Hi: I just bought a Roon Nucleus from another subscriber to replace my aging MacMini. Up to now I have been bridging ethernet on my MacMini into my ethernet Roon Endpoint (DCS NB) - i.e., MacMini receives ethernet signal directly from cable modem and this is bridged internally via USB ethernet connection and another ethernet cable to my Roon endpoint.
Can I do the same ethernet bridging trick on my new Nucleus and avoid having an external ethernet bridge? Or will I need to buy an external bridge to make my connections? I was definitely able to hear a large improvement in sound from the bridged connection with my MacMini when I moved away from the bridge I was using before.
Perhaps there is a thread explaining this or somewhere else I should look. If so, please point me in the right direction. I did look around, but couldn’t find anything that addressed this question.
There may be a way of doing it. I do this to connect directly to a Devialet. I have no idea whether it will work with another endpoint, or even if you can do it with another endpoint.
You use a USB to ethernet adapter connected to one of the 2 USB ports on the Nucleus and then connect the adapter to your network via ethernet. You can use DHCP for the addresses for this connection.
You then connect an ethernet cable directly from the ethernet port on the Nucleus to the ethernet port on your endpoint. You have to configure manual IP addresses for both the Nucleus and for the endpoint, in my case my Devialet but in your case your DCS NB. If you can’t configure a manual address for the DCS NB then it probably will not work. Trying to use DHCP addresses for the ethernet port on the Nucleus and for my Devialet does not work.
For the manual addresses, give each device it’s own IP address from a range outside the range of addresses your router can supply and use the same subnet mask as your normal network uses which is probably 255.255.255.0 Do not supply server or gateway addresses and you may need to set them to 0.0.0.0 if the device supplies an address automatically.
You can configure the manual address for the Nucleus in the web interface for the Nucleus, there’s no provision to do this in the Roon application settings. Once you connect to your network using the USB to ethernet adapter you will see tabs for 2 ethernet connections at the bottom of the web interface page. Ethernet 1 is always the ethernet port and that’s the one you have to manually configure. Ethernet 2 is always the USB adapter connection.
Someone may have another way of doing this but this is the way I figured out by trial and error based on a few hints in another thread here relating to creating a direct connection to a Devialet. There may be a better way of configuring the manual addresses. I’m not a networking expert and as I said, I figured this way out by trial and error and it does work with a Devialet.
I have a Nucleus, a dCS Vivaldi stack (the Upsampler functions in the same way as the dCS network bridge for this purpose) and a cable modem. I run a Cat 6 ethernet cable from the cable modem to my wifi router, a Cat 6 ethernet cable from the router to the Nucleus, and a Cat 6 ethernet cable from the router to the dCS Upsampler. Very easy. I just select the Network input on the Upsampler and it sees whatever is playing on Roon on the Nucleus (including showing all relevant information about the particular track on the Upsampler’s display). I control Roon with an iPad connected to the network over the router’s wifi.
Thanks Harold, I was hoping to avoid having my signal run from computer through a router or switch as that degrades the sound. I would like to go direct from router to Nucleus, bridge ethernet on the Nucleus, and send another ethernet cable from Nucleus to DCS NB. This is what I am able to do on my MacMini with the DCS NB. However, I am having some difficulty now getting this going on the Nucleus.
My questions at this point are:
Do I need a different USB ethernet adapter than the one I had been using for my MacMini? I wasn’t able to get the Nucleus to connect to ethernet using the Apple ethernet USB adapter I have been using with my MacMini. So far, the Nucleus only seems to see the internet signal from my router using an ethernet cable directly to its ethernet input.
I understand from David’s remark above that I need to manually reconfigure the IP addresses of DCS NB and of Nucleus itself. In order to do this, do I need some sort of DHCP server software that I would need to download on to one of the computers on my LAN? I have a Mac laptop for general purpose use networked to my LAN which I would use to do this. David, any ideas for this please?
However, on my second question I am still unclear about one basic thing. What application would I use to see and change the IP addresses of Nucleus and Endpoint?
I hadn’t seen the post from Danny in the thread in @Katun’s post and I’ve just tried his settings in my setup. Go with Danny’s settings. I think the sound quality is slightly better with his settings than mine but don’t ask me why these settings should affect sound quality because I don’t know the answer.
To change the settings in the Nucleus, go to it’s web interface. In the Roon app settings menu go to Setup and tap on the Configure button at the top of that sub-menu. Tap on the blue IP address in the Configure Roon OS window that opens and the web interface will open in your browser. The network settings are at the bottom of the web interface page.
To change the settings for your endpoint you need to fine the network settings in your endpoint’s own settings menu. I have no experience with DCS gear so I can’t help you there. Consult the device manual is the only suggestion I can give.
Many thanks to @Katun for posting those links. That first link gave me exactly what I spent ages looking for and couldn’t find.
David and Katun
Many thanks indeed! Really awesome assistance.
Now I will just wait for the correct USB ethernet adapter which should be here tomorrow or the day after.
