@scotte1 That’s a reasonable question about Roon. There seems to be nearly universal respect for the user interface that Roon provides for management of music files. However, there are also concerns expressed by some about cost, complexity, and possibly a few compromises in sound quality. I’m planning to see what SQ and UI I can achieve with more basic server/streamer software as a first step and then look to Roon later if I’m unhappy with the results of step one.
My reasons for going away from Roon after 3 years were primarily: I hate subscription-model deals (barely use Adobe products any more though I’ve spent thousands over the years on pro packages); and you have to use a Roon core of some kind. A database with a sound…?
I realize I can buy lifetime sub, but at that time, I’d missed out on the $350 for life, and the $500 for life (currently $700), and I’d put in 3 years of annual money…and there was a lot of talk about it not sounding as good as alternatives that required neither.
Having said all that - I don’t preclude the possibility of going back to it, as it is still the 800-lb. gorilla for good reason. But what it does is not at the top of my list.
I’ve had two Sonos products for almost 10 years, mostly a soundbar under the TV. Sonos because a $1billion company because they were way in front of anyone else in software design and product development at a very good price. To get that big your software has to be faultless.
I used Auralic from about 2013 to 2019 and also thought their software was great, including Qobuz integration from the beginning (which I think is why I bought it) and network integration very soon afterwards. My son has my Aries Mini and loves it.
I bought an Innuos Zen in February 2019 as a Roon server and have also found it faultless, because it is built from the ground up with 10 years of product development and is a very simple device with everything sensibly designed, hardware, software, power supply, casing and feet.
I also use BluOs and it is so good that if I didn’t have a Devialet I’d seriously consider an NAD M33. It integrates with the Innuos library as easy as anything.
There seem to be so many products on the market that work faultlessly there seems no excuse for anything not to do so and not to be able to integrate with other systems. On that point, the idea that the proposed Octave server cannot integrate with other systems for me disqualifies it as a server.
10-4.
I would not worry about complexity. My experience is with an iMac hosting the software and feeding the Big Rig via Wi-Fi to a router. FWIW, sound quality is great but can be bested and is, like most things in this hobby, system and preference dependent.
In short, don’t let others’ experience and preferences keep you from an audition.
The software has performed absolutely flawlessly during my time. I mean 0 hiccups or need for trouble shooting.
One more “FWIW”: If you subscribe to Tidal or Qobuz, wedding Roon to these services and using it to command and control the music is an absolute pleasure.
All that said, for critical listening I prefer listening to my filed music via JRiver Media Center over Roon.
Have fun.
Thanks for sharing your experience Scott. What is it that makes you prefer JRiver for critical listening to locally stored files?
Thanks for the advice, scotte1. I already subscribe to Qobuz and use it within the Sonos environment (but not with the internal DAC). The Sonos UI is great - and very stable using the mesh network - but I’m looking for better SQ with a streamer/server upgrade and probably a wired connection to my home network.
I’m not yet willing to spend the money needed to get into the Esoteric, higher end Aurender, or Innuos Statement neighborhood, so I’ll probably get an Innuos Zen (or Zenith) or one of the less expensive Auralic models. At least there are lots of options.
Steven, thanks for sharing your experience with Sonos, Auralic, and Innuos gear. It’s really helpful to hear from long-time users. I agree that PS Audio is taking a risk by not designing Octave to run Roon since it puts a lot of pressure on Octave software to work without bugs from the start.
In my system my ripped and downloaded files strike me as better sounding overall (via JRMC), as opposed to listening to the same files via Roon (same system only difference is Roon vs JRMC).
I believe others have reported a similar experience.
On the whole however, great music and good recordings are more important than my software choice.
FWIW,
Scott
I think not having Roon will put off some people, but Paul wanted to make it better than Roon. Good luck with that. From 2009 to 2013 I used Linn Kinsky and several of these applications (Kinsky, Lightning and Roon in particular) have had a huge amount of development AFTER their initial release to get to where they are now.
A bigger issue is, for example, having Octave but then if you have a Bluesound or NAD unit in another room it cannot index the music on the Octave hard drive. If that is the case, and I understand it is, it is nonsensical. I hope it turns out not to be the case. There is just no point having music storage that cannot be shared. Linn has only ever worked with network storage (very sensible long term planning) and Auralic realised this early on and developed Lightning Server so internal or usb storage can be shared with other Auralic devices.
Octave will have bugs - loads of them. It’s always the case. The key is being able to respond and fix quickly. Auralic were very good at this, the main guy Danny spending loads of time collecting information from the forum and often pushing software fixes within days.
What is JRMC?
On my Innuos with Roon, CDs ripped WAV bit perfect, if they are sent without any DSP (I don’t use Roon’s DSP), it is exactly the same data as ripped in the first place. If there are any sound quality issues with Roon it is probably due to the usb implementation of the streamer. I don’t use usb as Innuos offer an RJ45 socket for data output and I use that.
JRMC = JRiver Media Center (https://jriver.com)
I don’t use USB connections and I don’t use a stand alone “streamer”.
Roon and JRMC are on my iMac (along with my ripped and downloaded music files). I “stream” my files and Qobuz and Tidal subscription tunes via Wi-Fi to a router and then Ethernet to my Bridge II Ethernet Card/PSA DS Sr…
When switching from JRMC to Roon and vice versa, the only thing that changes in my system is the rendering software. I don’t have either software configured/set to do any tweaking/DSP-ing to the files. I leave all of that up to the DS DAC and my preamplifier.
There are various filters, upsampling and parametric EQ that can be set up in Roon and quite a few people use them, especially parametric EQ. It’s not different from running Dirac on a Mac Mini. I use a Devialet Expert that also has the option to apply parametric EQ and certain filters and upsamples everything to 30/384 PCM anyway. It really depends how much if any tweaking you want to do. I wasn’t aware that the DSD DAC does more than having a choice of filters, which you get on a load of DACs, such as the superb Audiolab MDAC+ for less than $1,000.
Did not mean to imply the DS does any more than DtoA conversion; it does not AFAIK.
I could not agree more, music is the reason we are in this hobby. I am planning to go for Roon with Nucleus+ mainly for files off Naim Uniti Core SSD server. Also, I will test Nucleus+ USB connection to DAC.
Hi Steven,
I have 2 Naim servers that do bit perfect WAV ripping, but have a FLAC option. After numerous listening tests, I opted for FLAC to save drive space. Once Nucleus+ is here, I am planning test it with oversampling as Roonlabs claim Nucleus+ is especially good for 44.1/16 files. I will test it with USB and put some feedback after a fortnight of burn-in.
I read and article once that claimed that there was a very obvious difference between a FLAC file and a WAV file and that in order to hear the very best from your files you should only rip to WAV. But WAV doesn’t allow very good tagging options and when I listen as carefully as I can I don’t allow myself to hear a difference between WAV and FLAC. I’m so glad.
Yup +1
You can try aiff. It is uncompressed (as wav) and lossless. And allows for metadata as flac (which is compressed but lossless). But I, for myself, can’t hear a difference in any of these formats
I see Mytek have launched a do everything streamer, DAC, preamp with 8TB SSD storage, MM/MC and 8 analogue inputs, with its own operating system and Roon. Only $20,000.
my two cents. I just have an Aurender N100H but its been rock solid and with great support when I needed it (rarely). I would definitely buy their products again. If I had an N10 with those kinds of problems I would be talking to them first. Ari is very helpful .