Try the integration of Roon and HQplayer with MinimServer. You may get even a better sound. It’s impossible to know unless you try it.
will try it and revert with impressions
I have a different view. Here on this forum we are a few people who talk talk talk. But I bet the majority of users don’t post here and they count most from a marketing perspective. I think if Damien will fix most of the bugs and the support will be better they will succeed having a good users basement.
I have both on my laptop and my main pc…
sure but why someone will opt for Audirvana Studio when Roon is available?
There are few reasons. One is cost and the second one us usage scenarios.
I use Roon when I want to play to the various endpoints at home. When I play to a USB attached DAC, through headphones I use Audirvana.
Because:
1.Wants a simple player to use with his/her usb dac
2.don’t need any of the features that Roon has
3.it’s cheaper
4.has a very good sound
In a word for some people, including me, AS is enough and ok (except few bugs).
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That’s exactly my thoughts Roon has too much going on, I get totally lost in their UI, had Roon Trial which is nearly up, but I am finding I still using AS just as much.
I’ll add 2 other points to @DGrigorescu 's answer:
- Use of AudioUnits (AU) for DSP processing (Roon is terribly inflexible with DSP options)
- Interface simplicity. Some of us look for artist info in the internet (when needed)
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Right, but you still end up with no streaming. That’s a deal breaker for me.
Why? Can’t you stream with Roon if you don’t use Rock?
Agreed! But I like Roon’s sound the way it is now (it didn’t for a long time), so no need for DSP for me. And of course, there’s always the internet to look up things, which I do when I want to access additional information regarding an artist/album, etc.
Agree. I found that using the right DSP in the right way (of course this is little subjective) can improve sound a lot. (For example lowering the input/output when raising bass/treble with an eq.) Like most users (I bet) I don’t care about “bit perfect” or the sound “like in the studio when artist recorded”.
The problem with DSP is that to get the best results, you need to adjust it to each album. It’s time-consuming, and I stopped using it years ago. Even with a player like Neutron, that has very impressive DSP features unlike any player that I know, I didn’t even bather of trying them.
IMO you can find a sound good on most cases. That depends also on what modifications you do. I don’t change too many parameters.
And i firgot a point:
7.upsampling
After playing with upsampling on/off I observed an improvement with upsampling, a more detailed and studio like sound (r8brain). I will try HQPlayer in the future but I will not buy it - it’s too expensive for a normal budget. That is the subsciptions for - for people who can’t spend thousand of dollars without any problem. I talk about hobby, personal use, not professional. I know HQPlayer is a professional mastering tool blah blah blah but I don’t care. I want just to listen at a decent cost, not to master anything.
For you, AS is the best choice, as you mostly stream. It has a good sound and is cheaper than Roon. No need to look elsewhere.
EDIT
But you are a beginner audiophile. Later, you may have other needs.
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I also think the same. In the future if I will want to change AS or test something else I will look only to players that offer stream and local in a one package simple integrated solution like AS does. Maybe Amarra.
Amarra does not offer network playback. It’s exclusively for USB DAC connection.
I didn’t know. But it’s ok for me. I don’t have s big house, don’t need network playback. Just a computer, a DAC, an amplifier/headphones and speakers. That’s all.
Hopefully, they will fix the bugs. It has a very good sound engine. An analogue like sound.
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