After a year of living with my Innuos Zenith Mk III (thread title should have said Mk III, not Mk II) with Roon, I’ve gone back to do a head-to-head test against my original setup of my Mac Mini with Audirvana, both streaming via Tidal HiFi.
After three hours of very intense A/B testing, the winner is.... Audirvana with the Mac Mini. Here are my findings, primarily testing on the first third of Weird Fishes / Argeggi by Radiohead, which I found to accentuate the differences between the two digital sources.
Innuous Mk III with Roon:
- More "drive", at all frequencies - everything hits with a heavier hand.
- Excellent pace and timing - but with that heavy hand I mentioned
- Snare drum that kicks off the song has more forceful delivery, with more emphasis on the lowest frequencies of the snare, and less emphasis on the upper frequencies of the snare.
- Guitars on intro are more full, rich, solid, and in your face.
- Bass may have slightly more bloom.
Mac Mini with Audirvana:
- More natural delivery, more laid back - but still with good pace/timing.
- More crisp snare drums and high-hats - you can "feel" the rasp of the snare and it presents more realistically with dimension and air around each of the beats.
- High-hats hit with more crisp "snap" and less of a full and rich "thwack". You can distinctly hear the high hat detail against the eventual backdrop of guitars and vocals because of this.
- Guitars are less rich, less bloom, less in your face, and overall not quite as pronounced. May have slightly less detail, or could simply be harder to detect detail due to being less pronounced.
As you can see both have pros and cons. But overall, I feel the Mac Mini with Audirvana is more natural, more musically engaging, and easier to listen to. Hate to use this utterly useless descriptor... But the Mac sounds more "analog". I remember going to CD’s for the first time when I was 13 or so, and feeling like the sound was almost too rich, to perfectly well formed, and too devoid of noise.
Of course, this test did not have the controls in place to isolate whether the differences are due to Roon vs Audirvana or due to the Innuos vs Mac Mini. Maybe a bit of both. Really wish that I could install Audirvana on my Innuos, because I strongly suspect I may simply prefer the sound of Audirvana over Roon. I have no factual basis for why I think this - it’s just a hunch. I also have an unfounded theory that the advantages afforded by the Innuos over the Mac Mini may be nullified by the rest of my system. My Gryphon Diablo 300’s DAC module has features to isolate and mitigate inferior electronics of digital sources. For example the DAC has a super-capacitor (yes that’s a real thing) that ensures that the source’s USB voltage regulator does not need to be used for the USB signal. This means that the Mac Mini’s USB voltage regulator does not need to be relied on by the Gryphon DAC. I don’t know exactly how this all works; just that I know there are features in my amp that mitigate inferior external factors, and this could possibly neutralize the hardware advantages that the Innuos might have over my totally unmodified Mac Mini. Just a theory.
Has anyone else noticed these sort of sonic differences I’m highlighting, comparing between Audirvana / Roon but with the same hardware? Also, should I (or can I) run the same test by installing Roon on my Mac Mini? That could help me isolate what differences are a result of the Innuous vs Mac Mini hardware. Not sure how easy this would be to do? Can I do that with one single Roon account?
Appreciate any other thoughts on this, advice, and theories on reasons for the differences. My system:
- Gryphon Diablo 300 with DAC module and Phono Stage
- Clarus Crimson power cable and bi-wire speaker cable
- Innuos Zenith Mk III with Roon (and Mac Mini with Audirvana for comparison)
- Audioquest Diamond USB cable
- B&W 803 D2
