First of all I may be the longest running lurker on this forum. I’ve had Axiom speakers since 2001 and have been here to read articles many times but when I wanted to reply to this post I had to register. Weird that I’ve never contributed before so let’s fix that now.

In the past my music server was a first gen AppleTV modified with a 300 gig hard drive running to my Marantz 6006 via HDMI. I liked the on screen user interface and ease of use and it sounds pretty good letting the DAC in the receiver do the heavy lifting. I tried out Roon when it launched but I was looking for a direct replacement and didn’t like that there was no on screen interface option and my iPad was too old to run the Roon software.

Recently, I gave the new version of Roon a try running off of a 2009 MacBook Pro that isn’t being used anymore. During my Roon trial period I used a display port to HDMI adapter to the receiver with a new iPad Pro as the control. I immediately fell in love with the look and sound of Roon. The Roon radio that plays similar songs from your library is amazing and the liner notes really engage you while listening. It’s difficult to explain how awesome Roon is without showing it to someone.

Next I ordered a Schiit Etir USB to COAX converter and took the HDMI cable out of the equation and the sound really opened up. The stero imaging was so much better on my M22s that I kept getting up to see if the center channel engaged.

My 2¢ is to give Roon a try in your system.