Streamer Software

I agree about letting hardware and software companies do what they do best. My understanding is that it’s expensive and time consuming to develop music management software, meaning it adds significantly to the cost of a component whose company has done this for its hardware, like dCS that I own (and Aurender and plenty of others). Why not leave it to the range of good software options available in the marketplace, like Antipodes does, and either lower the price of components or put the software development money into sound quality? Anyway... Owning a dCS Rossini with its Mosaic software, and subscribing to Roon, I can compare the two.  (A good while back I owned Aurender and thought its Conductor app was pretty good, although I'd still go with Roon.)  dCS’s Mosaic software is ok, and if it was all I had, I could live with it. SQwise, it occasionally seems slightly better than Roon, but not significantly so. I prefer Roon (I subscribe to Tidal and Qobuz) and use it most of the time. It has significantly more functionality, more information, and greater ease of use. As for reliability, I use Mosaic seldom enough that I can’t comment on this aspect for it, but I can say I’ve had my fair share of annoying problems with Roon, dropouts, missing metadata, connection problems (the dreaded Remote Connection screen). That being said, these problems have improved a lot since I bought a dedicated router (Netgear R7000), possibly illustrating what I’ve been told about such problems, which is that they are more likely a problem with the ISP (I have Comcast) rather than Roon. As for how I use Roon, I stream (nearly my exclusive way of listening) from my Comcast modem, hardwired by CAT 7 ethernet cable to a dedicated router that is ethernet wired (Blue Jeans CAT 6) to a Roon core, for which I am using an Antipodes DX3, which is ethernet wired to my dCS (Roon Ready) Rossini DAC, then going into a preamp, etc. (I won’t take up the issue of desirability or not of using a preamp rather than powering the amp directly from the streamer or DAC, other than saying my Rossini does a pretty or very good job by itself powering the amps.) I use an iPad Air 2 to control Roon. To sum up, to me the presence or absence of a component’s coming with its own software would be very secondary (if not undesirable for reasons stated above) since I prefer Roon, but I suppose it could be a consideration budgetwise for someone wanting to avoid the additional monthly cost of Roon and the streaming services.
Jim Heckman

Thanks Jimski, very good points there. DCS Bartok is definately on my short list, and I’m fine using Roon with it. Still it makes you wonder if company like DCS not able to create piece of software that would competive with Roon on the platform they have designed themselves. All the features, optimizations and no compromise approach they are following on hardware side, it should be better on their own devices. I would understand that Roon would be the best generic software that has broader support with number of streamers, but if we have situation where Roon is better than the manufacturer’s own solutions, there is a risk that flow of a new capabilities and innovations will slow down. Therefore I think it’s important to review always also the software and make sure bugs are made visible for the manufacturers, maybe even rate the level of the software.

I don’t find Roon to be rock steady so I also use the native Kazoo app on my Linn DSM systems. Like most of these software titles they just give you a way to browse Radio TuneIn stations, Tidal, Qobuz, etc, plus access to your own library (assuming you have a server system for same)...

Photomax so from your point of view Linn’s own Kazoo app performes better that Roon? Would you be share some of things Kazoo does better and what you especially like? I have heard a good things from Kazoo as well, but also some not so nice things like some serious bugs. Have you encountered any bugs?

Lots of good information here.  I have experience with Aurender’s conductor (I own an N100H and use it extensively in system 2).  I have experience with Auralic’s Lighting DS (I own an Aries G2 and use it in system 1).  I have experience with BluOS (I have a Node and retired it to system 3 - kitchen).  I used to use Roon with the Node 2 and then on the Auralic.

If your primary concern is user Interface, Roon is hard to beat.  In my view, Aurender’s conductor would be next, followed by BluOS and LDS.  I auditioned Lumin before buying the Auralic and would put Lumin’s app as similar to LDS.

However, if your concern is sound quality, I found LDS to be significantly better than Roon over the same device. My speculation is that the software better utilizes the buffers built into the hardware. Comparing the same streams across the software, (no conversions), it was pretty easy to hear the superiority of LDS over Roon.

I didn’t make the same comparison of BluOS vs Roon because the Node 2 isn’t a higher performance unit and I didn’t think it worth making the comparison.  

I’ve had some issues with stability on all of the units but Aurender’s conductor seems best in this regard.  it’s the most stable of the bunch.

Best,