I have to admit this is a general help/thoughts/opinions question.
I dont like Roon for many many reasons but they are semi irrelevant as the Renderer only supports Roon, when I saw the ProISL inputs I said great I will wait for Aurender to release a model that supports it natively and off to the races but now that the N50 is announced I am starting to wonder.
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Do you control volume using the MSB DAC or using Aurender or via the native app?
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Can you hear a difference using ProUSB vs ProISL?
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As I dont plan to up-sample is there an audible difference between the N20/N30/N50
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Has anyone compared high end streamers such as the Lumin U2?
Actually, the Renderer is not Roon only. I used Minimserver running on my NAS and JPlay on my iPhone streaming to the Renderer with no issues.
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my apologies, you are correct JPlay is an option but we are a Android, Windows, Apple household, my Wife is a Spotify user and I like Tidal (playing with Qobuz now and the app isn’t bad but the Roon wrapper is awful)
Hi
I’m a Roon fan and longtime Room user. I was very pleased to see their acquisition by Harman, ensuring their long-term survival, which is rare in high-end audio.
For years, Tidal engaged in widespread consumer fraud, in partnership with MQA, claiming, falsely and ridiculously, that its platform had higher resolution than Qobuz and other, unaltered HD formats. Fortunately, with Tidal dropping MQA that charade has finally stopped. Qobuz is a vastly superior platform.
Since you have said are not doing DSP at the server-level, you are therefore only passing bits from the server into the cache of either the DAC or Digital Director. If you use Pro-USB you are further isolating network noise since it cannot travel over optical.
So, the first question before spending a lot of money is:
In this configuration, why should any music server have any impact on the sonic signature of the analog output stage of a DAC? How could that happen technically?
Cheers
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I have the same question - isn’t Roon and the server just delivering digital files to the Pro USB and then transmitted via fiber optic cable to the DAC.
Another, similar question, applied to the renderer module in a system with a Digital Director. I recently replaced my audiophile switch with a plain UniFi switch. My server is a small NUC, sitting by my network stack. I just did this, and have not sit down for critical listening, but initially, I could not tell a difference. I am not sure that additional server “quality” makes much difference. Now, I do think that server quality makes a large difference when serving up SPDIF, or USB input directly into the DAC. The question is, does ProISL, or the Digital Director, “correct” all such input, assuming no actual malfunction from the server. Does the optical portion of the pathway strip all unwanted electrical/magnetic noise out, and the wonderful MSB clocks correct the data flow, to equal an expensive server?
I use a tubed pre-amp for my system, and one of the features I miss most is being able to control the volume via the Roon app. Always looking for that other remote. As I understand it, the remote volume control function does not work with the ProISL USB either.
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In other words - no need for the $90K Taiko Olympus or similar halo server appliance.
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Well, I’m trusting the Digital Director to “clean” up the Ethernet signal to the unvarnished original. Stripping out unwanted noise, and correcting the timing, are what the halo products tout as their purpose.
Now, OTOH, one might prefer a different UI than Roon, or prefer to do resampling of their data to achieve a certain sound “flavor”. One might use a halo server for that reason. Or choose one over getting a Digital Director (non Cascade).
Opinions differ, these are simply mine.
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And no one - absolutely no one - can A/B/X this stuff with the same equipment in the same location with the same source material. So it’s a lot of opinions.
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You are right, always a lot of opinions and preferences. Especially when it comes to user interfaces. Beyond the sound, the UX experience matters.
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