Software

[Mr Peabody]

As long as I've known a particular friend he has always had his music on hard drive. He seems to be constantly changing and upgrading things in his system. I was over there today and he had switched from JRiver to Roon. He also had HQ loaded on. So we listen to a couple tracks, then he turns off some filtering and upsampling, in my opinion things got better then, more dynamics and like a slight vale had been lifted, although it was good before, this is in comparison. Then he switches to HQ. The difference here was subtle, I suppose especially to an average listener, however, I still preferred the Roon native setting. I noticed on HQ a shaker was less natural, more like a sound effect, and an acoustic guitar sounded more like a student guitar opposed to the nice full sound I heard from Roon.

Do you all get free trial versions of this software? I always said the source is important, yet this whole software thing seems complex and easy to make a good system sound not so good, or at least not up to it's potential by using the wrong software, and then the wrong set up. I thought picking an analog rig was challenging, I don't even want to think about trying this hard drive thing.

[Feanor]

Well this is interesting and I've certainly notice many references to Roon of late. Like you, I would prefer trial versions of software provided the functionality is full and the trial period reasonably long. But let me be clear that I'm fully dedicated to computer audio -- I haven't used my CD/SACD player at all in months, and only very rarely in years.

It might be small change to some people but US$120 per year for Roon gives me pause. I've been using Foobar2000 for many years and it's free. Various effects, including equalization and up-sampling, are possible through plug-ins; I personally use an EQ plug in to good effect as I perceive it.

I'm very skeptical that a player that sends a "bit perfect" stream to a DAC is going to make much -- or any -- difference to the sound. (Some DAC may handle transmission-induce jitter differently from others, but that is another matter.) Up-sampling, filtering, and other effects have the potential to change the sound a lot, but, of course, that isn't "bit perfect" by definition.

So for example HQ Player provide various up-sampling and filtering options as well as DSD conversion. Clearly this has the potential to effect the sound more or less, and blackraven has reported good improvements with HQ Player and even more with Bughead Emperor. My current DAC, the Schiit Gungnir Multibit given its own, built-in oversampling and "closed form" filtering would, IMO, benefit much less from upstream processing than some other DACs.

[Mr Peabody]

I didn't realize Roon was a paid service. It was mentioned Roon retrieves a lot of artist & album info but even YouTube's Theater Mode does that. Another feature that was pretty cool was a radio feature, like if we were listening to Milt Jackson and paused a certain time without selecting another song the unit would seek and play a similar track to the one just played. Like you though I don't think I would want to be tied to another monthly fee for something. These companies need to realize what a pain it can be to deal with them.

[harley .guy07]

I myself also use Foobar 2000 and really like it because for one it is free, also very customizable, and while it might not have the polish that Roon might have I raelly don't think the difference is worth that much money for the software. I also use Fidelizer 7.3 which is the program that has made the biggest difference in my system. And it looks like I'm not the only one as Fidelizer has gotten good reviews and have grown as a brand as well.

[blackraven]

I have not tried Roon but I would love to. However, I am not willing to pay the yearly fee or the lifetime fee. HQ player certainly is a very good program, much better than J River but the GUI sucks. And you have to know what you are doing with the different settings. In addition, you need a computer with some horsepower to use all the functions of HQP.
I was able to get very good sounding settings from a forum thread dedicated to HQP.

Bug Head however is in a class of itself. It sounds much better than HQP. You need a computer with a good I-3 processor, preferably an I-7 and at least 4gb ram but 8-32gb is recommended. BH clears out your memory and then writes the music to memory. I got BH to work with a good I-3 and 4gb ram but my main rig is an I-7 and 16gb. You need the horsepower if you are going to upsample or use some of the many advanced settings. But even basic settings with BH are excellent, much better than Redbook CD and SACD. The issue with BH is that there are so many versions that come out each week and they all sound a little different. You need to find a version that has synergy with your system just like finding a CD Player or DAC that has synergy. I use version 6.66 which has a slightly warmer, darker tone but is not quite as detailed as some other versions. Up sampling generally improves the sound but I find that older poorly recorded music sounds best at standard Redbook. Most music sounds best up sampled to 352 to 384khz in my system. The best part about BH is that it sounds better than anything out there and its free. The worst is the GUI. It is great for long listening sessions not casual listening where you may want to jump around to different songs or artists.

[harley .guy07]

I tried Bug Head once and just could not get over the windows 95 looking interface, I thought it sounded good but not enough better than my Foobar2000/Fidelizer combo to deal with the terrible interface. Just my opinion.