audiolaz

← All the questions

Our own convolution engine, or Roon's?

Alexandreaudiolaz#1

Today audiolaz Room hands its filter to Roon's convolution (MUSE). We also have an engine of our own, the one we use for listening tests, and we are wondering whether to offer it to testers. Here is the honest comparison.

Roon's convolution

  • Nothing to install. It works on any Core, ROCK and Nucleus included, and with every endpoint, network streamers too: Roon applies the filter before it sends the music.
  • You switch a filter or a preset from any Roon remote, with a pause of more than a second.
  • One fixed filter at a time, chosen by hand.

Our engine

  • It runs on the computer your DAC is plugged into: a Mac (macOS 14.2 or later) or a Linux computer. Not on Windows yet, not on ROCK or Nucleus, not inside a network streamer.
  • On a Mac it corrects every app, not only Roon: Apple Music, Qobuz, Tidal, Audirvāna, a browser.
  • It switches between the sounds and "No correction" in a fraction of a second, with no gap and at the same level, from your phone: a fair A/B.
  • It can do what a fixed filter cannot: we are trying a correction that changes with how loud the music plays, with more bass when it plays quietly.
  • The sound itself: with the same filter, both do the same convolution and sound the same. The engine adds no colour of its own.

Two questions for you:

  1. Would you use it, and for what?
  2. Where is your DAC plugged in: by USB into a Mac, a Windows PC or a Linux computer, or inside a network streamer (WiiM, Bluesound, a Roon Ready device…)? And which player plays to it (Roon, HQPlayer, Audirvāna)?

A one-line reply here is plenty.

Reply

What you post here is public, with the name you give; we keep nothing else about you (see Privacy).