Roon Nucleus

SimonPeterArnold posted:

No it's not. Roon core really needs a minimum of and i3 to get any where near decent performance and DSP working. 

I agree with you... my typo didn’t.

My Post was supposed to say “Naim Core uses an ARM processor... NOT powerful enough”.

Np

SimonPeterArnold posted:

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.

Regular general purpose micro processors just are not optimum for real time DSP, one needs to specific optimised architectures ... also ARM design processors, they are implemented and manufactured elsewhere and there are a  whole load of powers and speciality performances - so I am not quite sure with any credibility that one can say all ARM 'processors'  are not powerful enough to run Room Core - that would imply Room Core is very very bad and inefficient software

S

Recent new owner of an off the shelf NUC 7i5 (latest gen) that I found new with a pre-installed SSD and 8gb of RAM, running Roon ROCK. Using an inexpensive Chinese LPS I already had to power. Sounds great and I noticed the difference from what I had before immediately. I did a lot of research and decided that the i5 was just right. The i3 is about half as powerful as the i7, bu the i5 is only 20% less but with half the power consumption. I'm running an OWC 1tb external drive for my local files and Tidal.

I once thought Roon was just about metadata, but it's so much more now. After two weeks I plunked down for the lifetime. Upsampling to DSD128 sounds fabulous with the DAC V1, a top end parametric eq for the UQ in the office makes listening less fatiguing. Most importantly it's brought new excitement to browsing for music - esp with the Tidal integration. It's a lot like having a record store right in your home. Shuffle and "Radio" are great - something Naim never has come close to even. It's a deep program, and one can tell by the developers commitment that it will only get better. I can play to the V1 (via microRendu), the Sonos's, the Muso via Airplay, the UQ (again via microRendu in Bridge mode) and to any iPad or phone in the house, all from one app. And even if they go bust someday (it's Tidal I worry about more) it will always be around, just at the last iteration, unless it then goes open source like LMS. If you have the hardware to run it on it's certainly something every audiophile should trial. 

seems years ago that i first demo the meridian streamer/controller , even then i thought it was class,   i didn't know it was the first roon application ..  It seems this it is a really stable enjoyable  operator system .  the cost of it is basically the same as a few high rez downloads per year  .  i tried it a few months ago  and will at least have it for a year.   .guess all streamers are going Roony 

Does it make my music collection sound better?

Adam Zielinski posted:

Does it make my music collection sound better?

Some people seem to think it can, apparently - with upsampling and room correction, but I haven't tried this. I'm not entirely convinced that Roon can take credit for this either, as it required the use of HQPlayer, which can be run on a computer that doesn't run Roon.

Yeah, I’m one of those who “seem to think it can”. 

Roon now has its own upsampling, whilst one can still Integrate with HQPLAYER, this is no longer necessary to upsample. 

.sjb

I think I will stick to my inadequate NDS and UnitiServe then... 

It does for me. Upsampling, room correction, parametric equalization, etc are native to Roon now and don't require HQPlayer, though that's supposed to take it a notch further. You do need an i5 or better if you want to use DSP in Roon though. The device you run it on will make a difference too. My little NUC sounds better than my 2013 Mac Pro I did the trial on, and both sounded better than my (vintage 2010) Vortexbox from Small Green computer, that was powered by the same LPS I'm using now for the NUC. Roon is worth the price imo if you care about music, need to get excited about your own collection, and want to seamlessly explore new work from Tidal alongside your own. There's a solid reason it continues to get accolades from the hifi press and manufacturers keep signing on. It just works, and works well. Internet radio isn't there yet (one has to enter URL's) but it will be. And really, with it sounding so good and so much new music at my fingertips I haven't even considered anything else. If you have any kind of machine to run it on everyone should at least trial it, keeping in mind it's even better with a dedicated machine like the NUC with clean power. .  

David O'Higgins posted:

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.

I am one who has trialled Roon and disliked it. However, I can see that if you are heavily into Tidal it could be great because it seamlessly integrates Tidal with your own local files, and/or if you are the sort of person who likes so-called social media, which is of what to me it was reminiscent. My review of it is somewhere on the forum.

N.B. I only assessed it as a library management system/interface, not its sound quality as a renderer: from bits gleaned elsewhere the sound quality of its rendering function hasn’t been as good as some, but has been improving so of course at some point that function could be worth considering.

