Sound quality of Roon

Roon works great for me. Using with Qobuz through my Moon 680D with Mind2. Perfect.

I am sad I am this late to the game on this thread. It’s been a busy week for me. I agree with many individual points I read through this thread, but I thought it might be helpful to summarize it all into a single stream of thoughts.

I whole-heartedly agree that Roon as a software platform is not “supposed” to have a sound. But everything does. That said, it’s sound is indescribable because as others say it is coupled with the hardware and software architectures that are used to run it.

Just as any other interface, Roon has its own memory requirements. Unlike other installable platforms, it requires some more modern capabilities like graphics with OpenGL, and if you plan to use HQPlayer in partnership to upsample your files through Roon (a fairly popular direction for many), then the hardware requirements become even more intensive. When processing increases, it will “generally” introduce more noise into the system. But not in all cases. This will be a major argument for people who opt against Roon - that it is process-hungry, and that it is easier to reach an outcome with Roon that is noisier than other platforms. I often find myself in this boat, but there are some very good solutions that implement Roon properly, including servers like the Grimm MU1 and the Pink Faun 2.16 Ultra, both of which reside north of $10K. But what does that say? Nothing more than the total outcome with Roon depends on the surrounding hardware and software architectures as mentioned above.

The question could then become “How does Roon sound at certain price points”? This allows us to look past just Roon and into the remainder of the streamer/server solution. Too many times Roon is paired with less than optimal hardware which then results in a weaker performance overall. Roon’s own servers, ROCKs and NUCs do not provide the same level of performance as the units mentioned higher above. But do they sound bad? It’s all relative. They will still sound CONSIDERABLY better than the streamer / server inside the Bluesound Node N130 or Bluesound Vault, but they will likely not replace a mid-high-end vinyl rig for many (though it might if convenience is more important than sound quality). But with some units, Roon is good enough to be the primary vehicle for delivering a source.

Yes, Roon’s user interface and smooth experience are a big benefit to it as no other proprietary softwares are as easy to use or sexy to look at. But I do believe there are many excellent options offered where a manufacturer’s software platform is tightly coupled with the hardware that it is designed to run on, while also requiring less processing power overall to run. I also don’t think a subscription should be necessary to pay for the experience. This is why I’ve chosen the Aurender N30SA as my personal reference, and why when I started a high end audio business in April I became an authorized dealer for them.

There is not one “best” solution on the streaming/serving market, and luckily there are many good to great ones!

@troidelover1499 To add to my post above, I guess I should ask - is there a particular unit you are looking to use that would act as a Roon core? I would suggest refraining from using an existing laptop or computer as they typically introduce noise into the equation. And you should not need to invest in a tablet if you have a capable smartphone that the Roon app can run on. 

@blisshifi Dynamite summery.

I’m not sure Roon has a sound...it simply organizes your music. My streaming service is Tidal and I stream through an Ultra Rendu into a Modwright Oppo 205. That’s where the sound comes from...

My complaint against Roon, and one of the reasons I’m thinking of getting away from it and using Tidal Connect now that it’s becoming more popular, is it’s not user friendly when you encounter problems...and you will at some point encounter problems.

As previously mentioned, no customer service to call, no walk you through the problem. Instead you have to go to their forums and search for a solution. I’ve never found a solution that matches with the individual problems I have with Roon.

The worst of it is, that twice I’ve had Roon crash and stop working completely. In order to get it up and running again I ended up trashing my account and losing thousands of favorites and playlists.

With this said, I’ll admit I’m not a tech person...however I’m thinking that cutting out Roon and just running straight from Tidal may be the way to go for me.