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.
Shootout: Roon versus Plex, Qobuz versus Tidal: Who Won?
After a good bit of up front reading and preparation, a first ever (for me) digital streaming competition took place this weekend at home involving the contenders above. It put many of my preconceived notions about digital streaming these days to the test and was quite the eye opener!
I started with Plex and my personal music library of mostly CD resolution FLAC files. Then I added Roon, Tidal and Qobuz and had it out.
It’s mostly over now. The results were clear.
How did it end? Roon soundly thrashed the spunky upstart Plex. Then Qobuz beat out Tidal mainly based on cost.
Lots to talk about.
Key Findings:
- Plex could not match Roon for overall sound quality or overall listener experience.
- Sound quality to my ears was a wash between Qobuz and Tidal so Qobuz wins mainly based on cost (and no need for MQA though my streamer delivers full MQA compatibility).
I enjoy and tested all genres of music.
Test system was Cambridge Evo 150 to Ohm Walsh F5 speakers in larger main listening room and to KEF ls50 meta speakers + sub in smaller 12x12 room.
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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. |
@soarnatti Roon indicates upsampling is used and The Evo indicates Roon is streaming my CD res flac files to it at 44.1 kHz 32 bit PCM. I have strong WiFi connections and higher res steaming resolution has not been a problem.
I did not bypass MQA when streaming Tidal.
Also so far I have been very happy with the selection on Qobuz and the ability to buy and download is a bonus.
Roon handling of metadata relating to classical music in particular but overall as well is a major leap forward for me and greatly adds to my enjoyment of the service overall.
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- 26 posts total