I currently use a NAD M17 v2 as my player, and my Roon core is my 14" laptop, which I can run wi-fi or HDMI. I really like using my laptop with my mouse over a tablet or phone for navigating Roon, but I think I prefer to have my music library stored on a server that will be hard wired to the network, then I could access the music from anywhere, not just my laptop.
I know there is the Nucleus, but that’s too proprietary and too expensive in my opinion… and there are servers like the SonicTransporter i5 from SGC that appear to be fairly nice. However, it’s not user serviceable, so I’m not sure I’d want to take that chance. Either way… there are a LOT of various Roon ready products out there. I don’t need anything with a DAC since my M17 is going to take care of that part of the processing. So my question is… what are the benefits of using anything more than a fanless NUC from Amazon… something that will store my local library and give me full access to music? Why spend more on anything else… what am I going to get that will be any better?
I’m thinking something like this would be sufficient… but what would I be missing?
