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Post by liffy99 on Jan 12, 2022 15:54:48 GMT
I’m busy evaluating trial versions of Roon and Audirvana Studio. Initial experience indicates Roon has fewer bugs, better information about the music and a slightly easier to use interface. Audirvana though seems to have a clear advantage in sound quality. It is definitely louder, more dynamic and just has more ‘life’ to it. It is not a subtle difference.
But why the volume difference ? Output volume is set to 100% and assumes volume is controlled by the playback device in both cases. The same track, playing through exactly the same replay chain, is clearly different and much in favour of AV.
I am surprised and, at the moment, it looks as if AV will win my vote.
Anyone else compared the two ?
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Post by John on Jan 12, 2022 16:04:00 GMT
I have not compared myself
What happens if you volume match
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Post by ajski2fly on Jan 12, 2022 18:41:02 GMT
I’m busy evaluating trial versions of Roon and Audirvana Studio. Initial experience indicates Roon has fewer bugs, better information about the music and a slightly easier to use interface. Audirvana though seems to have a clear advantage in sound quality. It is definitely louder, more dynamic and just has more ‘life’ to it. It is not a subtle difference. But why the volume difference ? Output volume is set to 100% and assumes volume is controlled by the playback device in both cases. The same track, playing through exactly the same replay chain, is clearly different and much in favour of AV. I am surprised and, at the moment, it looks as if AV will win my vote. Anyone else compared the two ? Yes, I have used both a reasonable amount, with a RPI/HifiBerry Digione and also Microrendu. I have come to the conclusion that using both with Qobuz or listening to CD quality or higher FLAC from my NAS Drive there is very little difference in SQ, it is important to ensure that both are running with no enhancements or upscaling to compare like for like. From a usability point of view then I consider Roon to be generally the better of the two, it is also rather nice when you you have got to the end of the current play list it then continues selecting music based on you previous listening, I have come across some rather good new music through this. With respect to reliability, Audirvana since it recent updates and move to its Studio version seems to be less stable and it has crashed several times. In contrast Roon has crashed on me once and this happen after I left it running for over 24 hours by mistake. Cost wise there is not much difference between the two now about £3 I think. I think you can go to preferences in either and set volume control to be software controlled, but I could be wrong. Hope that helps a bit. |
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Post by MartinT on Jan 12, 2022 21:02:20 GMT
You should be able to volume match and not in a lossy way. It suggests that one, or both, are doing some sonic manipulation so you need to disable it all in order to hear the stream as intended and to compare them fairly.
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Post by Stratmangler on Jan 13, 2022 0:53:06 GMT
I was going to suggest that some DSP manipulation was taking place too.
Pinpoint where the DSP is, disable it, and your results should be pretty much on par with each other.
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Post by liffy99 on Jan 13, 2022 9:35:48 GMT
Will head back to the setup for both but I don’t recall there being many options to alter that would affect sound quality.
Agree with your other comments though and if I could get Roon to match AV’s sound quality that would be my choice.
Both are expensive mind given that many other alternatives are free or very cheap. On top of that these are subscription models ( with a £30, not £3, difference).
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Post by ajski2fly on Jan 13, 2022 12:45:04 GMT
Both are expensive mind given that many other alternatives are free or very cheap. On top of that these are subscription models ( with a £30, not £3, difference). No, I do not see where you get £30/month from This is from my account and is monthly 08/12/2021 **3534 PURCHASE - INTERNATIONAL WILMINGTON ROONLABS.COM USD 12.99 £9.83 (this is monthly) The one below I cancelled after trialing as I prefer Roon. "Volumio (via Paddle.com)" Thank you for signing up for your Premium Yearly subscription Plan Premium Yearly Subscription Date of Purchase 8th December 2021 Trial Duration 15 days Trial Price Free Price £51.99/year It is currently on their web site as £64.99 or £5.41/month so a price differential of £4.41/month Qobuz I pay £12.99/month which can be used in either of the above. Hope that helps you decide what to do. |
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Post by liffy99 on Jan 13, 2022 14:46:36 GMT
Sorry, I was going by the yearly difference, hence the £30.
I already have a Qobuz subscription.
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Post by ajski2fly on Jan 13, 2022 14:52:15 GMT
Sorry, I was going by the yearly difference, hence the £30. I already have a Qobuz subscription. No worries  |
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Post by liffy99 on Jan 14, 2022 11:38:18 GMT
Aha, found that the input sensitivity on the Lyngdorf was set to +6dB ! Audirvana reacts to this but Roon does not ( uses RAAT whatever that is) even though it feeds the UPNP input.
Shame as I cannot adjust differences between sources unless I level them down to Roon’s level.
At least I can get on with the comparison - at least for as long as AV stops freezing ( libraries and Qobuz load, but no track will play).
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Post by brettj on May 18, 2022 20:47:18 GMT
The user interface of my Project streamer is clunky and not easy to find music.
I have Audirvana+ on a Macbook, but not using it at present.
From what I've read, Roon would tidy this up quite nicely.
The Mac could become my Roon Core using ethernet into my system.
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