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Roon Nucleus (Servers)


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Both configurations seem rather expensive ... but I have to get some details about the power supply and motherboard to really say that.  Probably the case and fanless cooler add a lot to the cost.

Pareto Audio AMD 7700 Server --> Berkeley Alpha USB --> Jeff Rowland Aeris --> Jeff Rowland 625 S2 --> Focal Utopia 3 Diablos with 2 x Focal Electra SW 1000 BE subs

 

i7-6700K/Windows 10  --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's 

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4 hours ago, rickca said:

Both configurations seem rather expensive ... but I have to get some details about the power supply and motherboard to really say that.  Probably the case and fanless cooler add a lot to the cost.

 

I will not say expensive.  If you factor in the cost of fanless case, the profit margin Roon will have is not that huge.  DIY NUC today will be $300 (NUC) + $35 (4gb) + $40 (SSD) + $150 (fanless case).

 

For price sensitive buyers, just buy the NUC and DIY.

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I kind of think twelve-hundred or two-grand with no media storage is a bit expensive, fanless case or not.  128GB SSD on the higher-end model costs peanuts these days, and is really just for the OS, so you must factor in the cost of true storage, unless you've already got a NAS, in which case you're already back up to two boxes again, before you even hit the DAC, which seems to me to negate the entire idea of this product.

 

I know you still need a computer of some sort to run Roon with Bluesound, but, at least with the Bluesound Vault, you're getting 2TB of storage, a DAC/HP amp, a CD ripper, and a networked media player for your $1200.

 

I don't want to be misunderstood here.  More options for everyone is always a good thing.  I'm simply trying to find out how/where this fits in.

 

I suppose the target audience is audiophiles with a desire to venture into the world of computer-based audio who don't mind paying in order to remove any perceived barriers.  Certainly not a bad thing.

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Here's a comment from Roon's Danny Dulai on Roon's community forums in response to the pricing:

 

"You nailed it. The HiFi dealer market requires turn-key hardware. Hard to sell someone $50,000 audio setup and then send them home to install Roon on a Mac."

 

Roon obviously has a clearly defined sense of their target with this one.  Nothing wrong with that.

 

Also confirmed is that there is no Roon license included, though I'm not entirely convinced that they won't at least offer some sort of trial, but, who knows?  They have a sense of value in regard to their software and the folks at Roon will never bundle the license with any hardware.

 

Danny also said that Roon will soon have a "button" on their website which will auto-populate your Amazon cart with DIY NUC components should you elect to go that route.  Cool idea!

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34 minutes ago, oneway23 said:

Danny also said that Roon will soon have a "button" on their website which will auto-populate your Amazon cart with DIY NUC components should you elect to go that route.  Cool idea!

Very smart idea!  Look forward to seeing what it's all about.  

W10 NUC i7 (Gen 10) > Roon (Audiolense FIR) > Motu UltraLite mk5 > (4) Hypex NCore NC502MP > JBL M2 Master Reference +4 subs

 

Watch my Podcast https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXMw_bZWBMtRWNJQfTJ38kA/videos

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...
On 02/06/2017 at 0:34 AM, canali said:

yes i'm looking forward to this.....i have a 10 yr old laptop as my music ''server'' (cough cough)...using a MR, Tidal mostly for streaming.

of course i can't upsample with its demands on my 2 outdated cores etc.

from Dar in an interview with Danny from Roon.

also see interview video in the article

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2017/05/roon-announce-nucleus-server/

 

 

All I can say is that I wouldnt want to be hanging by my proverbials waiting for Roon Labs to make this thing a production reality. I accept that Munich saw a rash of product announcements, but we arent talking exotic bespoke hardware here : most of us could have installed Roon Rock on Skull Canyon for less money than Roon seem to be asking for the Nucleus+. I guess I must be missing something, or they didn't pay someone for SEO on the new hardware - happy to hear that I'm being unfair to a company/product that I know is something of a sacred cow here. I've worked in enough desk slave gigs to know the delta between marketing promises and production timelines - I guess I'd hoped for better from a company that has come so far so fast. 'Coming soon' is sadly reminiscent of the time Audioquest took to release a single firmware update for the Dragonfly Black/Red and that's just not good enough for mine.  

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/nucleus-when-can-we-expect-the-first-deliveries/30269

 

Ned 

Just one more headphone and I know I can kick this nasty little habit !

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I am an amateur when working with networks and the associated hardware but can tell  you that building a NUC ROCK was a breeze.  Simply follow the build and OS installation instructions and you'll be up and running within an hour or so.  Total cost in Canada of $500 CAN for an i3 NUC, boot SSD and paired 4Gb memory boards.  Only possible add may be a LPS but this is debatable.

 

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2 hours ago, wdw said:

Only possible add may be a LPS but this is debatable.

 

 

I have a Nuc 7i3, with boot SSD, just one 4gb memory and an internal  HDD for my music.  

 

I swapped out, after a month, the standard wall wart PS with a Sbooster BOTW P&P ECO 18-19V PS.  

 

IMHO it made a considerable difference.  My system is quite old and I could easily here the difference; black background, more instrument separation, calmer on complex music passages. etc ...  

 

I wouldn't recommend a NUC Roon Rock without a better PS.  Of course YMMV.  

 

Other major differences as well as a better PS, were a better ethernet cable (in my case from the Nuc to the SOtM sMS-200) instead of a generic cat 6 and plugging the all in one router and switch wallwart PS into a 'HiFi' power strip (and even this is 20 years old).  

