Does Roon sound better?

I’m not totally sure which difference you are seeing but if the same Tidal bits are making their way to the dac then it shouldn’t matter. It could be one of those two is decoding and re-encoding, like AirPlay does. For th OPs case, sending Tidal data to the dac over WiFi with Tidal directly or with Roon should result in the exact same data stream making it to the dac. 

mayoradamwest,
You really should do more playing with the different software. They all sound different. I stll like and LOVE mpd. Its got the magic!

Thank you all !!!

I've used Audirvana for 6 years because I really enjoyed the sound and thought it probably couldn't be bettered (especially in recent updates).  Last year I tried Roon.  I think it sounds better and in spite of the cost I'll extend my subscription - it's worth it.  I've tried going back to A+ but the difference in SQ has me switching back after a few minutes.  No matter what people in this thread are writing, they're not the same.

@janehamble  Did you try different upsampling settings via iZotope in Audirvana, or did you not use upsampling? Just curious. 

I have Roon, and I also have the Audirvana trial, and I keep going back and forth between the two, trying to figure out which is better suited for my preferences (not a trivial task).  Anyways, Roon's GUI and music mgmt are much better than Audirvana, but it's about the sound right?