Shootout: Roon versus Plex, Qobuz versus Tidal: Who Won?

Mapman,

Thanks for the comparison’s. I have done the same, with my EVO 150, between Tidal and Qobuz and came to the same conclusion as you have....sound wise it’s a wash so Qobuz wins on being the cheaper option, although, from what I’v read, I think Tidal may have the larger catalog

The MQA makes it a difficult choice though as it is an easier load on the/my network even though my provider is fi-optic.

Curious as to what Roon input settings you used, did you bi-pass MQA in comparison, as I did? If so did you stream using DSD up-sampling settings, which is what causes clipping and freezing on my network? I seem to gravitate to the DSD settings when available. It seems as if MQA diminishes the choices of Roon upsampling to no choice?? Do you agree, about MQA diminishing the choices, or am I missing something, which is entirely possible.

I recently, after the comparison, got new speakers LSR+ replacing the older LSR. I have now discovered that much of my fiddling was due to the hi-mid frequency roughness of the LSRs. Plus my room has 16 windows so that roughness was exaggerated 4 fold. Now I care much less about settings but I am still curious what settings you and others use with the EVO or any equipment that has a MQA upsampling DAC.

I've tried all of those services and stayed with Tidal. Roon shouldn't be in the mix since it isn't really a streaming service like the others. They can't improve the sound unless you possibly use convolution filters.

Since Lumin has announced support for Plex, I did a casual comparison. My results were very different to yours. Plex(amp) did not sound worse than Roon. And that was a bit of a disappointment to be honest. I expected Roon to sound better (being a Roon lifetime sub), but it just didn't.  It was too close to call if either sounded different, let alone better. I'll be doing several more comparisons in the future though. 

@willywonka Part of Roon is it’s digital streaming engine. The details of how the digital streaming is done certainly can and does determine the resulting sound. Roon’s DSP user functionality is simply an extension of that,  the part  that Roon Gives users control of. 

@audiom3 thats neat that lumin now natively supports Plex.  In my case I was running Plexamp on various devices and connecting to Cambridge Evo via USB2, Airplay and Chromecast.   I’m sure each case can be different.  
 

Also what sounds “best” is often a culmination of many factors some technical and some mere personal preference or both.  I preferred Roon over Plex on my setup. Speakers were mainly KEF ls50 meta + sub which is a very revealing setup.  Others could draw a different conclusion.  Plex is no slouch, especially when listening remotely via headphones.