Roon lifetime price increase to $699

Devg said:
Yes, no audio company will accept that others can sound better and at a cheaper price. It's that simple. Its not nonsense Mike, this is something that you really need to dabble in order to realize. The Roon folks didn't believe in theory all these small little things can improve sound and they never will (these are all documented in Roon forums). One thing I learned all these years is theory just goes out the door when it comes to computer based audio.



No, these are not cheap noisy computers and laptops. They are much more than Nucleus+ (which is basically an i7 NUC) is ever capable of and powered by world class power supply, like PH SR7, etc.



Yes, there is absolutely no question when it comes to convenience of Roon - they are still leading the pack. I still use Roon extensively to browse and do most of the listening.



Ahh, yes....this I agree but some says the exact opposite with CD and Digital steaming....:)
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The thing is, we have experimented. Ad nauseam. We’ve also had numerous people come in the store to compare their latest whizbang home made computer against an Aurender or Lumin and they get embarrassed.

The Roon Nucleus feeding a DAC via USB is not my favorite, I can see where there is lots of room for improvement here. However, a Roon Nucleus just running Roon core and on the network, where the DAC has a network interface is excellent.

But if it’s in the later configuration mentioned above, as for the software having a sound, I just don’t hear it.


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Randy Myers said:
It is really great software that is continually enhanced. You should give it a try :), since it sounds like you already own it.
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I have done but it seems to have the occasional hiccup through my Sooloos. About a few times a day I will get some serious feedback that makes me worry about my speakers. I think I will use it big time when I upgrade my server.
 
Mike said:
If you want to know what I think SOUNDS the best, it’s still the Aurender. But almost all our DAC’s are Roon enabled, so people want Roon.


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Mike, I was at the Audio Lounge in London last week and somehow they had their Aurender on the Roon software as one of the sources. I quizzed the guy there as I thought Aurender was not Roon Ready but there it was controlled by Roon. I still don't know how he did it. Neither did the guy there. What was apparent though was how much better the sound through the Aurender app was vs. Roon app. I was very surprised. May be the Roon app was not optimised in some way. I didn't check the settings but it is a big difference.

If someone can explain the Aurender on Roon that would make Aurender a lot more attractive.
 
Devg said:
I wish they concentrated more on the audio quality than AI features. Even a simple Innous music server's native player (and other Linux players) beats Roon big time in sound quality. To me, Roon is excellent library manager with sota UI and that's about it. After 1.3 release couple of yrs back, their foremost goal has been mass adoption. I don't see an issue with their business model, its just they aren't interested anymore on audio quality which is the sad part.
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Like Mike said: “audiophile nonsense” which is a polite way to say B*.
 
Howiebrou said:
Mike, I was at the Audio Lounge in London last week and somehow they had their Aurender on the Roon software as one of the sources. I quizzed the guy there as I thought Aurender was not Roon Ready but there it was controlled by Roon. I still don't know how he did it. Neither did the guy there. What was apparent though was how much better the sound through the Aurender app was vs. Roon app. I was very surprised. May be the Roon app was not optimised in some way. I didn't check the settings but it is a big difference.

If someone can explain the Aurender on Roon that would make Aurender a lot more attractive.
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yes, the aurender does appear as a Roon endpoint on our network as well. To be honest, I have never played music to it to find out if it will work.

A better test is the Lumin U1 because it has a great app and is a Roon endpoint. Our tests concluded: no difference in Sonics.
 
Mike said:
yes, the aurender does appear as a Roon endpoint on our network as well. To be honest, I have never played music to it to find out if it will work.

A better test is the Lumin U1 because it has a great app and is a Roon endpoint. Our tests concluded: no difference in Sonics.
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I have also played with the U1 usinf its own app and Roon and heard no difference which is why i was surprised when there was such a big difference between the Aurender App and Roon. Mainly i was more surprised that Roon supported the Aurender. AFAIK Aurender do not market this as a capability which is puzzling?

Edit. I found a thread on Audiogon which states that the Aurender can only be used as a Roon endpoint using Airplay which limits it to 16 bit 44khz. That might explain the SQ discrepancy.
 
Well, I was one of the early lifetime sub adopters, and I did so to avoid being caught missing out before a price increase.

As far as sound quality is concerned, my former Aurender N10 sounded better than my souped-up Mac Mini i7, but a recent change in DACs has flipped that script. I've also found that Roon's sound quality has generally gotten better over the years.
 
Just a thought, but maybe the differences in sound quality opinion are in some way related to whether or not you are using a Roon Ready renderer independent of the Roon Core computer, or whether or not you are having Roon do any audio processing. I would be less surprised to hear opinions on the sound quality if making use of DSP or other processing, or if not using a Roon Ready renderer.
 
Playing around a little just to see the affects on the server. I am trying using the Roon playback engine. I turned off HQPlayer completely and I turned off all DSP processing in Roon. Basically playing everything in the resolution of the files themselves.

A couple early on observations. Everything sounds wonderful. I can see what Jon was saying about T+A PCM processing. It is outstanding. Playing the DSD512 albums I have are maybe even better then processing them through HQPlayer. I have five albums in DSD512 now. They are all pretty spectacular, as are the other DSD levels, owning many DSD64, DSD128, and DSD256.

The biggest observation is that the server is not working, at all. Playing David Elias in DSD512 and the CPU usage is from 1%-4%, in other words, not even being tasked. Just cruising... maybe this is allowing the music to sound even better :dunno:. Obviously HQPlayer really is a resource hog :D.
 
I have owned several Aurenders including an N10 and W20. I now run Roon Server on a Xeon-based PC feeding a Sonore ultraRendu. I have also invested in good power supplies. My current setup sounds MUCH better than the W20. Others may have different experiences.

I also prefer the Roon UI and all the information it brings to the user. The Aurender software is poor, at best. I really can’t believe they haven’t invested more in that.
 
dminches said:
I have owned several Aurenders including an N10 and W20. I now run Roon Server on a Xeon-based PC feeding a Sonore ultraRendu. I have also invested in good power supplies. My current setup sounds MUCH better than the W20. Others may have different experiences.

I also prefer the Roon UI and all the information it brings to the user. The Aurender software is poor, at best. I really can’t believe they haven’t invested more in that.
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Have you tried the updated version. It doesn’t have the Roon features but as a simple GUI for playback it seemed very easy to use.
 
Howiebrou said:
Have you tried the updated version. It doesn’t have the Roon features but as a simple GUI for playback it seemed very easy to use.
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I no longer own a W20 so I can’t try it. If one likes all the information that Roon brings it is hard to lose that.
 
Well I didn’t renew my Roon subscription. I found that because of the frequent thunderstorms we have had this year I turned my computer off too many times and it was a pain to crank it up every time I wanted to listen to music. The LUMIN app was used more often than the Roon.
 
Dguitarnut said:
Well I didn’t renew my Roon subscription. I found that because of the frequent thunderstorms we have had this year I turned my computer off too many times and it was a pain to crank it up every time I wanted to listen to music. The LUMIN app was used more often than the Roon.
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I am not sure I understand your rationalization. I would be more inclined to turn off my stereo system than my laptop when a storm hits.
 
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