In these times where everone staying at home have time to try things out, I thought I would play around with Roon. A 30 day trial period was on offer on Qobuz which I used to download an install Roon on my laptop.
Once installed, the software found two devices that could act as end points - my MuSo QB and my Oppo 205.
The Oppo is connected to my NAC272 using the Oppo’s analogue outputs. Reading the various Roon forum, the suggestion was to set up the Oppo as ‘a non roon’ device. Apparently the Oppo is capable of decoding MQA files but only via USB.
Playing MQA tracks via Roon feeding the Oppo, results in the first unfold taking place within the software and resulting form what I can tell a 96kHzZ stream rather than the 44kHz stream available via the Naim app.
Listending back to back albums streamed via Roon vs the same album via native Tidal on the NAC272 there is a slight difference is sound - however not sure if the difference is better or just different.
I will also sign up to the Qobuz trial to try out via Roon/Oppo into the NAC272 to see what if any sound differences or improvements can be heard.
It will be interesting to hear what sound difference there are, if any playing Qobuz hires files via the Roon/Oppo into the NAC272 vs Tidal native and Tidal via Roon