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Computer as roon core- ROCK or Audiolinux?

Ponkbutler said:
Quite possible. I’ve never done the comparison.

Getting back to the original question, I think the Nucleus sounds better than the NAS because there’s less going on in the box: a cut down OS, no Wi-Fi, no disk drives etc. I’m sure one could build something similar as TBL suggests, but I’ve never tried that or done a comparison. All I do know is that the sound of media servers is more mysterious than bits in and bits out.
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Don't think you're quite getting it, the Nucleus is an Intel NUC in a fancy case, there is no difference apart from you paying an extra £1000.
 
Ponkbutler said:
Perfectly logical but untrue. My end point is a Naim ND555 and it’s quite separate from either the QNap or Nucleus.
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The information travels over RAAT from the server to the renderer. It's only synchronicity with the music time axis is to keep within 1ms for multi-room playback -- the DAC owns the real clock. If you run RAAT over wireless you obviously have total galvanic isolation so no PSU noise can get through. If you run it over Ethernet you have transformer-based galvanic isolation which while not "perfect", is plenty good enough for this application.
 
thebiglebowski said:
Don't think you're quite getting it, the Nucleus is an Intel NUC in a fancy case, there is no difference apart from you paying an extra £1000.
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Sorry, but you're being obdurate as well as wittily impolite. I perfectly understand what you are stating a Nucleus is, and you're quite right. It's just one example of that with a fancy case, which may or not make any difference to either the cooling or anything else for all I know. I'm simply commenting on the Nucleus, not any other implementation of a NUC, which may work as well as or even better, because that is all I have experienced. And within my own limited experience, I am stating I heard clear differences compared with a pretty good NAS.
 
Jeff Young said:
The information travels over RAAT from the server to the renderer. It's only synchronicity with the music time axis is to keep within 1ms for multi-room playback -- the DAC owns the real clock. If you run RAAT over wireless you obviously have total galvanic isolation so no PSU noise can get through. If you run it over Ethernet you have transformer-based galvanic isolation which while not "perfect", is plenty good enough for this application.
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Sure. Never mind the theory, give it a listen.
 
Koobre said:
I've just seen your system on the link provided. Looks very impressive but likely way beyond my skills level at the moment. I'm considering the NUC but unsure to go 8th gen i3/i5 or i7. I noticed you have chosen the i3. Is the i5 or i7 overkill for the computer processing that is required for the ROCK? I will be doing minimal DSP with a modest 500 albums in a flash drive and streaming Tidal. I know that noone has a crystal ball but I'm hoping for a robust system that will last at least 5 years.
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I have a slightly bigger library (1500 albums) and use an i5 as it was only about £20 more on Amazon. Technically Roon only support the 7th gen CPUs by the way, but many are using the 8th gen ones with no issues. I bought a 7th gen one to be sure. All in (NUC, RAM, Drive) it was around £420.
 
Ponkbutler said:
Sure. Never mind the theory, give it a listen.
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I have. I don't hear any difference. But that doesn't tell us whether it's your positive expectation bias or my negative expectation bias in play (or even a bit of both). So all we have left is theory. ;)
 
Ponkbutler said:
If running Windows shut down or uninstall all unnecessary Apps and services, which can improve SQ. It certainly did on my Linux NAS, thought it’s still behind the Nucleus.
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You mean a program that isn’t running can affect sound quality?
 
If nothing else, the 8th gen will provide some future proofing. I don't think they are a lot more expensive.
 
I’ve settled on a 2017 MacBook SSD running Core, holding my music in FLAC from minimum 16 but rips/downloads, sending a stream over USB-over-Ethernet into my speakers. Compared it to:
1. USB not over Ethernet.
2. CD SPDIF coax
3. QNAP NAS running Core.
4. Aurender streamer with internal storage
5. Auralic
6. Beosound Core over Toslink
After hours of comparison, I can honestly hear no difference at all. They all sounded near enough to sound exactly the same to my ears. Perhaps my speakers are doing a good job at eliminating any inbound interference or timing issues or my hearing is bad and I lack audiophile golden ears. IMHO, i’d save a ton of cash and use your home computer. If you are paranoid about electrical noise which I think is audiophile nervosa, one can invest in an Intona galvanic USB isolator made for industry and laboratories for about €300.
 
seethroughyou said:
After hours of comparison, I can honestly hear no difference at all. They all sounded near enough to sound exactly the same to my ears.
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Is the right answer, and why should anyone who hasn't been reading too many magazines or Hi Fi forums be surprised ? As long as the bits are getting to their destination intact, that's all you need to worry about.
 
