Roon Nucleus

It is very expensive and you need roon license on top. I run roon on mac mini, maybe later switch later to sonictransport i5 ...Michael Lavorgna from audiostream praised it as a superior setup. Nucleus has i3 or i7 CPU power, price 1400-2500 USD ca...

Okok, it looks freaking cool in this industrial design:-)

Sorry I am lost.

What does it do?

I think it is not a streamer or storage so what does it do?

Does it  connect the metadata?

Ian

As I understand it... appart from the funky fabless case, this is just a off the shelf Intel NUC 7th Gen running Roon ROCK.  For those with the aptitude, a NUC costs you about £350 for an i3 version and a bit less than double that for the i7 version.  An Akasa fanless case is another £100 or so.

As for what the Roon Nucleus is ... it’s a dedicated computer running Roon Core (server) software.  It can either have a USB drive connected, installed internally or look at a NAS with your music on.  It’s not unlike a Naim AtomCore (or Melco or any other NAS) but for Roon systems and without any ripping function.

It runs roon server that builds up metadata from NAS or connected storage. Those music is streamed to a roon endpoint (Uniti, or soon new Naim streaming platform); that means roon sees Naim as an „endpoint“ or a target for music. Some devices can run roon and the endpoint on the same device! If so, you can connect such device directly to a DAC. You can try this with a mac for example which is connected to DAC.

The nice point of such an roon appliance is simplicity and optimizing HW components that saves you lot of time!

ChrisSU posted:

Legacy streamers will have to make do with Airplay to connect to Roon. 

Legacy streamers (except MuSo / Qb) don’t support AirPlay (without additional hardware / software).

£1,200+ and £500 for a subscription is a lot to pay for fancy information that Mr Google can provide for nothing. 

Rumor said that Linn, even Aurender will go for roon now because dealers claim it as „ top“ feature customers asking for...

I'm still not fully convinced what Roon can do for me (Rich Metadata aside) given how i use my system. I take it that the Nucleus, apart from being plug and play, has enough horse power to deal with some of Roons more advanced playback chain features ?

Tried the Roon trial with Nova, don,t get the fuss, did not bother past the first week. Got my daughters to try to see if it was my age that was the problem, they could not be bothered either. Each to their own.

james n posted:

I'm still not fully convinced what Roon can do for me (Rich Metadata aside) given how i use my system. I take it that the Nucleus, apart from being plug and play, has enough horse power to deal with some of Roons more advanced playback chain features ?

Ok, I‘m not a roon guru..just give you my impression and what I learned over the years. The i3 is too wesk for DSP, EQ and fancy stuff, so I would go for i5 ori7! Smallgreen‘s sonictransporter is an appliance as well and far less expensive. Maybe check their recommendations for roon.

Hungryhalibut posted:

£1,200+ and £500 for a subscription is a lot to pay for fancy information that Mr Google can provide for nothing. 

It’s good to have options though HH...

Eloise posted:

ChrisSU posted:

Legacy streamers will have to make do with Airplay to connect to Roon. 

Legacy streamers (except MuSo / Qb) don’t support AirPlay (without additional hardware / software).

Quite right, it would require an Airport Express/optical connection, and therefore limit you to 16/44 streams. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

£1,200+ and £500 for a subscription is a lot to pay for fancy information that Mr Google can provide for nothing. 

To be fair to Roon, it can do quite a lot more than just give you loads of metadata. As I said above, I'm not totally sold on it, but there are features that may well appeal to some people, and having played with it quite a bit on a Mac, it does seem to be very robust. In addition to metadata handling and presentation, it can do digital eq and room correction, upsampling, multiroom, and now, also act as a NAS/music store/server. Probably more stuff I've missed, too. If you look at an artist, it can even tell you where they are playing live, which I thought was quite a neat touch.

Yes, all this is stuff that you can do with a computer anyway, and I'm not trying to say that it's a must have - I'm sure others will, though! 

I suspect that if Roon + a decent Roon Core has better metadata, a better user interface/app and can do the clever DSP stuff as well, then its a very serious threat to Naim's CORE, the Melco units etc. of this world.

I'm quite intrigued by the possibility of an i7 NUC or Sonic transporter i5 as the Roon Core, plus an Ultra Rendu feeding a DAC into the pre-amp, versus a Naim Core/Melco feeding a Naim streamer.

This streaming lark does seem quite complicated to follow though...

Best regards, FT

Foot tapper posted:

This streaming lark does seem quite complicated to follow though...

You may be right, it doesn't need to be that complicated.....but I think some people like it that way!

Foot tapper posted:

I suspect that if Roon + a decent Roon Core has better metadata, a better user interface/app and can do the clever DSP stuff as well, then its a very serious threat to Naim's CORE, the Melco units etc. of this world.

