Why do I "need" Audirvana, Roon or the like versus just Tidal App?

ROON! I’ve been streaming Tidal for about a year, and love it. I got a Roon Core server/streamer ( https://www.smallgreencomputer.com/collections/audio-server/products/essential-server-player-solutio... ) several months ago, and I can’t imagine giving up Roon--ever. It takes streaming to a level I hadn’t imagined.

Imagine Tidal paired with Wikipedia, where all the artists, albums, tracks, notes, lyrics are hyperlinked and/or displayable. Click, click, click and you’ve taken a deep dive into discovering more new music than you imagined possible. You can arrange playlists, sort many different ways, and organize your library. I just started ripping all my CDs to the server.

$10 a month for Roon, and it’s indispensable, imo. I use an Amazon Kindle 10" tablet as my "remote". You can run the Roon CORE on a PC/Mac, a Roon Nucleus server, or a 3rd party server-streamer like mine. Wyred4Sound makes a nice one, as does Innuos. Your core holds your ripped music and the Roon Core OS, and that streams to your endpoint/streamer. You can have multiple zones in other rooms and stream to those using your server. Music throughout the house!

You can do a 30-day trial, and run the core from a computer on your network to get started, and use the desktop app to control. It’s a cheap way to try it out.

They have just updated Roon to v1.8 and for me it's been flawless since day 1. Some are having glitches but Roon will sort those out quickly. They have an awesome development team, and really care about their product. Ignore the naysayers.

The musicians you speak of who are making pennies on a dollar for their music have a "choice" of whether to have their material on Tidal at all in the first place. So begrudging a streaming service for their contractual deals with artists is silly. As they don't have to be part of it if they choose not to. Copyrights.....

Dug up this old thread.  Today I tested the Qobuz application again, playing Ben Harpers "Winter is for Lovers". Did side by side comparison with Audirvana playing the same high res tracks. 24/96 to my stand alone DAC.  There is no comparison, Audirvana player of same song has much more detail, Shimmer on all of the high notes, and even more reveal of his fingers sliding on the frets. Harlem is a good one to tell all the differences. Audirvana removes a "veil" that exists and I suspect the same reason I like this clarity better than with the Roon test of same. 

Hi phcollie,

I tried to like Audirvana.  I downloaded the latest demo (Mac) and it was a frequent source of random noise, distortion and hiss.  It didn't matter if I was streaming Tidal or Qobuz through it.  Same result.   Damien had me send him logs, etc.  But no solution for me.  So, I bought into the ROON thing.. Sonore Optical Rendu Lite and Small Green Computer Sonic Transport.   So far I am happy. 

I understand.....I have the legacy 3.5 paid version.  On a Mac, that version functions differently as I recall but can not remember the details. The older macs had a usb conflict and some issues with "integer mode".
Works flawlessly on Windows 10 64bit.  The old website detailed some of this but not the new studio site they have up.  Not being judgmental at all but Apple can just be a general pain in the ass.  Some guys had great luck with the post 2008 Macbooks but it still had to fudge the stream a bit compared to the absolute bit perfect with the Windows boxes.