Before I pull the trigger on SonicTransporter...

[R1200CL]

Yes. Purchased a latest gen i5 NUC with 8 GB ram and SDD. Waiting for ROCK to launch

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/sound-quality-not-as-good-as-other-programs/22674/75?u=r1200cl

 

Next time anyone like to purchase a Roon machine, I will not recommend Rock before it's been properly reviewed.

 

I think the Roon people more or less says in different posts, it has nothing to do with better SQ. Almost the opposite [emoji3]

 

But of cause there may be other reasons that makes a NUC the preferred choice.

[Apesbrain]

Next time anyone like to purchase a Roon machine, I will not recommend Rock before it's been properly reviewed.

 

I think the Roon people more or less says in different posts, it has nothing to do with better SQ. Almost the opposite...

 

ROCK is a standard linux distro with the Roon software on top. To the extent that people adopt ROCK, it will make Roon's support easier as they'll know the OS inside out and have control over updates. There is no reason whatsoever to expect that audio quality via ROCK will be any different than that provided by any other competent platform.

 

In the Squeezebox world with which I am more familiar, ROCK is akin to Vortexbox or Daphile. Both are perfectly able to do the job.

[agillis]

Our sonicTransporter has a lot more features then ROCK. If you just want ti do some basic up sampling the i5 is fine. It has 8GB of memory that is more then enough for anything you can do with Roon. You don't need 16GB.

We also sell the i7 version but this if for people who what to go crazy with the new DSP features.

An NUC has a small internal fan. Very electrically and acousticaly noisy. All our products are fanless and noiseless.

[Johnseye]

On 3/19/2017 at 4:09 PM, agillis said:

Our sonicTransporter has a lot more features then ROCK. If you just want ti do some basic up sampling the i5 is fine. It has 8GB of memory that is more then enough for anything you can do with Roon. You don't need 16GB.

We also sell the i7 version but this if for people who what to go crazy with the new DSP features.

An NUC has a small internal fan. Very electrically and acousticaly noisy. All our products are fanless and noiseless.

 

This is why I won't buy a NUC. On the other hand building a fanless PC isn't hard. The ST has no special USB card, but a personally built PC could host that plus I can control what I install. 

 

I'd love to know what makes an ST different or better than a home built fanless PC. 

[earnmyturns]

3 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

This is why I won't buy a NUC. On the other hand building a fanless PC isn't hard. The ST has no special USB card, but a personally built PC could host that plus I can control what I install. 

 

I'd love to know what makes an ST different or better than a home built fanless PC. 

Two comments: 1) NUC is a great Roon Core server for those of us who keep music storage/serving nicely segregated by Ethernet from the endpoint connected to the DAC. The alleged SQ issues with NUC SQ are AFAIK all the result of screwy configurations or poor separation between server and endpoint. 2) The main thing that makes the ST different from a home-built PC is that someone else builds the ST  Some of us would rather listen to the music than build hardware, even when (as in my case) we are totally qualified to build and maintain said hardware. Life is too short...

[Johnseye]

8 hours ago, earnmyturns said:

Two comments: 1) NUC is a great Roon Core server for those of us who keep music storage/serving nicely segregated by Ethernet from the endpoint connected to the DAC. The alleged SQ issues with NUC SQ are AFAIK all the result of screwy configurations or poor separation between server and endpoint. 2) The main thing that makes the ST different from a home-built PC is that someone else builds the ST  Some of us would rather listen to the music than build hardware, even when (as in my case) we are totally qualified to build and maintain said hardware. Life is too short...

 

To each their own.  As Andrew pointed out the NUC can be noisy so I choose to avoid it.  There's been a lot of discussion about the noise upstream to the endpoint having an impact, regardless of even using FMCs.  I don't get the logic there personally, but it's no skin off my teeth to build a fanless.  Better to avoid it if possible.

 

I was hoping to get a reply from Andrew about the ST.  The time to build a custom PC is probably 3 hours including ordering the equipment.  I'm not too concerned about that, and I actually enjoy it.  If in fact there is no difference from a PC I would build, and it would have to come down to whether the motherboard has any AG or JS tweaks, then I just assume spend the 3 hours.  So, other than someone else building it for me, what's the value add of the ST?  Any audiophile features in the hardware (not the OS) at all?  

[earnmyturns]

5 hours ago, Johnseye said:

There's been a lot of discussion about the noise upstream to the endpoint having an impact, regardless of even using FMCs.  I don't get the logic there personally, but it's no skin off my teeth to build a fanless.  Better to avoid it if possible.

There's plenty of magical thinking in the audio world, for sure. Anyone who worries about electrical noise traveling from a server to an endpoint via Ethernet might as well move to a desert island with no power lines and a steady supply of batteries carried in by rowboat. Just sayin'

[Johnseye]

3 minutes ago, earnmyturns said:

There's plenty of magical thinking in the audio world, for sure. Anyone who worries about electrical noise traveling from a server to an endpoint via Ethernet might as well move to a desert island with no power lines and a steady supply of batteries carried in by rowboat. Just sayin'

 

[agillis]

On 3/27/2017 at 9:59 PM, Johnseye said:

I'd love to know what makes an ST different or better than a home built fanless PC

 

Not much accept it's all done for you.

 

- Fast i5 processor

- Fast SSD (a lot of mSATA cards are SLOW)

- Custom fanless Aluminium case milled out of a solid block of aluminium. You could do this yourself with a milling machine!

- Roon Server,  HQPlayer, Logitech Media Server, MinimServer, PLEX media server all easy to install with one button

- Linux OS configured for low latency and headless operation . Easy to configure with a web interface.

 

On 3/28/2017 at 1:23 AM, earnmyturns said:

The main thing that makes the ST different from a home-built PC is that someone else builds the ST  Some of us would rather listen to the music than build hardware, even when (as in my case) we are totally qualified to build and maintain said hardware. Life is too short...

 

Yes!!!

 

On 3/28/2017 at 9:39 AM, Johnseye said:

Any audiophile features in the hardware (not the OS) at all?  

 

This is where we get into the Rendu series of players. You could plug a USB DAC directly into a computer or the sonicTransporter but that would be a very noisy solution. You can use filters, decrapafiers, etc but you will never really get a clean signal.

 

The micro \ ultraRendu audio player series is custom built hardware with a linear supply for each component and a super high resolution oscillator.

 

DIY is a fun part of our hobby.

 

We are looking for customs who what it all done for them. With the best quality parts and tons of time put into software design to make it super easy to use. All this a great support too. If you have problems call us and we will help you get it working.

[Johnseye]

Andrew, my questions were from last March 2017, but thanks for the response.

[punit]

I had some minor issues with Sonictransport i7 & Roon after the Sonicorbiter 2.6 update. Andrew @agillis logged on on my Mac through teamviewer & resolved everything. Such exemplary customer support ensures that whenever I upgrade to another music server in future it will be a SGC product.

[R1200CL]

2 hours ago, punit said:

whenever I upgrade to another music server in future it will be a SGC product.

 

Your next upgrade may be a cloud service ?

 

Meaning it may be quite likely the functionality of a SonicTransporter, a Nucleus, or any music server will be available in your private cloud. Together with your library. 

 

But you will still look for good endpoints, Switches, etc. 

Or just an iPhone anywhere.....

 

I wouldn’t be surprised with a future where Airplay, Bluetooth, or a new standard together with 5G and iot, will have enough power to do transfer of high res audio.

RAAT fot Bluetooth ?