Current quality of Rune

I’ve been into computer based audio for over 15 years. I’ve tried pretty much all the software during that time; Pure Music (Channel D), Audirvana, JRiver, Bit Perfect, Roon, and probably others that I’ve since forgotten.

Based on my experiences, I purchased a lifetime Roon subscription when I first became available.

I periodically try other programs, but always come back to Roon for its sound quality, ease of use, and integration with Qobuz and HQ Player.

“Is it reliable? Good sound quality?

@sls883

The answer to your query, YES! Roon got the best UI (user interface) and streaming SQ greatly varies on the choice of hardware used as an endpoint (render) and server.

The preference between Audirvana vs Roon is clearly dominated by end user experience. You will find people in both camps swearing by its superiority, based on their experience. In both instances, the bottom line is implementation and choice of hardware. Both software are capable of good sound quality. I would suggest that you focus on your choice of hardware and allow yourself to get fully acclimated to Roon. There is a bit of learning curve with Roon, once you do familiarize yourself with Roon, you won’t be disappointed.

IME, Roon offers the best streaming experience! 

@lalitk I have Roon installed on my laptop and it's running. I installed the program on my tablet as well.

Are there any particular settings that I should check? 

I'll do some homework and get more familiar with the program. 

Quick listen, it sounds good. 

This static problem may not be related to Roon.  It's often a problem withe the DAC not syncing the right bit rate.  For instance, playing 96/24 and then switching to 44/16.  I've had some luck fixing this a couple of different ways. You can upsample everything to the same bit rate, for instance, 96/24.  Then your DAC never has to switch.  It's not a bad approach as some DACs simply perform better at higher sample rates. 

The other approach is to go into the advanced (I think) settings of your DAC and increase the inter song delay.  Also worth checking you have the correct maximum sample rates.

@sls883 

Running Roon on a laptop is what I consider a basic set up. A good way to determine if you can get used Roon app interface and its features. If you like the Roon user interface (UI) then you can look into commercially successful hardware to take full advantage of its potential. I would read up on @sns posts. He has pretty much laid out the road map for anyone who wants to learn, build a SOTA streaming experience using Roon. 

Some folks will make their case that running Roon render and server separately will yield the best SQ. That’s not my experIence. To my earlier comment, the devil is in the details. If you pick a component that has managed to carefully execute both functionalities (end point + server) in one box then running a Roon server remotely is not necessary and would also keep things simple. 

I am using a one box purpose Roon render/server + DAC that allows me to take full advantage of Roon features and renders amazing sound quality.