ROON and RAAT

Hi, I'm a Roon user and I bought the lifetime subscription (about $400) since I figured in the long run it'll be be cheaper than the yearly membership of $100 dollars. So you can see, I'm a fan
I love how Roon catlogs and manages my music library and the convenience it brings to home audio - basically mutli-room audio which is not tied to any manufacturer. But I personally didn't hear any difference listening to TIDAL through Roon. But it could be my ears are not sensitive enough...
 
Shuddho1980 said:
Hi, I'm a Roon user and I bought the lifetime subscription (about $400) since I figured in the long run it'll be be cheaper than the yearly membership of $100 dollars. So you can see, I'm a fan
I love how Roon catlogs and manages my music library and the convenience it brings to home audio - basically mutli-room audio which is not tied to any manufacturer. But I personally didn't hear any difference listening to TIDAL through Roon. But it could be my ears are not sensitive enough...
Click to expand...

Shuddho, what were you using before Roon and how much of a difference did it make to the sound quality?
 
Shuddho1980 said:
Hi, I'm a Roon user and I bought the lifetime subscription (about $400) since I figured in the long run it'll be be cheaper than the yearly membership of $100 dollars. So you can see, I'm a fan
I love how Roon catlogs and manages my music library and the convenience it brings to home audio - basically mutli-room audio which is not tied to any manufacturer. But I personally didn't hear any difference listening to TIDAL through Roon. But it could be my ears are not sensitive enough...
Click to expand...

I think using tidal with roon helps with the radio function of Roon which basically plays tracks similar to what you listen to
Also the DSP settings of Roon get applied on tidal streaming as well
 
rikhav said:
I think using tidal with roon helps with the radio function of Roon which basically plays tracks similar to what you listen to
Also the DSP settings of Roon get applied on tidal streaming as well
Click to expand...

Yes, the radio function is brilliant. Not just with Tidal, but with own library, especially if collection is big. I meant, in terms of SQ with Roon vs Tidal app, I don't hear much difference. In terms of usability, I think Roon is better than any other music server I've used. With DSP on Roon vs Tidal with default settings, I couldn't perceive much difference...but then, like I said, I may have dud ears....
 
panditji said:
Shuddho, what were you using before Roon and how much of a difference did it make to the sound quality?
Click to expand...

I had used foobar and Rune for remote server functions. Foobar, VLC for desktop listening and itunes for, obviously, apple music (still use the last since Roon cannot host apple music - only tidal). I didn't find any difference in SQ (upto 24/194 and DSD 256). But Roon is miles ahead in terms of usability. It really brings back the pleasure of reading record labels, and there is so much information available on the artist. the Radio function is amazing - especially if you have a big library - I have been 'rediscovering' songs I have already owned but never heard for like forever. In terms of being able to use external end points - both have their strengths, Roon is definitely subject to less interference/dropouts than DLNA/UpNP based servers - but you have to understand that Roon uses its own proprietary transport (RAAT) and not DLNA like foobar/Rune and other music servers - so any DLNA renderer (which are very common) will not work. Dedicated Rune endpoints are very expensive, so typical work around is to load Roon bride software on a raspberry pi and connect it to your active speakers/ integrated receiver etc. If you can use a digital pass through from RPi to your endpoint, the shitty SQ of the Rpi will not matter; however if your integrated amp/ receiver/active speakers don't have usb input, you'll have to get a HAT DAC for your RPi to output via TOSLINK/Co-ax.

Having said that Roon also supports airplay and bluetooth (with bandwidth limitations inherent in these protocols). However, same song cannot be played on different devices in that case since Rune timer doesn't work with airplay etc (airplay doesn't give endpoint control to Roon like it requires).

Many people also use Roon with foobar, Jriver etc.
 
Last edited:
The latest update of Roon let's it decode MQA

Don't have tidal so not tried but now we can listen to all mqa titles on tidal within roon

Earlier if I am not wrong the desktop application of tidal was needed to listen to mqa tracks on tidal with dacs not supporting hardware decoding of mqa
 
Nikhil said:
Yes I am using Tidal with Roon + HQPlayer

So far I have to say I am quite impressed with how Tidal sounds by itself.


.
Click to expand...
That is good news , Nikhilji. Reduces our expenses by half.
Straying from the topic but how is the Indian music collection of Tidal ?
 
amitk777 said:
Straying from the topic but how is the Indian music collection of Tidal ?
Click to expand...

That's an interesting question. You will be amazed at what I found.
Just to give you an idea I typed in a few famous Hindi music names and here are the screenshots

(Safe to say that it would be impossible to find this much music in a lifetime as what I got in about 10 mins)

Asha Bhosle (87 albums)

Asha Bhosle.jpg

Kishore Kumar (40 albums)

Kishore Kumar.jpg

Mohd Rafi (36 albums)

Mohd Rafi.jpg

Mukesh (18 albums)

Mukesh.jpg


Lata Mangeshkar (52 albums)

Lata Mangeshkar.jpg
 
It's tough to be certain of file source provenance but it's good to get 16/44.1
Here is my signal path showing the source to be 16 / 44.1 - sounds good enough for me.

Roon Path.jpg
 
I could never find so much bollywood albums , and this is all classic Bollywood
 
Nikhil said:
It's tough to be certain of file source provenance but it's good to get 16/44.1
Here is my signal path showing the source to be 16 / 44.1 - sounds good enough for me.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Nikhil. It is tempting , but like many other good things in life, slightly out of reach. :)

For my humble setup , at the end of which is a Raspberry PI + HiFiBerry DAC+, Roon has significantly up-scaled the sound. it is hard for me now to find the difference between a MP3 Vs FLAC playback.
I used the Roon endpoint. It is significant upgrade on the highly respected piCoreplayer. :), but I would keep the piCoreplayer as a end point though because I can stream Google music to it.
 
amitk777 said:
Thanks, Nikhil. It is tempting , but like many other good things in life, slightly out of reach. :)

For my humble setup , at the end of which is a Raspberry PI + HiFiBerry DAC+, Roon has significantly up-scaled the sound. it is hard for me now to find the difference between a MP3 Vs FLAC playback.
I used the Roon endpoint. It is significant upgrade on the highly respected piCoreplayer. :), but I would keep the piCoreplayer as a end point though because I can stream Google music to it.
Click to expand...

What room end point you use with raspberry pi ?
The one which can be installed by dietpi?

I just discovered the end point being installed by dietpi is roon ver 1 and latest is ver 1.5.

I am sure there will be benifits to use latest version of end point

Am I missing some auto update feature with dietpi ?
 
I think even for the Raspberry Pi end point installation we need a paid license copy of the Roon right?
 
manniraj said:
I think even for the Raspberry Pi end point installation we need a paid license copy of the Roon right?
Click to expand...


We have to enter registered email address on roon server software and without server working nothing will work
So yeah in a way nothing works without being paid
Or if you have trial
 
Last edited:
Saw in my mailbox that Roon 1.5 is out. Looks like it can do MQA "Roon can perform MQA authentication and core decoding (the first "unfold" of the MQA process) and send 96/88.2kHz 24-bit high-resolution directly to your legacy DAC or speaker, either over USB or your network". I'm definitely curious about how this works/ sounds

(also saw in my mailbox that my Gungnir MB is ready for delivery)

Aargh! because
It's all so far away from me
So far I just can't see
It's all so far away from me

ciao
gr
 
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