After several months of careful listening comparing what are in my view some sonic upgrades to Roon I am now firmly convinced that Squeeze indeed holds the title of “best in class.” There’s no question in my mind that Squeeze continues to outperform Roon by good measure. But for Squeeze w/Roon server find it to be quite palatable- especially when I’m in the mood for music discovery
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I’ve been using roon with hqplayer almost exclusively. It is equal to squeeze to my ears and can also be controlled by Jplay. Both roon and jplay offer superior music exploration which is important to my use case. I did move to hqplayer embedded as I find it marginally better than desktop. With embedded being on my k30 it also lightens the network traffic.
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Good to know. Sounds like you’ve found something that for you checks all the boxes. I explored HQ Player as well as Jplay but at the time seemed like a steep learning curve whereas Squeeze is so easy.
As I say, I still enjoy visiting Roon from time to time- especially for music discovery. Once or twice a week for me is enough to accomplish that objective. 
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With your mention of Roon + HQP that gave me sufficient motivation to try again Roon server + HQP player with no upsampling (I am using Mscaler with my Dave and confess the sheer choice of upsampling options with HQP is daunting to say the least).
Well, so far Roon server + HQP player is promising enough to give it more of a trial.
Thanks.
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I also relapsed and tested Roon Server/Player for a few weeks. But only because of the user interface. The sound was, as always, completely fine at first. So I listened for weeks. In between, I also tested Roon Server/HQPlayer. I didn’t have a great experience with the sound. Maybe I hadn’t found the right filter out of 5,000 possible ones. So, back to Squeeze Server/Player. Yes, what can I say, the sound blew me away again. Antipodes should probably delete Squeeze so there’s no chance of relapse. Just kidding… Squeeze simply makes the better sound. STILL. All hopes are pinned on Audirvana. To get almost identical sound to Squeeze + perfect user interface.
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I agree 100%. I know there are people here who like and use HQPlayer but for me it’s far too much work so not for me. While Roon RAAT has improved quite a lot, so has the software stack with Antipodes relating to Squeeze. It so much better.
And thanks to feedback from a few members on the forum related to Jplay, I intend to give that a go tomorrow or over the weekend. Many say it’s even better sounding than Squeeze AND (apparently) their app rivals or bests the Roon app. That would be something if Jplay both outperforms Squeeze SQ AND the Roon interface.
I’ll be sure to share my experience at some near future point.
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Yes, it would be great if you would test it and report back. I know that lots of people have had good experiences with Jplay and find it better than Squeeze. But I have my doubts. Plus, I would have to buy an iPad to control Jplay. Which I find pretty weak on Jplay’s part. That’s why I’m waiting for Audirvana and I’m very excited. But I’m not holding out high hopes that Audirvana will sound better than Squeeze. A sound tip is Bob Dylan with Man in the Long Black Coat. I have it on CD and as a HiRes version. Listen to the song with Squeeze Server/Player; you’ll be amazed at how great it can sound. Roon and Roon/HQPlayer don’t work. I only listen via SSD and everything in WAV format. For me there is nothing better than WAV, or for the Apple faction, AIFF.
OK, so last night I listened to a few tracks with Roon + HQP (no upsampling). It sounded fine and some others might say it was great but the itch got me and I reverted to Squeeze + Squeeze which was a mistake because it was again the oh goodness that just sounds so much better thing and I left it like that and sat entranced for the next 3 hours playing a playlist of various music until my wife came back from her evening meeting.
I do miss the ease of using Roon but that does not make up for what it does to the sound.
The problem with JPLAY for iOS is that it uses MinimServer + MPD and the last time I compared that to Squeeze + Squeeze the sound was in the good but not fantastic category. I have had JPLAY for iOS controlling Squeeze with the necessary upnp plugins and from memory the sound was comparable with Squeeze + Squeeze but it was early days in the development of JPLAY and the user interface was far from perfect but what took me back to Squeeze _ Squeeze and no JPLAY was the ability to play the BBC Sounds plugin because I use that quite often to listen to previously broadcast classical concerts.
I do remember when Innuos were developing their Sense app and at the time I had two identical Zenith Mk 3 players in the house, one running the Sense implementation of LMS + Squeezelite and the other with plain vanilla LMS + Squeezelite controlled by iPeng. To my ears there was a clear degrading of the sound of the one running Sense. (Prior to the ‘upgrade’ both had sounded identical). So whilst I would love Antipodes to have a better implementation of the Squeeze + Squeeze interface I am also wary of what that might do to the sound.
