are a small number of errors in transmission that cannot be rectified only using the error detection and retransmit feature of the reliable network protocol. This set of errors is a very small subset of the larger number of data errors that occur.

But with extremely high success rates those will be detected and the data transfer will be considered a failure, resulting in playback being stopped or interrupted. So high I would never worry about it as an individual user. It will not result in incorrect or altered data being played back.

Clients can be programmed to silently retry in order to make it so the end user doesn't even realize a failure occurred, but even if it doesn't do this, on an individual basis the likelihood of hitting an unrecoverable error within a single transmission is extremely low unless there is a network or service outage or other larger failure scenario in play.

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I see what you are saying but I'm taking about dropouts, carrier issues, mostly caused by sorry maintenance, and defective plant be it central office or field, and having been apart of a few major Control Centers and 3rd Tier support groups with AT&T/Lucent and a local company in Fla the amount of crap that occurs is mind blowing. Not talking about clients, I'm talking about central office and carrier systems and cable systems.
Take cable companies, the lets, just work on the terminals in the daytime and cut the service to everyone without any notification, happens all the time. . MY internet was down three weeks ago, called in , got some lame excuse, got in my car and drove a mile down the road and they ( cable company) had the complete terminal out on the ground. I asked what happen to a call, they said, to many people to call, and our OT at night is cut. Out for 4 hours. Can't blame QoBuz or My Streamer for that. Blame the provider. And to set up parameters for retry when the network to your home or business it out, be it failed central office equipment or outside plant equipment.

When packets are resent they many times arrive out of order or with missing bits. This is especially true the more distance and hops that the data goes through... much of which is now sent over the air which can and does affect what you hear.

Bits dropped or arrive out of sync certainly does affect what you hear. If the quality of a USB cable affects what you hear (it does) there is no argument to be made that error correction routines, bit drops, packets resend, etc., does not affect what you hear. It certainly does.

Network data transmission is the single most troublesome area of today's digital technology, and as most everyone who has been into audio for more than a day will attest... everything affects what we hear. Also network over load is very real, especially recently with how the systems are becoming extremely over loaded because of so very many people working from home, world wide.

CPP said:

I see what you are saying but I'm taking about dropouts, carrier issues, mostly caused by sorry maintenance, and defective plant be it central office or field, and having been apart of a few major Control Centers and 3rd Tier support groups with AT&T/Lucent and a local company in Fla the amount of crap that occurs is mind blowing.

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Yeah, sorry if I wasn't clear. I understood the part where you were referring to interruptions and communication failures, which would just make things stop working. I wanted to add some clarification that although errors in transmission can occur frequently at the lower layers, the protocols used at the higher layers address the majority of those issues. So the only time something is really a problem for users is when things are down or so congested as to prevent sufficient data from arriving by the time it is needed, which then causes things to stop working or pause until the data can be received. But does not cause things to have incorrect data.

Randy Myers said:

When packets are resent they many times arrive out of order or with missing bits. This is especially true the more distance and hops that the data goes through... much of which is now sent over the air which can and does affect what you hear. Bits dropped or arrive out of sync certainly does affect what you hear.

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Reliable network protocols ensure that the final data being processed by the client application does not have any bits dropped, nor have any out of order data.

Randy Myers said:

Also network over load is very real, especially recently with how the systems are becoming extremely over loaded because of so very many people working from home, world wide.

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Network congestion manifests as lower bandwidth for each connection/user but absolutely does not result in the final data missing bits or being reassembled out of order, when using a reliable network protocol.

Randy Myers said:

This to me is the perfect solution... the best of both worlds.... Roon's amazing interface and meta-data, etc., and HQPlayer's sound quality playback engine.

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I agree with Randy 100%. Same for me ... although I am sitting on the fence on the Aurender W20SE, more so, I am not that savvy to be able to convert/copy over the Roon files. I am sure Roon knows their business plan and to lowering the quality because of home automation, I doubt they would do that and fail their biggest revenue and high user base they had today. I am not saying I won't move to an Aurender in the future (unless Roon really falters then) but thats a huge investment in terms of money and most of all, the know how and that I suck big time. So, its Roon all the way for me TODAY!

