New DAC or New Streamer?

“Whether Roon is optimized for the wide variety of streamers its used on is the question.”
@sns

IME, Nope. Its sound quality is all over the place with different servers/renders. The whole concept of keeping render + core separate (chassis) is deeply flawed…too many variables in-between that are potentially impacting its final rendering. After 18 months of fiddling with ROON on two different servers, to my ears and in my system; ROON is not in the same league as Conductor in terms of absolute sound quality. Does ROON sounds fine, ofcourse it does. But you don’t dump $30-$40K in your digital front end to hear something that just sounds FINE. The overwhelming feedback from Taiko, Pink Faun and Innuos owners is proof enough…no further objective comparison undertaking necessary or needed, nuff said!

@lalitk Missed my point. I agree with you exactly, Roon sound quality IS all over the place with different servers/renderers. This is exactly the reason why sound quality of Roon in one setup CANNOT be extrapolated to ALL setups. Sure, there are plenty of individuals preferring other music players to Roon, so are you saying this negates all those who prefer Roon. I can only say the present sound quality I'm getting with Roon is absolute4ly revelatory, not a word I use lightly, in fact have not used once in thirty years of audiophile system building.

As for direct comparisons, I have the direct experience of the builder/assembler and subsequent owner of my custom streamer in comparing it to a number of off the shelf streamers which included the Aurender W20SE. They preferred this custom build running full Stylus to the Aurender running Conductor player. Both only sold the custom build after direct comparisons with Taiko Extreme which both purchased. So, how this relates to Roon is I'm preferring Roon with two computer setup to the setup they both preferred which is full Stylus running on the custom streamer. Now, custom build was not in same configuration as when they owned in that they were using HDPlex SMPS powered by Sean Jacobs and/or other top flight LPS, I'm using JCAT Optimo  S ATX full lps, far superior to the HDPlex solution. Perhaps the superior noise elimination of the JCAT vs HDPLex is what makes the difference for my Roon preference, hard to say. Or perhaps its my particular setup with Sonore OpticalModule and OpticalRendu, which means LPS, cables used, again, hard to say.

Although I'm not done with experimenting with the Stylus or HQPlayer players, perhaps they'll prove to be superior with different configurations/settings, much to experiment with here. But the main point is I'm getting sensational sound quality with Roon at present, over a hundred hours in and sound quality remains revelatory.  Perhaps the revelation will turn into ho hum, but until it does I have absolutely NO motivation to further experiment with players. And isn't the point to enjoy our systems or 'painting' as you put it, some theoretical argument or other people's negative experience with Roon isn't impacting my sound quality or my enjoyment of it.

@sns 

Congratulations on achieving such a high level of sound quality utilizing Roon. Purely out of curiosity, how many boxes/cables etc does this require?

Charles

"I can only say the present sound quality I’m getting with Roon is absolute4ly revelatory"

@sns

I am sure it is revelatory with your custom build server. Please enjoy your journey and experimentation with the Stylus or HQPlayer players. I hope to read your feedback on aforementioned players vs ROON.

Thanks guys, many paths to great sound!

@charles1dad With the way I'm presently setup starting at streamer. Ethernet input to JCAT NET XE board in streamer (streamer powered by the JCAT Optimo, 2 cables bundles used to power processor and motherboard Optimo has three rails, third is for internal local drives, I'm using NAS for local files so no internal drives, JCAT ethernet board powered by Uptone JS2 lps, so another cable and lps) ethernet out of JCAT board to OpticalModule (dc cable and lps for power), optical cable out of OM to OpticalRendu ( DC cable to second rail on Uptone JS2), usb out of OR to usb in on dac. So boxes add up to 3, also 3 lps, 3 DC cables and AC power cables. I can also go with the simpler setup with streamer direct to dac. I also have myriad choices of how I can configure  Stylus, HQPlayer and Roon players, this with or without Sonore optical bundle.

@lalitk At some point I will get to more critical listening with the Stylus player, really need to get JCAT USB XE board to get full potential of Stylus, thus far only used via somewhat optimized Intel usb board mounted on motherboard. I'm open minded enough to realize Roon may be surpassed by Stylus at some point, just enjoying Roon so much at present!