Xscaper Posted January 22, 2020 Posted January 22, 2020 Hey guys, So I am currently on a 2 week Roon trial and I do like it a lot so far. Although I am pretty adept at my own tagging system but there is something about the Roon UI and additional metadata that has me enamoured so I am seriously contemplating buying a lifetime membership or at least the yearly one. My main concern is the sound quality. CXNv2 is Roon tested but not Roon ready which means it uses either airplay or built in Chromecast instead of the propriety RAAT protocol. I’ve tried both those options with CXN. The airplay is noticeably inferior quality whereas Chromecast seems quite similar to the quality I get from UPNP via minim server. Roon indicates that the audio chain is “lossless” when playing via Chromecast built in on the CXN and only “hi fi” when playing via airplay. I would love to get opinions from people who have tried Roon with Roon tested devices (via airplay/Chromecast) as well as with Roon ready devices (via RAAT) and if there was a big difference in sound quality between the Chromecast and RAAT playback. This is important to me as I’d like to know straight off the bat if am going to have to look at upgrading my streamer down the track if I go with Roon.
Guest Posted January 22, 2020 Posted January 22, 2020 Suggest trying optical input from Roon server to CXN. The sound quality does depend on individual devices. I am using UPnP with MinimServer to Devialet Phantoms which are Roon tested. Tried Roon using Airplay and optical in to Phantoms, but UPnP beat both with a better sound stage. RAAT will be coming, but not sure whether it will be better. Users of Devialet Expert Pro, which have RAAT, are divided on whether there is an improvement. I was not convinced of Roon's user interface nor tagging capability and, together with better SQ of UPnP, decided not to take up Roon. In your case, you are enamoured with Roon (which many are!). Your decision then is to decide WHEN to upgrade to a Roon Ready streamer.
Bunno77 Posted January 22, 2020 Posted January 22, 2020 Very slight/irrelevant difference between Roon via Chromecast and via USB on the CXN V2 1
Xscaper Posted January 22, 2020 Author Posted January 22, 2020 5 minutes ago, Snoopy8 said: Suggest trying optical input from Roon server to CXN. The sound quality does depend on individual devices. I am using UPnP with MinimServer to Devialet Phantoms which are Roon tested. Tried Roon using Airplay and optical in to Phantoms, but UPnP beat both with a better sound stage. RAAT will be coming, but not sure whether it will be better. Users of Devialet Expert Pro, which have RAAT, are divided on whether there is an improvement. I was not convinced of Roon's user interface nor tagging capability and, together with better SQ of UPnP, decided not to take up Roon. In your case, you are enamoured with Roon (which many are!). Your decision then is to decide WHEN to upgrade to a Roon Ready streamer. My Roon server is currently an old PC quite far away from the listening room but I’ll see if I can try to move things around a bit for testing. I do like Roon so far, quite a lot actually but I firmly believe in SQ first and if Roon means compromising on that then it’s a no go. I guess I’ll have to do more A/B testing between UPnP and Roon via Chromecast/optical/USB until I am convinced in one direction or the other. In the meantime, I do appreciate the information you’ve provided about the Roon tested and Roon ready devialet versions and the varying opinions pertaining to the sound quality they deliver with Roon. Hopefully I can more opinions from people who’ve used Roon via Chromecast as well as RAAT.
Guest Posted January 22, 2020 Posted January 22, 2020 1 hour ago, Xscaper said: I do like Roon so far, quite a lot actually but I firmly believe in SQ first and if Roon means compromising on that then it’s a no go. I guess I’ll have to do more A/B testing between UPnP and Roon via Chromecast/optical/USB until I am convinced in one direction or the other. I was neutral to Roon and what it did to the tagging, biography, suggestions. But many people loved those aspects. What I did consider was Roon's DSP but ended up using UPnP convolution (which took less than 50% of CPU resources c.f. Roon). The other thing to consider is Tidal integration to Roon. I do not use Tidal enough. Agree SQ should be the primary driver.
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