But shouldn’t make a difference since you use RAAT or NAA do deliver the music files to your endpoint.
A nucleus is just a overpriced NUC in a silent case.
And if roon and HQPlayer don’t use the M1 and M2 cores better there shouldn’t be much of a difference in performance anyway. And Let’s not start with GPU support.
So for the price of nucleus you could probably get a monster NUC and a lifetime roon subscription
I tend to think the same but there are others that do not agree.
For me it was a choice out of convenience, I’m used to apple and do not spend time researching.
I do not know yet what it is to come. I’ll have to get a better dac and HQP might be that good as to take me out of the apple Confort zone just to reach for better filters
How did you change the settings in Mac? I would like to limit the processing on my 2014 mini. I use Roon Server.
Start with system prefs. Disable Notifications, Spotlight Search, Bluetooth, wifi, all the automated updates, locations… Depends on your osx but there are many. Now with my old iMac from time to time I do also a wipe and fresh install of osx
On a 2009 iMac I just installed Ubuntu and Roon Server
Roon ends up running faster as well? Yeah there are many things I would love to just flat out delete.
I think so. The wifi, bluetooth, no monitor, nusb hubs I think are for noise. The upgrades, spotlight, Notifications are to reduce background apps so more for performance
How does one configure the Mac mini to operate “headless” . Also I do turnoff the core at times can I be able to use an iPad to login or something?
I use Screen sharing from my other 2 iMacs. With windows I do not know but for sure there are solutions. Turn off the core means shut down or sleep? Turn off just press the button, sleep can be configure as wake for LAN. I think this is possible with an iPad as a sidecar screen, never tried an iPad or any other kind of tablet 
Not that many times I guess you have to do the pmset. I just think Apple is making things less energy efficient for a regular user by taking out this power manager feature.
Friday can be Energy saving day or 2 channel separates day. 
I’ll try to test cause I have an iPad. But I also have a tv in the living room I could use to mirror.
When I turn my Mac mini off I turn it completely off. Like shut down. I do when I am sleeping or going to be away extended time.