@DesertRat66 please do post how you get on with JPLAY for iOS.
Hi guys,
It would be good to know which build you are using when talking about roon. 1534 and 1533 a few days ago seF8emed to me to make a bigger difference/improvement that typically.
I have been using Squeeze/Roon since I got my K50 1 1/2 years ago. A few times I have switched to Roon/Roon to try that out and found Squeeze/Roon clearly better. The last time I tried Roon/Roon was last Fall. I haven’t tried Squeeze/Squeeze.
Last night I gave Roon/Roon a try. I am at build 1534. It sounds great. I will listen to this for a few weeks and then try Squeeze/Roon again for comparison. But to me this version of Roon works well on my system.
I 'm using the Aeries Cerat Helene DAC with USB coupled to the K50 and also the Synergistics Research Network Switch UEF Mark II. I also have an Ayon CD-TII Transport. This digital combo has the rhythm and pace plus the sound to rival my vinyl rig. For me the sound of analog and digital are converging and now it is mostly the mastering making a difference in the sound. eg. some of my 70s vinyl and 80s Blue Note vinyl sound much better to me than modern digital remasters. I know, some of that could be attributed to what I am used to hearing
Anyway, back to topic: When using Squeeze/Roon I had to enable headroom management and drop the digital by 6 dB because I would get digital clipping on a handful of albums. Took me a while to figure out what was causing that awful noise on 3 or 4 songs. But I found everything sounded better when I added some headroom. That leads to extra processing of the signal. But when set up with Roon/Roon I found I could turn headroom management off and those handful of songs sound great now. It also eliminates extra processing except for DSD files. The Helene does not do DSD so the K50 must convert DSD to PCM over the USB. Still sounds exceptionally good. The conversion is done automatically.
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[quote=“Tony_in_georgia, post:70, topic:2230”]
I will listen to this for a few weeks and then try Squeeze/Roon again for comparison.
[/quote]Try Squeeze/Squeeze. I agree Roon is much better than it was. But after careful listening I’ve concluded it’s not really in the same league as Squeeze.
Personally I am loathe mess around with DSP and such. I’m using RoomPerfect now and it literally makes my “room perfect.” But based on positive input and reports from many users in the group I installed Jplay from the App Store and like it a LOT. Very close to Squeeze quality with a GUI that is very slick, kind of like Roon. You might play around with Squueze and or Jplay. You’ve got great gear - especially your DAC. Your system deserves the best. And Squeeze is for my two cents still the best, followed by Jplay.
One thing that I’ve noticed with Roon updates is that sometimes they seem to reinsert the optional filters in Muse, which when deleted often lead to better sound.
I just checked with the latest update, and the filters were back, and deleting them gave a little boost.
I don’t know when they did come back, but have made a note to check with each future update.
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Well, after listening to Roon/Roon for these past few days, I conclude that Squeeze is still much better. Roon has improved- no question. The last time I tried Roon/ Roon it lasted maybe an hour before I changed back to Squeeze. This time I went a couple of days.
At first it seemed to sound really good. After a couple of listening sessions I was growing dissatisfied. The sparkle, the clarity, the emotion was just not in the music. Tonight I switched back to Squeeze/Roon and had to play a number of songs over that I had listened to these past few days to hear them as I know them.
Maybe in another year or so… and I will give Jplayer a try sometime.
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I pretty much feel the same way and for me personally I will continue to use Squeeze as my default “go-to” player. I don’t always I have a friend who has an Oladra, and he feels the difference between Squeeze and Jplay is 10% in favor of Squeeze. For me the gap is closer to 3%. I think this is a function of better gear being more revealing. I have the K41 and K22 so while great, it’s in another league than the Oladra.
Roon wins hands down on the interface compared to Squueze of course. It also wins against Jplay but not by as much. I find Jplay to be very robust and stable. It may be worth a listen with their free trial offer for 2 weeks which can be extended for free for another month. One has to strain (at least I do) to discern a SQ difference between Jplay and Squeeze. But unlike both Roon and Squeeze, no lyrics! But it presents Qobuz exquisitely and works very very well.
I also have K41+K22, and I broadly agree in preferring JPlay to Roon+Squeeze which had been my go-to. I have only two problems with JPlay. The gapless implementation isn’t quite there yet, and is annoying on highly-segmented opera recordings. Also I hear a bit of a high-end tizziness on some digital rock recordings, a small minority of my listening but irksome –I’ve tried to tame it with DAC filters without success. But JPlay is an evolving work and I’m hoping gapless in particular improves.
