dannyroonlabs

The Roon partner programs are described here: https://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_partner_programs RoonBridge is an implementation of the RAAT SDK that partners get, but sits on the audio stacks of the operating systems it supports, and not embedded hardware.

Sorry @The Computer Audiophile -- I didn't see this until just now... according to Brian, the fix for that D1100 issue went out a while ago.

Danny from Roon Labs here... I'm not going to vote, but just wanted to say that normally I treat praise as a sign that we are just doing things OK… but just seeing a lot of acknowledgment from so many left me feeling proud

There is another option without doing anything questionable.... If a track is played by any user, we can do analysis on it in real-time, and then save that information, keyed on the TIDAL ID for that track. The waveform data, the DR data, etc... are all tiny (just a few kilobytes). We can upload that to a centralized database in Roon's cloud infrastructure that all Roon users could pull down as they view information about TIDAL albums/tracks. So, the first time anyone does anything, it won't give you data... but as soon as ANY Roon member plays the album, we will have the data for all subsequent viewers of that album. Crowd-sourced, seamless, and without any buffering or stream downloading.

Almost correct. See details here at the very bottom of the page: https://kb.roonlabs.com/Dynamic_Range

This is assuming you trust the DAC to do the best thing. The HQPlayer enthusiasts say it can do a better job than your DAC, and end up giving your DAC a stream that requires less massaging into analog.

This post is pure gold.. It's so hard to explain this stuff, and you really did nail it. I hope a lot of people try to understand this. This DSD vs PCM discussion would be mostly moot if people understood this. It's all about context. Calling bit-perfect a myth however is generalizing a bit too much. It's just that it's not doing any manipulation in a segment of the end-to-end chain.

Yes, and I'd say the same of architecture if all that existed were the classics!

I am interested in your critiques, but you shouldn't do it in a PM. You should do it in public on our community site, so others can see too.

Roon delivers bitperfect untweaked audio, because I want the options of opinionated audio conversion/rendering to be a user choice. In the case of UI, I have very strong opinions, and Roon is the manifestation of those opinions. If you disagree with me on the two areas where I have a lot of opinions (UI/UX and networking), then you will find me not holding back any punches. The use of the word "terrible" is something I will stick to, as I truly do believe that the experiences of navigating spreadsheets in music software is terrible. I also find it lazy that in 2 decades, the world has so few solutions that have moved past the archaic models that were first implemented in the mid 1990s.

So, while this is case usually, try, let me give you a counter example: Let's say you have an audio renderer device you've bought, and inside there is a DAC chip. Some DAC chips take N bit PCM input and output analog. Some DAC chips take 1 bit DSD input and output analog. What you'll see is that a lot of actual DAC chips out there support the DSD model better, mostly because it's much cheaper to make a 1 bit wide DAC chip than it is to make a much wider (32bits) chip. So how do you play PCM content on those DSD DAC chips? Well, the renderer has other stuff in it to convert the PCM to DSD before feeding the data to the DAC chip. Yes, many of your beloved devices actually do this. In the case of HQPlayer, they feel that they can do a better job of that conversion of PCM->DSD than some hidden thing in a box. They also let you tweak it. Yes, it takes a lot of power to do so, but the reality is that their conversion is way better than a lot of stuff out there that's "hidden" away in the boxes. So, if you look at the full chain in these hardware cases where the actual DAC chip is 1bit, it looks the same: PCM->DSD->DAC->analog -- the question is who is doing what and at what stage. That's one of the keys of why HQPlayer sounds so great -- it's bypassing the machinery in the box and giving you something much better... assuming your end to end chain is "compatible". However, if something in the PCM phase tweaks the audio, then you are putting crap into the DSD conversion process. Roon tries hard to not only avoid that, but to tell you when it is happening (signal path). Then, how that bit perfect stream is rendered, is irrelevant to Roon. People who compare HQPlayer SQ to Roon's SQ are clearly missing the purpose and techniques of both pieces of software. It's kinda like saying your car is better than your turbo charger.

no, one of Roon's core motivations is to take files out of the experience.

Generally a good strategy, but I like to hear complaints... it helps us improve the product :-)

It's been able to do this from the first day :-) It's a huge piece of software... lots of ways to do lots of things. We are thinking about increasing our trial length to help users figure this out. Some more tutorials would help too. No keyboard is required -- remember, we are fully functional on tablets.

I'm clearly missing what you are saying, since I'm seeing that we have exactly what you want. We have that unit you describe... The abstract thing is the "work", and the concrete is a "performance" of that work. An album is just a collection of performances. A cantatas, sonata, organ piece, opera, and others are all works. If the album masterer split a performance of that work into 3 tracks (maybe per part/movement?), then that clump of 3 tracks equals 1 performance of that work. For example, I just went to Composers, then Bach, then his work "BWV 1010", which I have a performance of on a Yo-Yo Ma album (tracks 19-21 on his 1998 release of The Cello Suites). Or, can find that Yo-Yo Ma album by either doing a focus for composer/Bach on the Album Browser (or one of the many other ways to find albums), and then seeing that tracks 19-21 are clumped together and instead of repeating boring track names over and over, it breaks up the performance into the work + the movements/parts it consists of. It lets you play them in 1 clump, or play an individual movement. It also gives you a link to go back to the work BWV 1010, so you can see the other performances of that same work. If you want to see all your symphonies, go to work browser and focus on symphonies. If you want to also see them based on a certain composer, or in a certain form, you can do that too within focus. Or maybe you are looking for a performance browser where you can sort by composer -> work, similar to the track browser where you can sort by artist -> album?