This is a summary of my personal experience with Tidal native app, Roon and Audirvana.
Context: I use Tidal since late year, and wanted to check the best software option to use the service - spent the last three months doing that.
Setup: My source was always a Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (running solely Tidal, Roon or Audirvana) → iFi NEO iDSD → Sennheiser HD 650
For user interface, I believe it is also relevant to mention that I used the Surface on portrait, and using it only via touchscreen.
Use: I listen to full albums. I do not use playlists. I explore new music by browsing and reading about music (thus, I do not value radio features and the like). I have a local library - small, not well organized and to which I seldom listen (prefer to listen from the CDs directly. The library is in wav. I also have some low quality mp3.
Music: I listen to different genres, mainly alternative rock, singer songwriters, jazz. During this period, the albums I listened the most were Welcome to the Hills (Yussef Dayes Trio), For the first time (Black Country, New Road), Romantic Works (Keaton Henson), Thanks for the dance (Leonard Cohen), What Kind of Music (Tom Misch, Yussef Dayes), Distractions (Tindersticks) and The Koln Concert (Keith Jarrett).
1) Tidal native app: Having used the Spotify app for years, I enjoyed the first impact with the Tidal app. More info, namely with credits and info per album. For Spotify it loses in sound quality and lack of podcasts.
I read lots of negative feedback to the software, but I assume it refers to previous versions, as I find it to be suitable to my needs. it is not great for touch-screen.
For me, the major flaw is the recent played that simply is not accurate. For my use, the missing feature is lacking a way of organizing our music (with folders or tags).
2) Roon: After using the Tidal native app for a couple of months, I moved to Roon. Simply put it is a great piece of software. Although most negative feedback relates to pricing, I do not agree with this. If you approach it as a service, I believe it delivers and its price is justified. However, I believe Roon is not for everyone.
I had the 15-days trial (version 1.7) and paid the subscription for one month (version 1.8). It is a great experience. Best interface - including though touch screen. Tags for organizing music are great - intuitive and effective. Having all the meta and the lyrics is nice as well. It is great to have your own library integrated with your music from Tidal. I loved the stats that version 1.8 brought as well.
I find the Roon Radio to be overrated. I find a shame that the Focus feature does not work generally but only with your own music (local library and Tidal).
Finally, I found a pity that although you can find a way of using Roon in multiple cores (i.e work-home, although not at the same time), for me is unjustifiable that you cannot have them in sync (at least, easily). For me, this was the feature that made me go back to the Tidal app.
In sum, it is a great piece of software and worth every penny, if you use it extensively. I concluded, I did not.
3) Audirvana: After the Roon trial, I wanted to try Audirvana. However, I could not. I started using Audirvana but managed to do it for less than a week. Interface-wise it is not comparable - and unfit for my use (mentioned above). If I could go back in time, I would have started by trialling Audirvana.
Few notes: using Tidal, I did not find a sound quality increase with Audirvana. On the other hand, Audirvana made a better job than Roon importing my local library (as it is in wav, Roon did not recognize the albums, and Audirvana did most of them).
Final notes: I am back to Tidal native app and I am happy with it. For its missing feature (mentioned above), I found an alternative - not great, but working.
I may go back to Roon sometime: probably only when and if I come to have multiple endpoints throughout the house and/or I develop, curate and start using my local library.
Sorry for the very long post, I hope it is useful!
Hmmm…well this looks interesting!