[tishbite]

I fear I must agree.
Cancelled my Roon trial today.... because of this.
Also, because in the end, Roon is no more than an interface to my own library. Nothing I can't do without Roon, either for free or a small amount.
Its an extensive interface, some might call it beautiful. But also very confusing and distracting one, and that's without counting in Tidal pushing its preferences down our BDP's.


Hope it will get better over time, and will check back when it is for sure.


Cheers,
Marius

For those of you looking for a nifty, simple, effective, "quality-is-fit-for-purpose" application to act as an interface to Bryston's MPD: I'm using Gnome Music Player Client (v11.8.16; available at http://gmpclient.org) -- and absolutely love it. Give it a try, if I might say so. MPD's sound quality + a nice GUI with useful add-ons. And free.

[zoom25]

For those of you looking for a nifty, simple, effective, "quality-is-fit-for-purpose" application to act as an interface to Bryston's MPD: I'm using Gnome Music Player Client (v11.8.16; available at http://gmpclient.org) -- and absolutely love it. Give it a try, if I might say so. MPD's sound quality + a nice GUI with useful add-ons. And free.

It's not available for mac from what I can see?

[vonnie123]

Absolutely bang on, CanadianMaestro.

I was going to say exactly that but you put it forth first: "Why do I need to do ABX/"blind" tests to back up my subjective impressions?".

Roon marketing lot can say what they want (though I regret that attitude: essentially they're saying "we don't believe any claims from users that our system is less than perfect; we'll only take anything seriously if you show it a+b") for me in my system Roon is heavily flawed. Do I stand by my senses? A resounding yes.

Use what you like best.  Your impressions, your choice.  Your opinion is that Roon is flawed in your system.  We do not share that opinion with respect to my system.  I am also using Roon with other devices than my Bryston BDP-1.  Roon works great FOR ME; my impression, my choice.  The Bryston media player is great hardware.  The software could be better. 

One point to consider is that the Bryston devices were retroactively fitted to work with Roon.  Several other devices, including the Sonore microRendu (which I own) where designed to work with Roon, and HQ Player (NAA) from the beginning design stages. 

[CanadianMaestro]

Use what you like best.  Your impressions, your choice. Your opinion is that Roon is flawed in your system.  We do not share that opinion with respect to my system.  I am also using Roon with other devices than my Bryston BDP-1.  Roon works great FOR ME; my impression, my choice.  The Bryston media player is great hardware.  The software could be better. 

One point to consider is that the Bryston devices were retroactively fitted to work with Roon.  Several other devices, including the Sonore microRendu (which I own) where designed to work with Roon, and HQ Player (NAA) from the beginning design stages.

I agree with ya completely; ...I wasn't imposing my impressions on anyone in my OP. I was simply griping about another person's refusal to accept collected impressions here, based on a perceived lack of "blind ABX" testing.

Enjoy your system.

cheers

[CanadianMaestro]

It's not available for mac from what I can see?

Dang...

[James Tanner]

Try thus one - it is available for Windows and MAC.

http://en.freedownloadmanager.org/Windows-PC/Cantata-FREE.html

james

[hipp]

The ROON interface is really excellent. It has many features beyond the average music software remote systems. The focus feature for example is a great feature. There are however a few bugs such as the current issue where the queue won't play consecutive tracks with different resolutions. I am sure they will fix this shortly.

However, MPAD is no longer supported, MM I have found difficult to use and cover art unmanageable, Soundiroc good but simplistic. So ROON is for me a saviour.

Audio quality seems good. Compared to MPD it is a bit louder, and to me I perceive more detail. Poorly recorded tracks can also conversely be hard to listen to with heavy bass oriented tracks accentuated. MPD seems more forgiving.

Also one has to be careful when using ROON to access the files. Under certain settings it will completely rearrange the files which can be quite an issue!

A proper manual of setup and maintenance, and usage should be available especially since it is a costly product.

Still working on it.   

[Krutsch]

...

Also one has to be careful when using ROON to access the files. Under certain settings it will completely rearrange the files which can be quite an issue!

A proper manual of setup and maintenance, and usage should be available especially since it is a costly product.

See here: https://roonlabs.com/howroonworks.html

You can avoid any changes to your files by using WATCHED folders, instead of ORGANIZED folders.

Hope that helps...

[hipp]

I unfortunately used the organized. But thanks for the reply. Appreciated.

[generichs]

I read through most of this thread.  I can't understand how people are not happy with sound quality compared to MPD.  This must be system dependent.  In my system the difference is night and day.  I was gobsmacked by the difference I heard in my system.  This is the best I have had digital sound in my system.  It actually has bloom and timbre.  (Roon version 1.2).

My complaint is the skips and dropouts.  I can't see that there is a solution to that problem.  I tried setting up a RoonServer in my Synology ds214play but the NAS would not accept the skp file as compatible.  So it's back to the drawing board. 

I think Roon have to write a program which is not so system hungry.  Mind you, I've also been having skip problems with JRiver.   So there is something happening that needs fixing.

[vklyushnikov]

I read through most of this thread.  I can't understand how people are not happy with sound quality compared to MPD.  This must be system dependent.  In my system the difference is night and day.  I was gobsmacked by the difference I heard in my system.  This is the best I have had digital sound in my system.  It actually has bloom and timbre.  (Roon version 1.2).

My complaint is the skips and dropouts.  I can't see that there is a solution to that problem.  I tried setting up a RoonServer in my Synology ds214play but the NAS would not accept the skp file as compatible.  So it's back to the drawing board. 

