Ok
In your opinion, Taiko’s Extreme Server is also a “piece of crap”?
Because of Taiko’s recommendation for Roon settings, it is the same: all off.
Taiko? Of course it is crap. They want you to turn off all the things that make Roon a great system because they (“they” being Lampizators, Wadaxes and Taikos of the world) because they are all snake oil companies that do not know engineering, let alone computer engineering. When they sell “audiophile” bling it works because people want to believe that their $100K+ system sounds great and therefore believe it, even when it really does not. It is much harder to convince people that their $100K server works well, when in fact it has been designed by drunk monkeys and stutters every time it needs to do anything. So they tell you to turn all the good parts of Roon off, and then it can barely keep up. At that point you might as well throw Windows Media Player on it and use that.
Really, a NUC for a few hundred dollars can easily do all the things that they want you to turn off (well, maybe apart from DSD256->PCM->Convolution->DSD256 conversions, but that’s a pretty extreme case) while doing background analysis, indexing, and proper DSP to may your system sound correct in your room. With a properly designed convolution, a NUC is pretty much guaranteed to sound not just better, but “day and night, wife hears from the kitchen” better than anything any of these people did, do, or ever will produce.
I still have a Nucleus +. I have been using this for many years as a Roon server, and it is very stable; I almost forgot that I have this gear in my network—no need to restart, no noise, nearly perfect.
I am saying almost because it is ok if it is used through intramet in RJ45 network connection. The USB output sounds terrible. This was the only reason for buying another streamer/Roon server.
I hope this new generation has improved this USB output; maybe I will try again.
The Roon Server should only deliver the music- a Streamer/DAC does the job.
Of course you should not use the Nucleus as a player - without an extra silent PSU its awful.
If you really need an all in one device, (Server/Player/DAC) check The Grimm Audio MU2.
My next step is to try an Aurender N20 instead of my RS150 as a Streamer.
But to be honest - I’m happy with my setup - it works, sounds good - what should I expect more.
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Yup, it’s a perfect appliance for the purpose. Mostly because Roon did not try to reinvent a (square) wheel and used an off the shelf competently designed in a custom case. And of course Roon Labs are far more likely to know what the Roon OS should contain than some thiord-party outfit…
I doubt that the new generation (Titan?) USB implementation is significantly different. It’s still a motherboard USB port. Honestly, I have never heard any issues with PC USB output, but this also depends very much on the DAC implementation. Some USB receivers are better thsn others.
You just need a competently made DAC. But Roon’s recommendation is (even if it is mostly lip services to the audiophile crowd) to stream from the server over a network.
Since March, I have the RS130 and since June the Roon system (Nucleus etc…). In March I wrote here about the sound performance with Roon vs. RoseApp. I have to correct myself, that Roon <sounds better, than via RoseApp>. This was the quick listening experiences at the dealer at that time. Now, at home, I made direct comparisitions from identical source: RoseApp → RS130: sound is more quiet, warmer, open and more defined in spatial reproduction. Roon → RS130: sound is harscher and thin with less dynamic and compressed spatial reproduction. Via Roon, all filters are disabled, so that a ‘bitperfect’ transfer is applied. Further network and power supply optimization (KECES P8 for Nucleus and router) didn’t solve the lack of performance, instead the gap of the reproduction is bigger, than before! Now, I definitly prefer the (direct!) streaming via RoseApp instead Roon, but the Roon app/system is far better in managing the library etc… My question to this community: why is streaming via Roon comparingly bad compared with direct streaming of the RS130? Does the RS130 do buffering in it’s cache and via Roon not? (can that be the reason?). How is Roon interface protocoll implemented in the RS130 itself and can there be the fault? Other users confirmed the same lack of sound here and via other forums ex: Roon forum thread… What now?
Not the first time i read about this. I still have my RS150, using it as a streamer, and don’t hear any difference between local playback or over Roon.
Originally I planned to have a look on the RS130, but after todays reading, that the Optical USB can only be used with the Rose USB Hub, which has again a Power supply attached, then I’m out.
Galvanic noise blocking, and the adding again noise - I don’t get the concept.
About Rose App or Roon - as long as the Music DB is not state of the art, I stay with Roon, which has much more offer, than just giving access to my stored music.
Amazing, things people can convince themselves they can hear, when they do not know how to properly compare them…
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@BorisM I have to agree with you on everything you state about Roon versus native app. It’s all just 0 and 1 being passed to the DAC. I bought the RS130 in December 2024. I’ve had my library in 3 different locations: NAS, NVM drive connected via USB to the RS130, and my PC. There was no difference between any of them whatsoever in SQ. The only issue I ever had was my NAS going into sleep mode. I transferred my library to my PC since I never shut my PC off. Problem solved. I do also agree with you regard the Rose Connect App and this is the reason I’m considering going to Roon app. I have mostly ripped my music in WAV format and have a tag editor program. Rose app doesn’t read some of the information correctly where BlueSound does. I have 1 Rose RS130 on my 2 channel system and the remaining on BlueSound. Roon would give me a single interface.
Someone made a comment in the Rose community that Air Play on BlueSound sounded better than Air Play on Rose. I did an A/B test myself and found the opposite. Rose sounds better. My biggest disappointment is Apple Music as it sounds awful on Rose so I still use Air Play for Apple. People put the blame on Rose. The blame is Apple since they’re trying to create a monopoly with their music service.
Some people do belkieve that certain 0’s and 1’s are more magical than the others 
There is no real standard for tags in WAV files, like there is for FLAC and similar, so some tools work well, some don’t, with any particular tagged WAV. BluOS is generally more mature, too.
Depending on a particular Bluesound model, there could be some audible differences, really, apart from the newer X and Icon, DACs in the Node line are not quite as good as Sabres that Rose uses.Although with your 130 it would mostly depend on what you have plugged into it.
Airplay is as silly as anything else Apple makes, and different versions of Airplay (or different combinations of source and receiver) might well be downsampling and even applying lossy compression which could be audible, too.
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It’s all just 0’s and 1’s no matter how you cut it down. I had a drive connected to the RS130 but BlueSound Pulse had issues reading the drive on the Rose. I moved my collection to my Lenovo gaming computer on a SSD drive in my office. Both Rose and BlueSound are happy and have no issues reading from my PC. I hear absolutely no sound difference between each location.
Most of my CD collection was ripped to WAV before streaming music become popular. I have mostly WAV and bought a file tagging editor and have no issues with it. I also have some music ripped in FLAC and ALAC. I don’t hear any discernable difference between the 2 formats.
Apple and Google don’t like to share. I don’t use the Rose app for Apple Music since it doesn’t sound good to me. I use my own library or Tidal and they both sound good to me. I have my Rose plugged into a Mark Levinson Nbr 5206 preamp, dual mono class A preamp. It sounds very detailed and better than the McIntosh C49 I had previously.
There shouldn’t be, of course, and for network performance, it should be better, too.
THere wouldn’t be any either, FLAC (or ALAC) decodes into identical copy of the original WAV.
Indeed. And Apple wants you to use Apple equipment only for full effect.