Randy Myers said:

The best chance of getting the cleanest signal to your DAC is from internal storage, which can also have data transmission issues, but at a greatly reduced rate of occurrence.

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A lot of generalizations here. There are two methods for the most part - DAC direct or the use of an endpoint. Which is better will most certainly be a personal preference as well as how one implements either one of these.

Not sure why the conclusion using a NAS to store files is a bad idea. Personally and IMHO, I buy music to store on NAS and use this local lib on my network (I don't stream) therefore I don't want a noisy computer in my listening room or connected to my DAC, thus an optimized endpoint => Optical rendu (with quality LPS) direct to DAC. Then you can put all networking components (router, modem, managed switch w/ fiber, NAS, UPS, servers etc..) all in util room in a network rack. Then run fiber direct from managed switch to listening room and your golden, again IMHO and just one method that works freaking awesome

A computer certain is not always noisy. All of these custom music only servers are in essence computers. They all have the same components inside.

I did not say storing on a NAS should not be done. Some people prefer that and that is ok. I did say the more the signal goes through the more that can affect the signal. A noisy NAS (I have yet to see a NAS that is not noisy), router, switches, converting to optical signal, etc., etc. can and does many times affect the signal. Anything that affects the signal can and does affect what you hear.

If it works for you than that is all that matters. In my case I have enough storage on M.2 and SSD's inside my server box and I prefer it this way because my signal does not go through anything except the cable going to the DAC. This is just the method that I prefer.

I've been consistently happy with Roon. Started with it looking to a qnap nas for the music, and just recently installed a 2tb ssd in the Nucleus. Now the nas is just backup. It's a little faster now that it doesn't have to look to an external device for the files, especially (obviously) if the nas had been in standby.

The only glitch we ever have is occasionally an iOS device losing and regaining connection to the Core; but connection is regained in about 1 second. And was happening when the iDevice had been idle for a bit. My primary mode of use is running the Roon client on my Macbook, and that never loses connection. Indeed that's something I really like; controlling playback from the Macbook, or my iPhone. And Roon doesn't get 'confused' if multiple clients are connected; it takes its commands as they come.

Yea, I remember helping EJ at a show once and had both an iPad and an Android Tablet controlling Roon on his server at the same time.... no problems at all.

I personally use a Surface as my controller and set it to not go to sleep or go into screen saver mode. I don't remember the last time I had an issue when using Roon it has been so long.

Roon seems to have a problem connecting to network drives on Mac OS X 11 (Big Sur). I’m running the beta, and a couple of builds ago my NAS wouldn’t connect. I’ve posted on the Roon forum, so they should be aware of it.

Hopefully it’s fixed before Big Sur makes it’s out to the masses.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

My only Roon issues occurred when I used a Windoze based music server between the NAS & my DAC.

Since I was sending the files from the NAS through the server (CAPS 3) which acted as my Roon Control Point and on to the McIntosh D100 pre/headphone amp/DAC it was if the server's OS was kicking out the McIntosh driver's needed with Windoze to process the signals through to the DAC. I was constantly having to retrieve the driver's and reload them to the music server.

When discussing the issue with the Roon community and McIntosh it became a finger pointing fight and I stopped trying to get a definitive answer from either. Don't get me wrong...both have been wonderful at supporting their products but this one just didn't seem to have an answer.

Then one day I got a call from a friend who had the same CAPS 3 server that I had. I know his was identical to mine as we had built our servers on the same day, on the same bench, in his aircraft hangar. He had also experienced the same issues with the McIntosh drivers on the server. Anyway, his server started to overheat and he pulled it from service to test it on that very same bench he had built it on. He read about the Raspberry Pi and decided to get one to use as a Roon bridge between his NAS & DAC. He installed it and was very pleased with the results so he recommended I do the same.

I got one, the V4 unit, took the CAPS 3 server out of the system and plugged it in. I moved my Roon Endpoint to my laptop. That little piece of Pi worked great! So now my signal path is:

NAS ===USB===>Wyred 4 Sound reclocker ===USB===>RP4===USB===>DAC.

No more dropouts or control issues or finding the server down after a Windows upgrade which always kicked the McIntosh drivers right out the door. The system is rock solid and stable.