I'm quite intrigued by the possibility of an i7 NUC or Sonic transporter i5 as the Roon Core, plus an Ultra Rendu feeding a DAC into the pre-amp, versus a Naim Core/Melco feeding a Naim streamer.

This streaming lark does seem quite complicated to follow though...

Best regards, FT

Or you could look at it that Naim has the opportunity to win new purchasers BECAUSE it has embraced Roon. I’d also be very surprised if Melco doesn’t become a Roon endpoint soon.

The Roon nucleus is primarily for people who don’t want any fapping with computers or NAS drives and it gives audio dealers the option to sell a total hardware solution. I think that the point that is sometimes missed is that Roon give ROCK the operating system on the nucleus away for free and this is how one can say the nucleus is an over-priced NUC. If Naim gave away their core software the Core would be in the same position more or less. 

I have Roon running in a i5 NUC running Windows 10. I don’t think the nucleus makes any claims to be better than this in audio terms, it just needs to be turned on and pointed at ones music through the Roon app. 

I’m using ultraRendu into either a Chord Hugo TT or Holo Spring DAC (a NOS DAC). I haven’t done much A vs B but currently I’m fixated on upsampling to DSD 256 into the Holo Spring with my system sounding the best it has ever.

.sjb  

Sloop John B posted:

The Roon nucleus is primarily for people who don’t want any fapping with computers or NAS drives and it gives audio dealers the option to sell a total hardware solution. I think that the point that is sometimes missed is that Roon give ROCK the operating system on the nucleus away for free and this is how one can say the nucleus is an over-priced NUC. If Naim gave away their core software the Core would be in the same position more or less. 

For those happy to play around with software but not so happy with hardware, QuietPC will sell you a i3 NUC configured as Roon recommends but with a 2TB “Storage” drive (HDD, 2TB SSD is £500 more), in Akasa silent case for £737.  Upgrade to the i5 for £60 and 3 year parts and labour warranty for £115. 

Just download and install Roon ROCK.

PS I’m not trying to put down Roon Nucleus, just offer alternatives for people.

What about that: Core runs roon in future? :-)))))

T38.45 posted:

What about that: Core runs roon in future? :-)))))

AFAIK the Naim Core uses an ARM processor, now powerful enough to run Roon Core.

Eloise posted:

T38.45 posted:

What about that: Core runs roon in future? :-)))))

AFAIK the Naim Core uses an ARM processor, now powerful enough to run Roon Core.

That seems to me like an obvious way to go with the Core. I'm guessing that Naim will be watching carefully to see how popular Roon is on the new streamers, before deciding if it's worth it.

Hungryhalibut posted:

£1,200+ and £500 for a subscription is a lot to pay for fancy information that Mr Google can provide for nothing. 

HH, perhaps you have not tried Roon in your system? It is far more than an alternative to Google. It takes a pro-active approach to managing your library to enable you to get the best from it, with minimal effort. Just a short time with it was enough to convince me and the £500 you quote is actually $499 for a lifetime subscription, which is great value, in my opinion.. As an alternative, one may pay $119 per annum.

Since I started with Roon, I have increased my music listening hugely - it is that attractive to use - and I have pulled up all kinds of things from my library which I had forgotten. Every other app which I have seen is a pale shadow by comparison.

Apart from a handful of rather nifty features, I think that Roon's absolute forté is to turn an otherwise incoherent setup into a proper multi room system. We have grown absolutely addicted to being able to operate the entire house as one big audio system. Others can do the same, just not with the same jumble of devices that Roon does. 

its not all about the metadata its as much about making things more accessible and sound great. If you use Tidal as your preferred streaming service and have a nice size library, Roon is a godsend as its all treated as one Library. No searching in different apps or areas to find you music its all treated the same. Add it to Tidal you add it to Roon. This integration is what makes it stick out, plus it does have a wealth of DSP features that will allow for Room correction, etc. and its multiroom is pretty rock solid ans it supports an ever increasing wealth of endpoint. The seamliess nature in which it works with my Atom is great. I also have two squeezebox end points and a Raspberry PI one. 

I would not bother with the Nucleus though if you have an understanding of computer, its purely for those that fear this area and want dedicated hardware that just works. If you know you onions setting up your own Roon core is very easy.

Eloise posted:

T38.45 posted:

What about that: Core runs roon in future? :-)))))

AFAIK the Naim Core uses an ARM processor, now powerful enough to run Roon Core.

No it's not. Roon core really needs a minimum of and i3 to get any where near decent performance and DSP working.  I tried to run it on my QNAP with a basic intel CPU and its too sluggish and cant handle DSP at all. If you want a sub par experience you can run it on Arm but believe me its not worth it.  You can run Roon bridge easily on Arm but thats just for a playback end point not running the library, processing and multiroom bits.