I think Roon have to write a program which is not so system hungry.  Mind you, I've also been having skip problems with JRiver.   So there is something happening that needs fixing.

If sound quality is so system dependent than the whole solution is broken. I gave up on Roon at least on BDP-2 - because too many records sound overdetailed and thin.  I've read once that overdetailed sound often means high level of jitter. This is a good explanation of Roon sound problems on BDP - because Roon endpoint causes lot of network activity and loads CPU higher than MPD. So BDP-2 hardware may be simply not powerful enough for good Roon sound quality. Perhaps BDP-Pi will sound much better with Roon - due to multicore processor.

[James Tanner]

If sound quality is so system dependent than the whole solution is broken. I gave up on Roon at least on BDP-2 - because too many records sound overdetailed and thin.  I've read once that overdetailed sound often means high level of jitter. This is a good explanation of Roon sound problems on BDP - because Roon endpoint causes lot of network activity and loads CPU higher than MPD. So BDP-2 hardware may be simply not powerful enough for good Roon sound quality. Perhaps BDP-Pi will sound much better with Roon - due to multicore processor.

I may be wrong on this but the BDP-2 is more than capable of running Roon because it is just interfacing with it.  The Roon software is running on its own server.  I will ask Chris to elaborate.

james

[vklyushnikov]

I may be wrong on this but the BDP-2 is ore than capable of running Roon because it is just interfacing with it.  The Roon software is running on its own server.  I will ask Chris to elaborate.

james

Here is what Roon said about BDP1:
"The BDP-1, in particular, is somewhat unique among Roon Ready devices: it uses a rather primitive embedded x86 CPU7. It is cache poor, and fairly archaic in its approaches to branch prediction, out-of-order execution, etc. It does have MMX, though. This combination of tradeoffs would make a workload like RAAT (primarily protocol unpacking, interpreting dynamic network protocol, packet reassembly) more challenging for that CPU than a workload like FLAC->ALSA (MMX and memcpy)."
I think BDP-2 is much better of course, but its single core processor really looks archaic for today too. Bryston should consider upgrading BDP-2 devices to more powerful modern multicore ARM processor.

[James Tanner]

Here is what Roon said about BDP1:
"The BDP-1, in particular, is somewhat unique among Roon Ready devices: it uses a rather primitive embedded x86 CPU7. It is cache poor, and fairly archaic in its approaches to branch prediction, out-of-order execution, etc. It does have MMX, though. This combination of tradeoffs would make a workload like RAAT (primarily protocol unpacking, interpreting dynamic network protocol, packet reassembly) more challenging for that CPU than a workload like FLAC->ALSA (MMX and memcpy)."
I think BDP-2 is much better of course, but its single core processor really looks archaic for today too. Bryston should consider upgrading BDP-2 devices to more powerful modern multicore ARM processor.

Ok thanks - I have no issues with Roon in my 3 systems so I am a little surprised by this.

james

[unincognito]

Havn't had an issue with either models and we do have a quad core arm version of the product and all three models have been tested and certified by Roon with the only limitation that the bdp-1 be limited to dsd64.

[vklyushnikov]

Havn't had an issue with either models and we do have a quad core arm version of the product and all three models have been tested and certified by Roon with the only limitation that the bdp-1 be limited to dsd64.

What is quad core arm version? Is it BDP-Pi or some upgrade of BDP-2 ?

[generichs]

If sound quality is so system dependent than the whole solution is broken. I gave up on Roon at least on BDP-2 - because too many records sound overdetailed and thin.  I've read once that overdetailed sound often means high level of jitter. This is a good explanation of Roon sound problems on BDP - because Roon endpoint causes lot of network activity and loads CPU higher than MPD. So BDP-2 hardware may be simply not powerful enough for good Roon sound quality. Perhaps BDP-Pi will sound much better with Roon - due to multicore processor.

My sound with Roon is the reverse.  MPD has grainy digital sound, when compared to Roon.  My set up has the NAS and router sitting on a Synergistic Research Tranquility Base and I use a complete run of Audioquest Vodka ethernet cable.  I only play WAV 16 or 24bit files.  This set up gives sound to compete with my vinyl rig.  If the problem is hardware, I will have to look at another solution for skips and dropouts.  Maybe take the BDP-1 out of the set up.     

[vklyushnikov]

My sound with Roon is the reverse.  MPD has grainy digital sound, when compared to Roon.  My set up has the NAS and router sitting on a Synergistic Research Tranquility Base and I use a complete run of Audioquest Vodka ethernet cable.  I only play WAV 16 or 24bit files.  This set up gives sound to compete with my vinyl rig.  If the problem is hardware, I will have to look at another solution for skips and dropouts.  Maybe take the BDP-1 out of the set up.   

I think that you problem is NAS. Roon core is quite heavyweight and requires really powerful NAS - QNAP TVS-471. Read explanation here http://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_Server_on_NAS

[Krutsch]

Here is what Roon said about BDP1:

...

That statement from Brian at Roon was in response to a posting I made on the topic of Roon sound quality vs. MPD and why does the RAAT app use as much CPU as it does on the BDP-1, give that Roon is off-loading all of the audio file processing to the Roon Server on another machine.

I have gone back to a USB attached, self-powered SSD drive (Samsung EVO 1TB w/ an external enclosure that is low power - it all runs easily from the 0.5a available from the lower-back USB port).

I was having drop-outs with Roon, but since updating to the latest BETA builds on the BDP-1, nothing - not a single hiccup - although I don't know if Bryston made any Roon changes in the newest BETA builds.

[unincognito]

although I don't know if Bryston made any Roon changes in the newest BETA builds.

Not a thing