I have an i3 NUC running Debian 12, 500 artists, I think about 30,000 tracks, use PEQ, crossfeed and volume levelling for headphone listening and my CPU usage barely gets above 2% when using Roon.
I don’t use multiroom.
The NUC is very quiet and sits next to the nas that stores the music.
It’s so easy, I don’t see the point. Building a NUC, fine. Maybe some support is beneficial. But installing Rock is so easy, paying someone to do it is madness.
I run my ROCK server on a ten year old Lenovo x220 laptop. It works superbly well. Took me half an hour to setup.
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You can get very descent here https://audiosaul.de/primecore-audio/
If one has a license they will install rock
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Is there a custom dust cleaning tool with the device? 
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I’m wondering if it can be used as a hotplate? 
Audiophile tea. You just opened another niche!
And these tea marketing guys are as crazy as the audio ones!
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They also do not use RoonOS. So if there is a problem at the OS level, Small Green Computer is responsible.
This can be taken as a pro or a con.
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Small green computer with an out of date cpu, 8G ram, cheap small storage, cheap usb ports, all for $1300. You can buy 4-nucs for that price, or an m1 or m2 Mac mini for hundreds cheaper that will blow away the small green computer. I bought an m2 Mac mini with 512G storage and 16G ram, fanless, headless for $1000 and it will blow away an outdated sonictransporter i5. I can run any Linux OS on the Mac as well as osx for Roon. I never use usb to the dac because usb is flawed, so either use i2s or Ethernet to the dac and when using Ethernet, the computer is in a different room that my audio room.
AFAIK they do have fans, you just usually don’t hear them. But you are not going to run “any” Linux on M2 except Asahi, Fedora Asahi Remix, Ubuntu Asahi or similar, and i’d still consider this quite experimental.
That’s not to say that an M2 or M3 mini doesn’t make a good Roon server
Let me qualify things: you can run many Linux distros on an m1/m2 using Parallels and or virtualbox. Here is a snippet from parallels:
Linux
- Adds support for several newest Linux distributions, including Ubuntu 22.04.2, Fedora 38, Debian 12, CentOS 9, and more;
- Enables installing and running the Arm version of CentOS 9 Stream on Mac computers with Apple Silicon.
In a VM of course
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Bummer they are only in Germany. Any idea of price?
PrimeCore Audio® Streamer A5/A7: 1.998,00 € – 2.398,00 € (including tax, plus shipping)
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The ROCK install instructions for a NUC didn’t seem simple to me!
But does everything need to be simple? Acquiring new skills usually requires a little effort.
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Reminder: Building computers is not the only skill that’s worth acquiring. Someone else maybe prefers playing tennis or knitting in their spare time.
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I set up my own ROCK on an 11th gen Intel Nuc i5. Saved at least £200 and learned a thing or two.
Which are completely unrelated to Roon.
Um, yes, but not everything in life has to revolve around Roon, and people have limited time. They can either acquire the skills to install ROCK or do something else that they prefer doing instead. It’s their choice.
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