250k Albums on Nucleus+? (correction: 25k)

I’d still recommend putting a small Roon endpoint at your Dave and having the Roon server and drives elsewhere. The Regen might not be needed depending how well the USB is implemented on the endpoint you choose.

You could even continue using the laptop and drives in this situation, run Roon Core on it and stream to the Roon endpoint.

An overall cleaner solution at your audio equipment.

I agree. I don’t recommend the Regen here btw - I only mentioned it to bring up the MSB $80k DAC :slight_smile:

Of course having Roon Server far away is best (Roon’s own recommendation).

Just have an ultraRendu or USBridge connected to Dave (if practicably possible).

I was thinking Nucleus+ was a suitable endpoint for the Dave, and I could keep it in the same room as its fanless. What alternative endpoint were you thinking of, other than a fanless NUC with Roon core, once that comes along?

The music files in a different room might be inevitable. Thanks.

The Nucleus+ is a server first that can have a DAC connected to it.

There are allot of RAAT capable endpoints with great USB implementations. Do you have ethernet at your audio equipment or would you need need Wifi?

I do have Ethernet close to the equipment, but only through the mains at present.

@Quaerit is feeding a Dave using the Auralic Aries G2. This isn’t a small or cheap device but it’s dedicated DAC USB implementation is exceptional. I can pretty much guarantee the Regen could be sold if you went this route. It also has wifi which is the recommended method for streaming.

Smaller and cheaper there are SOTM and Sonore streamers, they don’t have wifi by default though. Lots of choices can be found here:

https://roonlabs.com/partners.html

I have the Auralic Mini (admittedly, a cheaper model) fed into Dave via optical, which I use for Tidal. I’ve given it a go with my music library, but I wasn’t that impressed. Certainly, not better than JRiver. Are you suggesting the G2 is likley to be better than the Nucleus+ or an NUC running Roon core? I thought this was Roon forum :slight_smile:

The problem is that demoing all these options is virtually impossible, and there are strong advocates of more or less everything.

The Regen serves a quite different purpose, of course. If nothing else it ensure that a battery powered USB signal goes into the Dave, and I’ve found it beneficial.

I think you might be misunderstanding our recommendation. We all want you to use Roon, but stream to your DAC through a RoonReady endpoint not plug the roon server directly into your DAC.

You have everything you need already give it a try:

  1. Make sure your Auralic Mini has the latest firmware and then go into it’s configuration, choose the USB output. Enable RoonReady and plug it into your usb cable and regen feeding your Dave.
  2. Take your laptop and drives away from your Dave and install Roon Core on it.
  3. Install Roon on your favorite remote control device be it an iphone or ipad or whatever. The remote should auto discover the core on your laptop and let you add your drives. After starting to scan your music Roon should automatically see your Mini as a playback endpoint.
  4. Choose that endpoint, play some music and enjoy Roon
  5. Configure Roon with your Tidal account and really see the magic of Roon/Tidal integration.

Once you get the above working with a Roon trial let us know what you think and maybe you don’t need to do anymore upgrades or maybe you’ll feel you still need do do some.

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Apologies, but there’s still one point I don’t quite understand. Why don’t you recommend plugging a Roon server directly into a DAC, which is one of the things I understood Nucleus+ is designed to do, and how it’s been reviewed? I know you’re in favour of Roon, but I get the impression — and I could be wrong — that there’s not much enthusiasm for Nucleus+.

The general consensus is keep the computer equipment away from your audio equipment. Roon supports a plethora of network endpoints and it’s the recommended implementation method for the best sound quality.

Nothing against the Nucleus+.

From Bob_Stuart:

Aren’t streamers and similar devices, all computers of sorts, and therefore also “radio noisy”? Isn’t that why they’re screened? I wonder why Roon haven’t put in their literature that Nucleus+ should not be plonked on a Hi-Fi rack, and should be kept well away from audio equipment. Strange that I’ve ever come across this before, but you learn something new every day.

It’s been recommended by Roon for a long time.

and

and

Nucleus+ is a turn key solution that can be plonked down on a Hi-Fi rack.

But why would you want the Nucleus there with multiple hard drives hanging off of it or an additional usb hub when you could just use your Aries Mini in RoonReady mode feeding USB to your Dave with equivalent or better results?

I’m not sure my laptop’s really up to it with 4 gigs RAM and the number of albums I now have, and that Roon’s database will be considerably larger than that of JRiver. I’d also thought that a bespoke device, like Nucleus+, would be a better sounding solution than sticking with a laptop running Windows, but I appear to be wrong on that too.

I now exit rather more confused than when I entered I shall however, bear your suggestions in mind.

Well buy the nucleus if you need more power there’s just no particular reason to put it at your Dac with the Aries mini already there.

I’d use the Aries’ optical output with Dave… At least in terms of conducted naughties, you’ll block any leakage currents and associated RF from Nucleus+ coming into Dave.

From Rob Watts:

"Yes optical is the best input - its really a question of getting the other inputs to match optical."

It’s very difficult to isolate ethernet and USB to the extent that optical does. As long as the sample rate limitations of TOSlink isn’t an issue for you. The reason Rob isn’t worried about TOSlink’s jitter with any of his DACs:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/chord-electronics-dave-da-processor-measurements

This subject is being seriously over complicated. There is nothing that dictates that you have to use a low powered end point. This advice originally refered to forced air cooled hardware, especially that with the processing power and graphics that would give the best Roon experience. A device like Nucleus takes care of that being passively cooled and clad in a kilo of cast alloy which I would wager takes care of the vast majority of any radiated interferance. ROCK is also highly optimised as a direct playback engine and is pretty tough to beat in that respect. I would suggest the advice is kept as simple as possible. Experimentation with end points can easily come later. A Nucleus + should work well here and not everyone has the time or inclination to build things and load software on to them. :wink:
@Colin_Green1, you can make this as simple or complex as you wish. If you keep it simple you can build up to the complicated stuff in time if you wish. Just have a clear vision of your basic goal. You can build on that later.

Thanks, Henry. I shall give the options serious thought before deciding. My priority is listening to all those albums, or as many as I can manage, rather than faffing about, though it seems that can’t be avoided.

This is what frustrates me a little though. It isn’t hard to do this to an exceptionally high standard without ever having to wield a screw driver or type a word of command line instruction into a console window.

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