Does Roon sound better?

If you prefer the organization then it’s a grest deal, but to be clear it should sound exactly the same on a device that offers both Room and Tidal directly. It’s processing the same bits in the same way. Once you start adding other hardware and paths then sure, but in this instance I can’t imagine how it would sound any different. 

@mayoradamwest Try a Raspberry Pi with Digione board.  It will play both Roon/Tidal and Linn Kinsky with DLNA.  Linn Kinsky is better.  You can easily do an A/B.

I don’t think you understand what I am saying. If you have a single device that does Tidal and Room, it will sound exactly the same playing Tidal through Roon as it would playing Tidal directly. This was the question the OP asked. 

@mayoradamwest The OP isn't streaming Tidal direct his Altair uses the Lightning DS app which I mentioned in my post. So a comparison of Roon to that app and others makes perfect sense. Great nickname btw.

I get that, but it’s still pushing the same bits over. I guess there could be a very slight difference depending on network noise but I doubt you’d be able to tell. My point is mainly that Roon isn’t doing anything different. It’s just sending the same bits as Tidal to the DAC portion of the device.