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I’m still relatively new with Jplay and I feel I need to give it another week or so for full discovery. I’ll note though that I’ve not yet encountered the gapless issues you describe. Perhaps it’s because I don’t listen to a lot of opera.
I don’t experience any sonic issues aside from noting that there appears to be a bit more “meat on the bone” with Squeeze, but not much! And maybe a little “airier.” Perhaps Squeeze is a bit more musical but again for me it’s almost like splitting hairs. It begs the question that if a person has to strain to hear a distinction, is the disparity a meaningful one or imagined? Haha. The mind can easily play tricks on a man so who knows?
What matters also is the interface and for those of us who stream quite a bit Qobuz this is important, and here Jplay wins hands down. Its interplay with both Qobuz and local files is impressive. I find it quite a bit faster than Squeeze as well as Roon.
If I am not hearing the shrillness in the rock music you describe maybe it’s because Lyngdorf’s RoomPerfect eliminates that. And I find I’m enjoying listening a LOT more with the MP-60 than with the Mola Mola gear at twice the price. I think it’s due to two things: 1) The signal is digital throughout and is passing through one less device - no Tambaqui DAC. The lead tech at the dealer where I bought my Lyngdorf described this phenomenon to me in ways I cannot quite recount. But he is a big fan of the Lyngdorf philosophy and further, an huge advocate for the benefit of bypassing an DAC and connecting the Antipodes directly to the MP-60. And RoomPerfect is the secret sauce to Lyngdorf. So it’s a very direct signal until the very end where the MP-60 converts to analog but with added benefit of RoomPerfect. To me this makes sense.
But I digress. Back to Jplay, I also like how the cover art displays in Lock Screen mode on my iPad. Each day I use it I discover a little more I like about it and kudos to Antipodes who make it so easy to enjoy our choice of the moment- be it Roon, Squeeze Jplay or whatever. . Great support for any of these servers.
So I think I’ll likely check out the full blown version of Jplay for a month and likely buy their $49 membership for a year. It’s a cheap throw to have nice way to discover new music and in the process enjoy what I think is far better SQ than with Roon. It’s almost a no brainer for me. With Roon I’m always anxious to switch back to Squeeze. With Jplay not so much ….
Thank you for the detailed response. I returned to JPlay after reading this and you are right on gapless – I was influenced by one recording’s anomalous behaviour. I lived with JPlay for some days, and while I found it clean and well-lit in effect, I’ve returned to Roon+Squeeze because JPlay came to feel too hard-edged. But it’s a matter of taste, and no doubt of ancillary equipment. I’m looking forward to Audirvana as an alternative in the V6 Jam Tomorrow feature list…
Ok, fair enough. Even though I purchased a lifetime membership to Roon a little over one year ago, I just yesterday purchased an annual membership to Jplay. My experience is that it sounds significantly better than Roon or Roon with Squeeze server.
But I understand what you mean when you point to harshness. Yes, I find the same along with some friends of mine. I think the term, “meat on the bones” and “airier” best define how Squeeze/Squeeze sounds relative to Jplay. In my view, while Roon has improved, their software remains far too bloated with so much network traffic it is well behind Squeeze. This, imo, places Jplay squarely in the middle between Squeeze at the top of the hierarchy and Roon at the bottom. In fact, if you play around with Qobuz in the Jplay app, you’ll find it is FAR more robust and better integrated that even Roon.
Don’t you ever listen to Squeeze Squeeze? I would be interested in your take on this platform.
Cheers,
Well, in response I thought I would try Squeeze Squeeze. Foolish mistake. An hour later I have succeeded in returning to Roon plus Squeeze, after shutting everything down twice, repeatedly restarting the server etc… Squeeze Squeeze not possible. It was looking like another six hour tech session. So far: session 1) advised not to try switching between outputs because there’s a bug that freezes on an output. Session 2) advised not to switch between apps because there’s a bug that affects communication between K41 and K22. In each case told this will be sorted with V6. You can understand why I’m a bit sardonic about Jam Tomorrow. The flexibility of Antipodes was a chief reason for choosing it.
Very weird and odd you have had that experience since we share identical devices. I have never had that issue ever. So bizarre and for me personally, hard to explain! But good luck to you!