FWIW I have my rock/nuc wired into an Orbi satellite. Works great.
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Will any of this solve OP’s other problem, though, which is to work with MQA? I don’t know as I have no experience but I think, as someone posted, you need an MQA compatible DAC.
I do have good experience using a RPi and Hi Fi Berry Digi feeding 192 via coax to a Benchmark DAC. Super cheap solution (except for the Benchmark).
Also, why use Ropiee instead of Roon Bridge for RPi? The latter may even feed audio through HDMI (don’t know, haven’t tried). It does recognize the HAT’s for digital output.
If Roon Bridge doesn’t output digital audio through HDMI I suggest submitting to the Roon team as a feature request.
The issue of using a NAS versus ROCK as core is unrelated, and only affects scanning your library. It may or may not be an issue depending on its size.
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You need an MQA capable DAC for full MQA. Roon software does the first unfold only.
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I’m no longer all that concerned about FULL MQA compatibility as I think with Qobuz and now Amazon joining the HD 24/192 FLAC direction, MQA is going to have a tough time staying relevant. No need for a lossy format, even a hi-res one, and especially not one that requires special hardware and a special service to run it.
So my interest remains with having a convenient, quality, 192kHz/24bit multichannel capable endpoint (*ahem, *cough SHIELD *cough) and (perhaps) a NUC or Raspberry Pi (+digital I/O?) to increase performance and/or act as the endpoint.
One kind of nagging point of confusion I have:
What are the pros and cons and/or differences between running a NUC and running a Raspberry Pi 4 device?
Massively appreciate this discussion and everyone’s insights.
Well, you can’t run Roon Core on a Pi, for the main thing. Pi’s are for streaming from the Core over Ethernet or WiFi.
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Amazon does not work on Roon. If you stay with Roon, you can stream from Tidal, Qobuz, or both. Tidal provides MQA if you want it. So, if you stick with Roon but don’t want MQA, you probably don’t need Tidal. Your only option at that point is Qobuz and/or your own local music. MQA does not require a special service to play it. If you have Tidal, the Tidal app will obviously play MQA. If you have Roon, the Roon app will play MQA. MQA sounds every bit as good as anything else you will ever stream from an online service, if you have an MQA DAC.
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Thanks Jim. Yeah, been following the Amazon stuff and realize it’s not supported in Roon. Maybe it will be eventually. I currently subscribe to both TIdal and Qobuz. Qobuz making me feel a lot less need for Tidal other than the current library gaps. Point being, I think lossless is the future of premium streaming services, not MQA. And MQA mostly plays just fine. Without MQA DAC, I slightly prefer Qobuz and Amazon HD playback in A/B test. Not sure if MQA DAC would improve that, but seems unnecessary versus just streaming 96 or 192 FLAC straight to DAC.
Of course, an MQA DAC would improve that. It’s basically the same as 24/192, but slightly better IMHO. That said, I may drop Tidal when my 6 month subscription runs out, not because I don’t like MQA, but because Qobuz has now caught up with the music I play and Qobuz is less expensive. I no longer need both.
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Thanks Bill - great point of clarification 
So it sounds like for me a NUC would be best as it would presumably help with any Core performance issues I’m experiencing (e.g. end points dropping out intermittently) and provide 192k and multichannel audio support to my AVR. Can the Core run on a NUC with files still residing on my Qnap NAS?
Interesting to consider, thanks.
The Roon core can run on any computer that meets the Roon minimum requirements. It runs best on a Nucleus or NUC with ROCK, but some have good success running on a desktop or laptop. I think least desirable is running Roon core on a NAS.
You can put your music on an internal drive, USB drive, or NAS. It works best when internal or connected directly to your Roon core device. I think people have better success with a USB drive than a NAS, but a NAS should work.
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It can, but Roon advises against it. It has to scan the NAS over the network, and apparently there are issues with that. I don’t know, I sill run my Core on my NAS, just as you do.
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Yeah overall the NAS almost works, but I get instances where it loses all endpoints. So I’m trying running the Core on an i7 desktop (with files still on NAS over network) and it seems to work just great. So I’ll probably run a NUC with database on its local SSD and store audio files on NAS as that seems to work.
Considering an i3 NUC with 8GB RAM. Would that be sufficient or should I spring for an i5? Currently it’s running on my dual celeron NAS and it almost works. Sometimes it will go for awhile, but eventually it loses endpoints and then reconnects. Playback doesn’t drop out though, and browsing is just fine.
If I was going to the trouble of building a NUC, I would build something more capable.
I use a big noisy bog standard tower PC i7 7700 , 16gb RAM
Music ( and video) on 2x4tb HDD inside,
Keep it out of earshot of your listening room , no issues
It doubles as my normal OfficePC
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Hi all,
I just wanted to thank you all for your help and report back on what I actually did and where I am now.
- Purchased an i3 NUC8 with Windows 10. Roon Core installed.
- Music library is installed on my Qnap NAS
- NUC is connected HDMI directly to my Denon receiver.
- I control from various devices (computers, iPad, Android phones, or directly from NUC)
- Qnap is connected to my router (Netgear R7800) and NUC is connected to 5gHz WiFi
My library has around 27000 tracks/2500 albums
I’m happy to report that everything is snappy and works basically flawlessly. I am able to shuffle my entire library (with Qubuz and Tidal connected as well) and everything from 44.1/16 stereo to 192/24 stereo and up to 96kHz/24-bit 5.1 files all play perfectly at their native resolutions. I use volume leveling and (in one room) sample rate conversion and the Gen8 i3 NUC has more than enough horsepower and performance is solid.
Anyway, just wanted to pass along this information in case it is helpful to anyone. Happy to answer any questions and thank you again to everyone who participated and offered their knowledge.
Stay safe and healthy.
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