Very interesting, and I am not even a Roonie. Impressive. Thank you!
I am not surprised crucifixion awaits those on the Roon forum who question the sound quality of Roon. We have a number here who do not deal with this topic well. Roon is more than a bit cult-like.
I donāt think Roon is cult-like at all. It has a huge amount of users with a vast range of hardware (there are dozens of Roon Ready brands) and most of the threads on the Roon community are about set-up and system configuration issues. There are also many threads about how to get most out of the music management. There are very few about sound quality. If you search āSound Qualityā the threads relate almost entirely to external equipment rather than the Roon software itself. It is a very friendly and helpful forum.
You can do what @brett66 does. My system is completely plug-and-play, with no tweaks at all. I use an Innuos Roon Core that acts as a server for 5 endpoints, the main system wired and 4 others by wifi, all of which are Roon Ready. The Innuos also acts as a local Roon Player (i.e. as a streamer) in my office, by usb.
If all the equipment for all 6 zones were to arrive boxed, I could easily set the whole lot up from scratch inside an hour. Red are signal cables, green are power. Very few signal cables are involved.
No cult member ever does . . . 
Linn is cult-like, mainly because Linn is designed to work with Linn and the streaming is a closed system.
Roon is the complete opposite. Roon Ready is a protocol that any manufacturer can implement and dozens do because it solves so many problems and is incredibly user-friendly.
The ultimate proof that Roon is not a cult is the fact that my wife happily uses it, in fact she loves it, and sheās a complete technophobe. To her itās just an app for playing music and listening to the radio. She has no idea what a server is or where the music comes from.
āThe lady doth protest too much, methinksā
Hamlet, William Shakespeare,
Quite the opposite. The beauty of Roon, like Sonos, is that it takes the nerdiness out of audio because it makes audio family friendly and just like any other appliance or device installed in the house.
You donāt even need Roon Ready devices because it can be enabled via Airplay and it doesnāt stop me using any devices with Spotify, Bluetooth etc.
Itās just a really clever music management and distribution system and as far as I am aware there is nothing else like it, for the simple reason that so many audio brands have implemented it.
Sonos, BluOs and Heos are all very good multi-room systems, but they are all closed.
Cult: veneration and excess devotion directed toward a particular figure, object, or bit of software.
The Urban Dictionary top result for āfanboyā comes to mind.
Yes, plenty of Roon fanboys. Iāve treaded that direction in some of the arguments because Iām a huge fan of Roon and the Roon Labs team. However, I try to keep balance of my fandom and the reality that no software is perfect. Does that make me part of a cult? Wellā¦ no ones sent me a uniform yet soā¦
I loves me some Roon, but itās no cult. 
If you go over to the Roon forum there about nine hundred and ninety-nine posts complaining about 1.8 before itās even come out. Itās a tough and needy crowd.
lifetime cult member here.
it sounds super swell on my modest system.
some say Qobuz sounds better than Tidal; canāt speak to that, tho i subscribe to both services.
integrates streaming and local files pretty nicely.
easy to find and play internet radio stations.
changed the way I listen to music, Iāll admit that.
I still play vinyl records.
my dog has bad breath.
thanks for listening to my TED talk.
Thatās too bad. I expect the update has some nice advances. It will not be everything for everybody, but I am always delighted with an update.
My āa bit cult-likeā comment was in recognition that any time Roon comes up here, and elsewhere, there are typically adherents who do not deal well with any adverse comments, such as questioning Roonās sound quality. Often the actual criticism is ignored, replaced with responses of āRoon is easy, pervasive, clever, simple, friendly,ā etc.
And they post like mad.
My comment was not meant to derail the thread. Sorry. I should have not poked the Roon bear by noting the cult-like, fanboy qualities.
But I thought Roon addresses dog bad breath. Maybe in version 1.9.
used to be that you could choose between a monthly bag of greenies dog-breath treats or ādark modeā
Boy, youāre right Elk. While itās widely known I am not a fan of Roonās sound quality, I do love their interface and this new version seems really quite friendly and good.
Still, their sound quality issues remain and that stops me from using Roon and going towards the far inferior looking Audirvana which sounds remarkably better.
āTis a shame.
We all know that Roon and its Nucleus + the established streamer brands are the number one competitor to the upcoming Octave, so itās not surprising to see some pushback from PSA.
I would like to hear Roon in @brett66 's set up. It looks like he is on to something.
I believe Roon could sound much better, it just does not appear to be a priority. Their focus is elsewhere.
I do not hear a discernible difference between a CD played on a transport vs. a ripped CD played through Roonās interface. They both sound great. Iām glad for that, as I would hate to lose Roonās interface and functionality.
Iād love to sit in front of a stereo where I could hear the difference, but I think highly resolving systems can be both a blessing and a curse.
So, was this attributed to someone other than Roon?
TIA.
No truer words have been said, though I will take the bad with the good because when the good works itās sooooo much better it makes it all worth while.
Looks like Iām going to try Roon for the third time. I think Iām gonna make it stick this time. Making lots of changes to my digital front end too (record selling money).
One thing Iām considering is a dedicated server for Roon. Canāt decide between a nuc running rock or a better computer running Roon server for windows. Decisions, decisions.
I tried many flavors of OS for my dedicated Roon core server (MacOS, Windows, Linux) and in the end the best SQ in my system was when running Euphony OS as the Roon Core.
