In year 2016, I wrote about Fidelizer configuration with Roon to recommend audio profiles to use with different Roon software. As some clients asked me lately about options for Roon as media player applications, I decided to write Part 2 to get the most of Roon as below.
First of all, I recommend “Purist” user level and “Network Player” audio profile as general recommendation to use in Fidelizer Plus / Pro version. These options are available on both Plus and Pro version and should work optimally as a default option.
If you setup dual PC with Roon core and Roon Ready, using “Streamer” audio profile on Roon core device and “Network Renderer” on Roon Ready device is recommended. This way you can maximize RAAT’s streaming performance through networked audio protocol.
Next part is optimizing Advanced configuration options for Roon. Although default configuration is recommended and already optimal, it wouldn’t hurt to go into details why I recommended default configuration as shown in this article.
First of all, Roon has clock priority option for each audio output so maximizing OS Timer Resolution at 0.5ms for low latency audio will help improving clock priority performance. This will allow Roon core to communicate with audio output devices with higher clock priority better.
I recommend “High transparency” option in Core Isolation Policy. This will setup core audio’s thread priority in Windows platform on first core in processor. Combined with “Apply Core Isolation Policy” option in media player application, those processes will be isolated from core audio thread.
You can try lowering non-audio process priority more aggressively but I don’t recommend enforcing non-audio process to use only one core because Roon relies on .NET framework and other non-audio processes so it may affect Roon performance and sonic performance too.
The last part is Media Player Appplication section where you can choose Roon processes to be optimized with Fidelizer Plus/Pro version where you can locate Roon application files in %LOCALAPPDATA%\RoonServer directory after Fidelizer prompts for each media player application file.
The first media player application is RoonServer.exe Using “High” priority with “Apply core isolation policy” option. This will allow Roon to be run after Fidelizer optimizations or apply tweaks on running process with high priority and isolated from core audio thread and non-audio processes.
The second media player application is RAATServer.exe Using “Realtime” priority with “Apply core isolation policy” option. This will allow Roon to handle low latency audio performance better and improve audio performance on both audio devices in Roon core and Roon ready devices.
The last media player application is RoonAppliance.exe Using “BelowNormal” priority without “Apply core isolation policy” option. This will reduce interference from Roon’s non-audio tasks to some extent without crippling Roon’s performance too much. If you use Roon’s DSP features, skip this part.
If you use HQPlayer with Roon, you can select HQPlayer5Desktop.exe instead of RoonAppliance.exe and make sure “Apply core isolation policy” is not checked. HQPlayer needs access to all cores to maintain stable operations with its DSP capabilities like RoonAppliance.
And don’t forget to change Wait Time to 15 seconds so RoonServer.exe can launch and load RAATServer.exe and RoonAppliance.exe processes first before applying tweaks. Tweaks in Media Player Application are optional and should not be applied if it affects application performance negatively.
After a lot of ups and downs with Roon 2.0 updates that keep affecting sonic performance from time to time, I hope this Fidelizer configuration for Roon can lessen the changes of sound signature in Roon. Using Roon 1.8 legacy is recommended for stable sound quality for audiophiles.