I thought the purpose of roon was to have it running on a server somewhere, so why is there a necessity for i5/i7 nucs (in pretty cases) to operate the end point?

charlesphoto posted:

It does for me. Upsampling, room correction, parametric equalization, etc are native to Roon now and don't require HQPlayer, though that's supposed to take it a notch further. 

my goodness that sounds like 21st century of the 1970s  Hi-Fi parametric equaliser to me... all that mashing with the samples is going to be getting you further away from the source music..and introducing unwanted, for many,  distortions and smearing. I can’t see how this will work well/transparently for natural acoustic music or traditionally mastered music, although probably more suited to processed contemporary mastered tracks

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

charlesphoto posted:

It does for me. Upsampling, room correction, parametric equalization, etc are native to Roon now and don't require HQPlayer, though that's supposed to take it a notch further. 

my goodness that sounds like 21st century of the 1970s  Hi-Fi parametric equaliser to me... all that mashing with the samples is going to be getting you further away from the source music..and introducing unwanted, for many,  distortions and smearing. I can’t see how this will work well/transparently for natural acoustic music or traditionally mastered music, although probably more suited to processed contemporary mastered tracks

The above are all options,. If none are turned on Roon runs in bit perfect mode. I prefer this for my Hugo  TT but the best sound I have ever achieved is upsampling to DSD256 to a NOS DAC (Holospring). 

.sjb

garyi posted:

I thought the purpose of roon was to have it running on a server somewhere, so why is there a necessity for i5/i7 nucs (in pretty cases) to operate the end point?

Because some people want the server on the rack with th rest of their equipment.  Not everyone has a “server room”.  The Nucleus is very much designed as a turnkey solution which can be sold through dealers too - if you have the skills there is nothing different (in hardware) of this vs an off the shelf NUC 7i3 or 7i7.

Its pretty much the same argument as Naim Core vs QNAP.

I switched to Roon just after it launched and have never looked back. The feature set just gets better and better. It really unlocked my music library and stopped me relying solely on vinyl. The way it helps you navigate what you have is very refreshing. The Tidal integration is slick but ultimately I let Tidal go as I had so much of my own music to discover/rediscover. The upsampling has been an interesting feature and I do find some benefit in the smoothness it brings in one of my systems. I have't tried the EQ options yet.

For me I would not buy any streamer now unless it is a Roon endpoint and this feature was the principle reason for me getting the Atom for a 3rd system. I am really looking forward to seeing what Naim come up with over the coming months and years now. Before I wouldn't have even considered a Naim streamer.

I will probably get the Roon Nucleus or build a Rock/NUCi5 myself as I'm ready to get the noisy spinning discs out of my main system with its Mac/DAC setup. If it gives me audio benefits then that would be a bonus. 

One point for owners of classic Naim streamers and older Uniti's (and I know there is a thread elsewhere), is that a the Sonic Transporter for running Roon Core, can also run a Roon-UPNP bridge alongside so that you could stream from Roon to a Naim streamer. Roon won't support it directly as they simply won't support UPNP but this is probably the only known way of getting it working. I think the UltraRendu also runs the same UPNP bridge and would achieve the same goal. Solution for the short term anyway while folks wait for an NDX level new generation streamer :-)

Any one any idea on UK pricing for Nucleus?

I believe it’s £1300, or for Nucleus+, £2300. 

thanks, looks do-able. Is Nucleus an i5 and Nucleus + an i7? I think I could get away with an i5 for my needs as I'm only ever streaming to one system at any one time. As long as the i5 could handle the upsampling on one stream (that my ageing MacBook has no problems with) I'd be OK.

They are i3 or i7. 

looks like i'll build one then!

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

charlesphoto posted:

It does for me. Upsampling, room correction, parametric equalization, etc are native to Roon now and don't require HQPlayer, though that's supposed to take it a notch further. 

my goodness that sounds like 21st century of the 1970s  Hi-Fi parametric equaliser to me... all that mashing with the samples is going to be getting you further away from the source music..and introducing unwanted, for many,  distortions and smearing. I can’t see how this will work well/transparently for natural acoustic music or traditionally mastered music, although probably more suited to processed contemporary mastered tracks

You Naim-ites are a tough lot. If it isn’t Naim, maybe Chord (‘cause they’re “down the way”) or a specific Cisco switch, then all other audio is poppycock. I say don’t knock things until you’ve actually tried them. 

As far as eq goes, like I said, not using it for the main set up, but for the office and my UQ and wall mounted Kef Ls50’s, just a small correction at 12khz or thereabouts helped it sound less fatiguing without changing the sound signature. That’s what it’s for, not to try and go all King Tubby’s with your system. 

And one doesn’’t need a Nucleus just like one doesn’t need a Core - for well under a grand one can put together a top of the line NUC with fanless case. Mine is a basic 7i5 without fanless case, but it’s in a closet. $340 all in with 256gb SSD and 8gb RAM. Using an OWC 1tb external 2.5” hard drive connected to it, and a 12v 5a LPS. NUC’s can run anywhere from 12v to 19v as long as the current is enough.