My MBP Roon core died and I'm thinking of building a NUC with ROCK to replace it. I have a couple of questions and it looks like this might be the thread to ask.

Ponkbutler said:
Getting back to the original question, I think the Nucleus sounds better than the NAS because there’s less going on in the box: a cut down OS, no Wi-Fi, no disk drives etc. I’m sure one could build something similar as TBL suggests, but I’ve never tried that or done a comparison. All I do know is that the sound of media servers is more mysterious than bits in and bits out.
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How would Roon endpoints work without Wi-Fi?

To those that said they're running a NUC in a fanless case...how does that work? are there "aftermarket" cases made to fit the NUC board pretty easily? How loud is the "stock" case?

How would offsite backups work with a NUC? Right now I have an iTunes library on an external hard drive. Arq watches that drive for changes and pushes new albums out to Amazon for offsite backup. I assume I couldn't do this with ROCK installed. I'd probably have to go to a NAS setup for that?

Can I plug a NUC directly into my DAC and use that as an endpoint?
 
If you go without Wi-Fi then you need a physical ethernet connection. (That's what I do.)

I don't know if there are fanless cases for NUCs or not. I built an ATX card machine for which there are fanless cases available. The ATX cards are a bit larger, a bit more powerful, and a bit more expensive than NUC cards.

I would think offsite backups would work fine with ROCK. You don't really need a NAS. I have my iTunes library folder set to a directory on my ATX Roon Core to make ripping CDs easier -- just pop them in a CD-drive and iTunes does the rest. You could just set Arq to watch that directory.

I am using ArchLinux instead of ROCK (mainly because I built mine before ROCK shipped), but ROCK is also a stripped-down Linux so I can't imagine it would be very different.

You can plug your DAC directly to your NUC as long as your DAC has a USB input. (Your NUC might also have a TOSLink output, but it will suck.)
 
Thanks Jeff.

So all of your endpoints are connected via ethernet?

I should clarify that if I build a ROCK, I don't plan on replacing my Mac, so I don't know how I'd run Arq on a ROCK box. Seems like it's an OS image and you're not going to install any additional software on top of it.
 
ROCK is still Linux, so you can install whatever Linux apps you want.

I have some endpoints connected via wi-fi, just not those that are sound-critical. The wi-fi doesn't need to go directly to the Roon Core; once the Roon Core is on ethernet the wi-fi can go to your router and then on to the Roon Core from there.
 
Jeff Young said:
ROCK is still Linux, so you can install whatever Linux apps you want.

I have some endpoints connected via wi-fi, just not those that are sound-critical. The wi-fi doesn't need to go directly to the Roon Core; once the Roon Core is on ethernet the wi-fi can go to your router and then on to the Roon Core from there.
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ah, that makes sense on the wifi/ethernet thing, thanks
 
jamesd said:
My MBP Roon core died and I'm thinking of building a NUC with ROCK to replace it. I have a couple of questions and it looks like this might be the thread to ask.



How would Roon endpoints work without Wi-Fi?

To those that said they're running a NUC in a fanless case...how does that work? are there "aftermarket" cases made to fit the NUC board pretty easily? How loud is the "stock" case?

How would offsite backups work with a NUC? Right now I have an iTunes library on an external hard drive. Arq watches that drive for changes and pushes new albums out to Amazon for offsite backup. I assume I couldn't do this with ROCK installed. I'd probably have to go to a NAS setup for that?

Can I plug a NUC directly into my DAC and use that as an endpoint?
Click to expand...

Akasa make a popular range of fanless cases for the NUC; make sure that you pick one intended for your particular NUC board. Assembly and installation of the NUC in to one of these is pretty straightforward and the instructions are clear.

ROCK isn't intended as a general LINUX platform but a turn-key solution specifically to run Roon. You have no direct access to the operating system and cannot install anything else; Roon warn that if you hack your way around this restriction, your changes will be over-written by later updates. If you want more control, you should do as Jeff has done and do an installation of your favourite LINUX and install roon on top of it - this obviously requires a bit more expertise.

For me, the only drawback of the ROCK installation is that if you want to use an internal drive you must begin with an empty drive that is freshly formatted by ROCK. You can't just install an SSD with music files already on it.

From within Roon, you can schedule backups of the Roon database to either Dropbox or and external USB or network drive. The internal drive has a samba share and you can back this up from another PC or MAC.

You can plug a ROCK NUC directly in to a USB DAC or a USB to SPDIF bridge. I did this for a while before installing a second NUC (with Audio-Linux and Roonbridge) as an endpoint. I only use wired Ethernet.

I hope this helps. It's really not very difficult.

Chris
 
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