 

 

NUC 7i3 (ROCK) > Ghent Audio Lan cable > SOtM sMS-200 (+Uptone LPS-1) >  0.2m Curious USB cable > Singxer F1 (usb to spdif) > 0.5m XLO digital cable > Audiolab 8000 Dac (25 years old) > Trends Audio 10.1 Integrated Amp > Kef 103/4 speakers

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It would seem that the hold-up is the 'bespoke operating system' - just as most of us could assemble our own hardware (including mini-ITX solutions if the NUC doesnt have the grunt for DSD upsampling), many of the regulars here could roll their own Linux distro in under a week so I'm assuming they've set their sights somewhat higher. If I seem overly critical, its simply because they've done such a superb job with RAAT and I guess I've put their engineers on something of a pedestal. Anyone who has struggled with UPnP (particularly the control point software) will readily attest to the fact that Roon 'just works' - lets hope their all-in-one solutions are every bit as seamless. I'm fine working at the Linux command line but I doubt that anyone who shells out 2K USD for the Nucleus+ will feel the same way.

Just one more headphone and I know I can kick this nasty little habit !

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On 2017/09/13 at 6:44 PM, gcoupe said:

 

Nope - that's ROCK, and that's been up and running (and in use by many in the Roon community) for months now. According to Danny Dulai (COO of Roon Labs) the first production units of the Nucleus are imminent (i.e. this month).

 

Thanks for the clarification - I guess my twisted imagination had the Nucleus outfitted with a few more tweaks than a vanilla ROCK install. I dont know what those tweaks would be, but I imagine that Roon is very familiar with the NUC architecture by now.

Just one more headphone and I know I can kick this nasty little habit !

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i'm using my laptop currently, as noted earlier...it's 10 yrs old.

despite getting more ram a few months ago, it still cuts out from Roon/Tidal if i'm browsing too much in wifi.

 

question: would a NUC (Danny thought an i5 would be ideal for me as a do it yourself approach) have upgraded wifi capacity to deal with these drop out wifi issues? i presume i'd still use my 10 yr old laptop (might get an ipad eventually or new desktop) as the visual interface.

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  • 11 months later...

Here's a review from Phile Web of the Roon nucleus compared to a laptop (google translate). The ancillary equipment to listen are no slouches at holding back poor playback.

 

Listen first at the notebook PC. Thanks to good quality USB-DAC, good quality amp, good quality speaker, it sounds good enough. It stretches well both up and down, and there is also a spread of sound that can fill the space of the audition room. As long as you hear it at least this is not a sound that makes you feel particularly dissatisfied. 

Subsequently listening with Nucleus + was no longer a different thing from the moment the first sound came out. It outperforms notebook PC with every element such as grain of one sound, transparency of space, extension of vocal, seduction of bass and volume feeling. 

If you listen on a notebook PC again, it is obviously noisy compared to Nucleus +, the elongation of sound is insufficient, and there is a cramped feeling as if the head was constantly pressed down. On the other hand, Nucleus + has small shadows of noise accompanying when connecting a general PC and audio equipment. Bleeding is reduced from the outline of the sound, and the localization feeling is greatly improved. This is nothing more than a difference beyond imagination. 

AS Profile Equipment List        Say NO to MQA

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On 8/31/2018 at 6:17 PM, One and a half said:

Here's a review from Phile Web of the Roon nucleus compared to a laptop (google translate). The ancillary equipment to listen are no slouches at holding back poor playback.

 

Listen first at the notebook PC. Thanks to good quality USB-DAC, good quality amp, good quality speaker, it sounds good enough. It stretches well both up and down, and there is also a spread of sound that can fill the space of the audition room. As long as you hear it at least this is not a sound that makes you feel particularly dissatisfied. 

Subsequently listening with Nucleus + was no longer a different thing from the moment the first sound came out. It outperforms notebook PC with every element such as grain of one sound, transparency of space, extension of vocal, seduction of bass and volume feeling. 

If you listen on a notebook PC again, it is obviously noisy compared to Nucleus +, the elongation of sound is insufficient, and there is a cramped feeling as if the head was constantly pressed down. On the other hand, Nucleus + has small shadows of noise accompanying when connecting a general PC and audio equipment. Bleeding is reduced from the outline of the sound, and the localization feeling is greatly improved. This is nothing more than a difference beyond imagination. 

I have a friend in another State who bought a Nucleus + and his comments echo this review

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The one major shortcoming with the Nucleus, is that there's the Bridging Ethernet port missing to allow a renderer to be wired directly from the source. With the HDMI, USB, USB-C outputs, the computer needs to be close to the DAC. DACs and the computer source need to have distance from each other, 10m, more if possible, there's the problem. The noise from the power supply for the Nucleus will just throw back to the AC, so the gain in SQ compared to a laptop, will be offset by AC grunge injection. 

 

A renderer like xRendu are already Roon compliant, so a conventional PC server can be used anyway, totally avoiding the Nucleus altogether.

 

At RoonLabs, there's already a discussion on linear power supplies, no wonder.

AS Profile Equipment List        Say NO to MQA

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10 hours ago, One and a half said:

The noise from the power supply for the Nucleus will just throw back to the AC, so the gain in SQ compared to a laptop, will be offset by AC grunge injection.

 

A fair number of people have picked up a JS-2 for their Roon Nucleus units (as our choke-filtered design does not kick anything back into the mains).  Despite the back panel saying 19V, the Nucleus runs great from the 12V/7.2A JS-2–since it is based on an Intel NUC board, and the full specs for all NUCs of the past 3 years give a 12-19V range.  (Everything internally gets stepped way down to 5V, 3.3V, 1.1V anyway.)

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