Choice for Roon Bridge: Mac mini, or?

I use a Mini as my personal computer, and it works fine as my “Office Bridge”.

Now I want to set up another Bridge with both USB and HDMI (for my many 5.1 files) outputs. Is there a better, cheaper or more featured piece of hardware than a “renewed” Mac Mini that will serve my purpose?

Thanks!

You can use even a very old MacMini like 2010 for RoonBridge, or just about any other Small Form Factor (SFF) PC with an HDMI/USB port. PC based with windows or you could try ROCK as the OS if free - if it works. Handy if your devices require Windows USB drivers.

CPU for RoonBrige is very minimal demand so cheap and good applies.

1 Like

That is my assumption. Thanks!

An Intel NUC with ROCK on it. Works great. You can also lower fan-speed in the BIOS, so its nearly unhearable. I have a Celeron based NUC as a Roon-Bridge, though it is not officially supported by ROCK. It works like a charm for my 5.1 files.

Chris

Thanks!

I will look into a NUC, but my background for nearly 40 years has been the Apple ecosystem, making the Mac Mini likely my first choice.

1 Like

An easy and reliable choice…if you don’t need windows drivers that is. Might just resurrect a couple of old 2010 mini server units that are ssd now for roon duties instead of a RPi or 2 where hdmi is not an option. And even the possibility to run a chrome display for now playing to the tv.

I think a renewed Mini is in my future.

1 Like

While i wholeheartedly sympathize with your choice, you sadly won’t be able to install ROCK on a MacMini, that would have been the “icing on the cake” but… Perhaps in the future?

1 Like

I am quite happy running my Roon core on my Nucleus. Not sure what what benefit I might have moving to ROCK.

I will soon be streaming to two Roon Bridge locations offering true “whole house” audio for the first time.

As I have said more than a few times, Roon has changed — even energized — my relationship with my music.

Apologies, i wasn’t particularly clear… Should you desire to run ROCK to accomplish the ”appliance” style endpoint (which of course also is a Core and Server) a MacMini won’t be suitable as hardware…
And frankly, i missed the fact that you had a Nucleus for Core/Server duties :slight_smile:

1 Like