Another Roon Heavy Handed Policy

Mike said:
Mark, the Roon software requires some robust computing power. This computing power creates noise. That’s why sonically, others may prefer other options.

I support Roon in enforcing their rules around certification. I’m glad they did it because we’ve seen devices show up, but not fully work.
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In my view, as a software engineer and running considerable test matrix I find that Roon is fairly light weight in a comparative sense. HQPlayer, now this is software that is very demanding on processing power and yet it sounds better than anything out there! Room as the controller and meta data provider handing off to HQPlayer, as the playback engine, now there is the the best of both worlds in my view. Yet a solid quality computer with serious processing power has no issues running it... no glitches, no noise, no performance degradation...
 
mep said:
So what software has better sound than Roon? Can you get more than two audiophiles in an elevator to agree with your choice? In what way(s) does your software choice sound better than Roon?
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I can only speak of my own experience although there is a wealth of information and listening experiences documented on audiophilestyle.com.

I am running a system which can either boot into Windows Server 2019 with audiophile optimizer or Euphony. In WS 2019 I run Roon and in Euphony I can run Roon or Stylus. I much prefer the sound of Stylus than Roon in either OS. I love the Roon interface but I rarely use it anymore.

In addition, Emile, the owner of Taiko Audio and the creator of the Extreme Server, is designing his own music software due to the decrease in sound quality coming from Roon.

The issue with Roon is that even when you are just playing music there is a ton of network activity. That activity impairs the sound quality.

YMMV
 
thyname said:
The problem is that both Bricasti and NAD were FALSELY advertising they were Roon Ready. That's exactly what Roon is trying to prevent with this move. It was up to you to verify whether they were indeed Roon Ready, by going to Roon Partners list and checking for yourself.
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The only thing I disagree with is that the customer should have to go to Roon to verify. If a manufacture advertises that they are Roon Ready you should be able to trust them at their word (or their advertising). If they were using Roon logos on their website than they were using them illegally and this I know first hand.

I assisted a friend getting his Roon Ready for his Music Server's. After you become Roon Ready they sent you their logos that you were allowed to use on your website, such as Roon Core indicating that the music server was certified as a Roon Core server.
 
Randy Myers said:
In my view, as a software engineer and running considerable test matrix I find that Roon is fairly light weight in a comparative sense. HQPlayer, now this is software that is very demanding on processing power and yet it sounds better than anything out there! Room as the controller and meta data provider handing off to HQPlayer, as the playback engine, now there is the the best of both worlds in my view. Yet a solid quality computer with serious processing power has no issues running it... no glitches, no noise, no performance degradation...
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Roon is not lightweight when it comes to network activity which is a real sound killer.
 
Elberoth said:
You will hear that noise after it gets removed. You wil hear how much better your CA system will sound with a lower noise source.
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So we’re back to inaudible noise being made more inaudible. So the lower noise source is dumping Roon?
 
dminches said:
Roon is not lightweight when it comes to network activity which is a real sound killer.
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This very much depends on where you store your library and digital files. If you store everything on a NAS, then yes, probably true. If you mainly stream then yes very much true and honestly, noise and sound quality would be least affected by your playback software then other streaming factors.

If you store and play your files back from internal storage and especially from M.2 drives and SSDs then network activity is fairly much non-existent.
 
Add Bel Canto to the list that includes NAD and Bricasti for incorrectly advertising products as being Roon certified when they are not.
 
crwilli said:
I have heard second hand, that ROON keeps the product sent to them for certification. If true, that seems over the top.
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This is not unusual. I think all of the (diligent) companies I've worked with do this. I've never heard of a unit needing to be sent back—there's no real benefit to doing that unless it is a secret/special development kit that needs to be destroyed or especially protected.

When the service/application provider wants to push out an update, it helps to have a library of existing devices to test new builds against, and also makes it convenient for a manufacturer to push beta firmware to the provider to test fixes / re-run certification.
 
Oly said:
Add Bel Canto to the list that includes NAD and Bricasti for incorrectly advertising products as being Roon certified when they are not.
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Sounds to me as if the title of this thread should have been something along the lines of:
“I Hate It When Equipment Manufacturers Lie”
[emoji23]
 
The biggest loser in the battle between Roon and equipment manufacturers is the consumer.
 
Randy Myers said:
If you store and play your files back from internal storage and especially from M.2 drives and SSDs then network activity is fairly much non-existent.
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That has not been my experience with Roon. Even when playing local files Roon is constantly doing stuff. More to the point, if one has large library then local storage isn't possible (with a non-spinning hard drive) so using a NAS is necessary.
 
I guess it depends on what you consider large libraries :).... I have a hard enough time deciding what to play as it is :)....

I have 3 TB in storage.... and about 1000 albums... many/most are DSD... many higher resolution DSD, 2x, 4x, even 10 that are DSD512.... 10-19 GB in size each.... I could easily go up to several TBs storage using nothing but M.2 and SSDs.... I could replace my internal drives (2x M.2 and 2x SSDs) with 40 TBs if I want... how much storage do you need :)....

But seriously. 2TB M.2 and SSDs can be had for under $200... I cannot imagine needing even 4 TB let alone 8 TB or more....
 
dminches said:
That has not been my experience with Roon. Even when playing local files Roon is constantly doing stuff. More to the point, if one has large library then local storage isn't possible (with a non-spinning hard drive) so using a NAS is necessary.
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Just wondering how big a library you talking about ?
 
CPP said:
Just wondering how big a library you talking about ?
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My library is 10 TB. It would cost a lot of money to buy quality storage to hold that internally in a PCI slot.

For me, this is a moot point since Euphony/Stylus buffers the queue to ram before playing it so there is just about no network activity just playback. Thus, I can store my library on a NAS with no negative effects.
 
dminches said:
That has not been my experience with Roon. Even when playing local files Roon is constantly doing stuff. More to the point, if one has large library then local storage isn't possible (with a non-spinning hard drive) so using a NAS is necessary.
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I too have NAS and I use Roon. The only issue that I once had was due to user error (me) with a batch of CDs that I did not rip properly.

I have absolutely no noise issues when playing ripped discs or downloaded music stored in a NAS using Roon.

That said, I decided to bypass the NAS altogether and stream my music from music services.

Now I can listen to hundreds of terabytes of music without even buying a NAS. And I hear no noise when streaming either.
 
Reports are already coming in that devices that are certified are now showing up as uncertified.

This should be interesting.

September 21st is the deadline before the Roon folks pull the plug.
 
dminches said:
My library is 10 TB. It would cost a lot of money to buy quality storage to hold that internally in a PCI slot.

For me, this is a moot point since Euphony/Stylus buffers the queue to ram before playing it so there is just about no network activity just playback. Thus, I can store my library on a NAS with no negative effects.
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I’m guessing that your library is an outlier. 10 TB is freaking enormous.
 
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