Which sounds best? Roon RAAT or Roon Integrated AIR

[Snoopy8]

Hi @Snoopy8  just to clear this up. AFAIK Phantoms only support Apple  AirPlay, not AIR and hence not Roon AIR. Some less experienced in Devialet lingo might get confused if one mixes the two very different protocols.

Apologies, I am a relative newcomer to the Phantoms, having them only for 3 months. The various "air" terminology has been confusing.  

If the Phantoms were Roon Ready, I would likely have gone down the Roon path and would not have experimented with UPnP, Minimserver and convolution.  I am happy with Minimserver and now see little reason to go Roon if and when RAAT comes to the Phantoms.

[bernardl]

In my system, that is probably more revealing than the average, Raat sounds boring and normal while Air sounds refined, super clear and exciting.

The difference isn’t very subbtle.

Cheers,
Bernard

[David A]

In my system (see my signature) I find RAAT sounds more natural than AIR but I will also say that I tend to find that there's a "matter of fact" quality to the sound of live music, at least live acoustic music. I don't tend to notice highs or lows or the mids in live acoustic music, no frequency area tends to draw attention to itself. The sound is "nothing special" in a way, it's just the way it is. I get a bit more of that with RAAT than I do with AIR and I think AIR sounds good but some things just draw a bit more attention to themselves for me with AIR. Your "boring and normal" is what I pursue and your "refined, super clear and exciting" is not what I want, at least apart from the "exciting" but I don't notice a lack of that with RAAT.

All of which goes to show how preferences are really personal and highly subjective.

[bernardl]

I do understand but my view is that I can get normal and boring from much much cheaper systems...

In that register I personally probably prefer my second system with NuPrime integrated dac/amp and Kef LS50 speakers to the Devialet running RAAT or at least is it a close call.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Greg]

For me AIR sounds better.

Besides that Roon has confirmed an issue I have. When using up sampling all songs skip a small first part of the song. This cannot be  changed by setting a delay in the settings.

Yes, my experience also. I suspect that the various preferences for Air or RAAT may be the simple equation of how a system is put together and how it balances out the sound using the various components in the system. I’ve just returned from a weekend of DIY hi-fi presentations and it was clear that all the different systems worked as the owner intended but change any component in the system and the sound had the potential to collapse, or enhance performance if an area of weakness was identified.

At the moment, with qobuz into roon, I’m also struggling to stream high res. I’m hoping that some tweaking of my system will sort this out. We shall see.

[GuillaumeB]

At the moment, with qobuz into roon, I’m also struggling to stream high res. I’m hoping that some tweaking of my system will sort this out. We shall see.

Hi Greg I notice that you have a sonicTransporter in your signature. I also had one and experienced a lot of issues once Roon integrated Qobuz, principally with high res material (dropouts) and very slow loading of libraries and album info both via Mac and iPhone. 

Investing in the latest i5 sonicTransporter resolved all these issues.

Cheers,

Guillaume

[Greg]

Hi Greg I notice that you have a sonicTransporter in your signature. I also had one and experienced a lot of issues once Roon integrated Qobuz, principally with high res material (dropouts) and very slow loading of libraries and album info both via Mac and iPhone. 
Investing in the latest i5 sonicTransporter resolved all these issues.

Cheers,

Guillaume

Thanks, Guillaume. I’ll take a look at that.

[DavidE]

I'm happiest with Ethernet..

[David A]

That tells us whether you prefer ethernet or wifi. This poll is about whether you prefer Roon to stream to the Devialet by using its own RAAT protocol or by using Devialet's AIR protocol. The Devialet can receive both over ethernet or wifi depending on your choice of input. It's fine to prefer ethernet but do you prefer to stream from Roon over ethernet using the RAAT protocol or the AIR protocol, that is the question.