05-Aug-2021, 01:10
Hey everybody,
I found some time to start experimenting with the goal to look for some performance improvements.
My standard setup is the following:
Music Library in HDD -> USB connected to Airport Extreme -> ethernet cabled to Node 2i -> coaxial SPDIF into Expert 120
Overall, I like the sound a lot and my pleasure volume setting is at -20.
As curiosity is tough to curb, I activated the trial for Roon. Despite the Expert 120 is not Roon Ready, it is Roon Tested and got immediately recognized by the software.
The setup is the following:
Roon running on Macbook Pro with Big Sur -> browsing the same Music Library in HDD -> USB connected to Airport Extreme -> ethernet cabled to Expert 120
Obviously, I ran my comparisons at the very same volume level.
My findings:
- it might be the habit, but I prefer the simplicity of the BluOS interface to Roon's for cosmetics
- I love the fact that Roon, using its Air implementation, allows to control the volume of the Expert
- I hate the fact that Roon requires me to have my laptop active
- I'm intrigued by the fact that Roon allows me to stream via ethernet, which, I assume, should be the less jitter-prone input of the Expert
- I'm not intrigued by the fact that Roon would come at a cost
I'm going to run further tests, yet I was not able to discriminate differences so far. I have run a series of A/B/A/B/A/B comparison and, up to now, any time I assumed something differed (once it might have been more depth, another a difference in the bass contour) I was promptly proven wrong by going in back to the Node.
So, to my ears and my commodities:
- if the ethernet connection had some superiority over coaxial, in my system this does not become easily apparent
- picking Roon would mean the commodity of a single app to browse and control volume, but the lack of commodity of keeping my laptop out of the equation
- Roon does not support Amazon Music (which I use quite often) nor Spotify (which I could consider to use), so that's another shortcoming
- Roon might warrant, instead, a better development over time
- Roon allows you to play with DSP (which I have not touched yet)
So, has anyone tried a similar comparison? If yes, what bought you into Roon? Moving from a "normal" computer to Nucleus came to sonic benefits?
I found some time to start experimenting with the goal to look for some performance improvements.
My standard setup is the following:
Music Library in HDD -> USB connected to Airport Extreme -> ethernet cabled to Node 2i -> coaxial SPDIF into Expert 120
Overall, I like the sound a lot and my pleasure volume setting is at -20.
As curiosity is tough to curb, I activated the trial for Roon. Despite the Expert 120 is not Roon Ready, it is Roon Tested and got immediately recognized by the software.
The setup is the following:
Roon running on Macbook Pro with Big Sur -> browsing the same Music Library in HDD -> USB connected to Airport Extreme -> ethernet cabled to Expert 120
Obviously, I ran my comparisons at the very same volume level.
My findings:
- it might be the habit, but I prefer the simplicity of the BluOS interface to Roon's for cosmetics
- I love the fact that Roon, using its Air implementation, allows to control the volume of the Expert
- I hate the fact that Roon requires me to have my laptop active
- I'm intrigued by the fact that Roon allows me to stream via ethernet, which, I assume, should be the less jitter-prone input of the Expert
- I'm not intrigued by the fact that Roon would come at a cost
I'm going to run further tests, yet I was not able to discriminate differences so far. I have run a series of A/B/A/B/A/B comparison and, up to now, any time I assumed something differed (once it might have been more depth, another a difference in the bass contour) I was promptly proven wrong by going in back to the Node.
So, to my ears and my commodities:
- if the ethernet connection had some superiority over coaxial, in my system this does not become easily apparent
- picking Roon would mean the commodity of a single app to browse and control volume, but the lack of commodity of keeping my laptop out of the equation
- Roon does not support Amazon Music (which I use quite often) nor Spotify (which I could consider to use), so that's another shortcoming
- Roon might warrant, instead, a better development over time
- Roon allows you to play with DSP (which I have not touched yet)
So, has anyone tried a similar comparison? If yes, what bought you into Roon? Moving from a "normal" computer to Nucleus came to sonic benefits?
