Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Hardware with Roon Application Roon trial - SQ

I'm coming to the end of the trial period for Roon. If I sign up I will need to buy a NUC and probably install ROCK when released.

Before I splash out it would be really helpful to get some feedback about SQ when using Roon. I hear a difference between Sooloos and Roon but I know that others here have reported there are no differences. The reason for my experience may be obvious but I'd really like to check it out.

During the trial I've been running Roon on a laptop which is connected via wi-fi, using the iPad app as an interface. I would expect the files held on the laptop to sound worse via Roon than the same albums held on my MD600 and played via Sooloos. But it is less clear to me why music streamed from TIDAL does. Is it simply the use of the laptop?

Would a headless install on a NUC bring the SQ level to the same as Sooloos (for which after all my MD600 is specially designed)?

Thanks in advance.

I use Roon on a NUC QNAP TVS 471.
The sound, compared to Sooloos is identical as I remember.
My network is wired and I use MS200s as end points.

Chris

Clemburt,

As a test can you not just connect your laptop via a LAN cable and see if you hear a difference, as it will just be temporary you should get away without wife approval? I run my Roon core on a Windows 10 laptop with the music on a QNAP NAS, all connected via LAN cables.

I assume you are using the same endpoint for testing Roon that you normally use for Sooloos?

Russ

Assuming you are using the 818 and its ID41 network card as the Endpoint for your Sooloos and Roon systems... then the sound quality will be totally and wholly dictated by the Endpoint... and in other words, the sound will be identical between the Sooloos and Roon systems... for both local music files and Tidal.

Meridian have made this point for years, when people were asking about should they buy the more expensive MC600 versus the MC200... they maintained that as long as the data was streamed over network, then that obfuscated or isolated any noise at the Server / Core end... and thus the sound quality was dictated by the Endpoint... with

818 > MS600 > MS200 > MC200 > C15 in terms of sound quality

Therefore, as long as you feed the 818 streaming data over your network from your Roon server [laptop / NUC / NAS based], then the sound quality will be the same as Sooloos

Is that how you are testing currently?

I'm running Roon on a NUC with music stored on an SSD and my 818 as the endpoint.

I'm running Sooloos on an MC200 and using my 818 as the endpoint.

I'm using an iPad or my desktop as control for both.

As Ronnie said above they should and do sound identical. That is until I enable Acourate convolution in Roon but that's another story.

Ken

Thanks all. Connecting via a LAN cable restored the SQ. I had assumed that connecting via wireless did the same job as cable with any potential issues related solely to reliability of the connection.

I'm relieved not to have to report that it still sounds worse

Well done and thanks for letting us know.

Russ

The latest Roon update is live, no MQA decoding yet though..

Latest iOS Roon app now live

HDD - make a difference to sound quality?

I fear this is almost leading onto, SpeakerLink cables... and their differences!?

Hi Hetetic

In a Roon setup the best practice is to have the library on a USB disk or NAS, the core is typically run on a pc and preferably on an SSD rather than a disk as the dB resides there and the SSD makes a significant difference to performance.

There will always be people who can hear a difference between disks, OS's, colour of cables etc. I have noticed no difference between music via an SSD and a disk.

YMMV

Russ