Goodmorning everyone.
According to those who have had concrete experiences in this regard, does the Naim app with the Qubuz provider generally sound better or different than the roon labs system used without resorting to oversampling or equalization?
I specify that I have a NOVA as an endpoint.
Thank you all for the answers and any insights.
No they both sound the same to me on my Atom. But Roons way of managing my library, multiroom and integration of my own media and Qobuz wins hands down.
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I have a Star and an Atom HE and am unable to hear a difference between the two on both Uniti devices.
I am using Roon exclusively as listening source these days. And don’t have any sound processing or eq activated.
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With me on uniti Nova, you can hear qobuz over the roon better
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The sound of the Naim app has a better soundstage, and the sound is overall clear. The small details and nuances of a track are more perceptible like giving to the tv a little more sharpness.
But that’s my in my setup. But I use roon and only when comparing directly the same track I identify this changes, I get better sound from the Naim app unfortunately the app is not very good. Bluesound has a superior app not by far but better.
The roon experience is far superior in the app usage and I live easily with the quicks, Maybe is my roon server and need to get a dedicated server exclusively for roon.
If I use my secondary system they sound the same.
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sonwieo what naim equipment do you have.
From Naim only the ndx 2.
Take into account that the NDX 2 is solid upgrade from the Uniti products so it will reveal even more than they can.
The OP has a Nova, which will probably be closer to the rest of the Uniti range in terms of native streaming vs Roon.
Some say Roon sounds better, some say the Naim app sounds better, some hear no difference. I can hear no difference (important: if volume is exactly the same and Roon DSP is off), and technically I can’t see why there would be one. YMMV
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Quite unusual. Ndx 2 is roon ready (highest roon quality standard) and roon should work better. The main advantage of the roon is not the interface and design, but the sound quality. You can read a lot about this on the roon forum.
Sorry Roon makes no claims about improved sound quality at all. It’s bit perfect as it should be and thats all. It gives transparency of the music chain. The U and other features are where Roons advantages are. UPnP on Naim is also bit perfect.
Is a small diference but is noticeable for the best sound in the Naim app at least on the focal sopra, the speakers are very sensitive to changes, not only on the software used but also on all gear in the system including the cables.
I am referring to streaming local files, not from streaming services like tidal.
There is no real reason Roon should sound better. There’s also no real reason for the Naim app to sound better. However, there are real technical differences between how the two solutions achieve their goal, so it cannot be categorically ruled out, either. With the Naim app, the streamer fetches the data, buffers it in its large buffer memory, reclocks it out of the buffer and feeds it to the DAC. With Roon, the Roon Core fetches the data, buffers it and feeds it bit-perfectly by TCP/IP to the streamer over the network, where the large buffer is not used (but small ones still are, because network equipment is always buffered) before it goes to the DAC.
Anyways, I hear no difference if volume corrected (but I do believe that via Roon the volume is a very small bit lower into my NDX2). The Roon advantage for me is 100% the interface and capabilities.
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Suedkiez, I agree, but for those who have roon ready devices, roon should sound better (if that’s not the case, then something is not ok). For me, dsp drastically degrades the sound (I also have 1 microphone, I use rew).
Of course we always have to assume that Roon DSP is off. If it’s on, any comparison is completely meaningless.
FWIW I have an NDX2 and hear no difference. There is no reason that Roon “should” sound better, and Roon makes no such claim
I do not use DSP, or other options in roon. I also find the dsd on Naim is a little softer than other dac’s, but pcm is realy good.
The DAC (and data, PCM eventually, if we leave DSD aside) is the same though in this case, between Roon or Naim app. Did you volume-correct?
No I do not use volume leveling, and did not change the volume on the amp.
As I use a NAS for running roon, NAS are pretty noisy machine’s electronically and that could be the issue as roon Runs on the NAS, and the upnp server also but is less affected by the issue.
A separated and dedicated computer exclusively for running roon could eliminate the difference I have. I will dig this with some time.
I’m just wondering, because as mentioned I think hearing that the volume via Roon is a tiny bit lower. Initially I also thought that the sound via the Naim app was a tiny bit better, but once I tried to correct this perceived volume difference, I could not hear the difference anymore.
I have no proof of any volume difference, though, so am just curious whether others thought the same. Mind you, my brain probably invented all of this, because I tried this right after another what’s-better-SQ-Roon-or-Naim-app discussion.
The safe statement is that for all practical purposes I can’t hear a difference.
As for the NAS, I very much doubt that it has an influence over ethernet. I run a NUC with Roon ROCK, which is different but not so much unless you have a very busy RAID. And there’s still ethernet between them. Just like there is ethernet between the streamer and the noisy internet behind the router. (And everyone running a Roon Core uses some kind of computer after all)
Maybe the difference is with me because I use ansuz power switch and it eliminates noise over internet. From the switch go network cables (ww chroma cat 8) to Naim, Intel nuc (rock), apple times caspule, …