Thanks for sharing! 
You donāt find ant drop in overall SQ when doing any EQ?
I use the same EQ program, and even flat, no adjustments, there is a perceived drop in SQ as opposed to running it in exclusive mode from Tidal.
In my head?
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Could be in your head haha. Iāve never heard of anything like that happening unless thereās something weird going on with the signal path. So for example, anytime you use virtual audio cables, thereās a risk it can cause resampling, and this is very audible. Also, Iād caution you about using Tidalās exclusive mode a bit. Unless theyāve fixed it, apparently thereās an issue with Tidalās player in exclusive mode where you donāt get full bit depth during playback (this may only be an issue with MQA). I also came across this recently, and while I canāt do this test myself, it does line up with some of reports Iāve been hearing about Tidal and exclusive mode.
In some ways though Roon is no better, because while the player is much better, you can only run it in exclusive mode without severe quality loss issues. For most audiophiles thatās not a huge problem, but for anyone wanting to pause and quickly switch to other audio like watching a youtube video, you have to close the program or turn off exclusive mode. The quality loss in non-exclusive mode with Roon is severe, far worse than using Tidalās exclusive mode. So really Iād only use Roon if youāre planning it for a specific audio setup that has exclusive mode on all the time. Otherwise, Iād use Tidalās non-exclusive mode (or Qobuz if you have it).
EDIT: It looks like exclusive mode on Roon has been improved so you just have to wait a bit and refresh your browser to resume playback from other programs.
Does your EQ software adjust the volume level to add headroom to the signal? This seems to be a fairly common feature in software equalizers. If so, then you might just be responding to the reduced volume when you engage the EQ.
As an example, here is Roonās explanation of their headroom management feature which does this. Even if you make no other changes in Roonās DSP/EQ the output will sound quieter because of this attenuation.
Edit to add: @Resolve, Iāve never run Roon in Windows, but on macOS when I pause the music it releases exclusive mode after a few seconds. So itās not too awkward to pause the music, watch a YouTube video, and then go back to playing music. Thereās no need to exit the app. It just takes a few seconds to transfer back to the OS mixer.
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It looks like theyāve improved this on Windows as well. I normally only use it on my testing setup, because it is excellent for use with Qobuz and Tidal material, so thereās no harm in having it be fully in exclusive mode all the time. I just did a test though and while at first I got a message saying āaudio render failed, restart your computerā, waiting a minute or two and reopening the video seems to have worked. I do still wish you could run it in non-exclusive mode like you can with Tidal or other software. If anyone wants to hear digital artifacting, try using Roon in non-exclusive mode. It becomes instantly recognizable. Exclusive mode also means you have to use their EQ system (which is admittedly great, it just requires using different EQ presets from EQ APO).
Hmm. All gets a bit messy.
Iāll try Tidal in non-exclusive mode and see. I feel like when I tested it their was a perceived difference. So something happening.
And the EQ thing had no adjustment settings, bands or overall. If I have it running and just play music, it does constantly suggest the music is āclippingā, with that bar going to red often. Canāt imagine it actually isā¦?