It looks to me like you are:
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The Nucleus is just an Intel Nuc, it is nothing special. There is no magic in this box. It is a plain nuc in a fanless case, thatâs all, nothing more, nothing less. It has been confirmed by Roon team themselves that it does literally nothing differently than running Rock on an Nuc.
If someone spends âŹ1,500 on a Roon Nucleus, theyâre naturally inclined to believe it sounds better than a âŹ300 NUC. Thatâs human psychology, not science.
Many users donât realize the Core just manages and sends data. They think itâs like a CD player or DAC, but it isnât. If itâs not handling audio output directly, it doesnât influence sound. Unless the Core is physically connected to the DAC via USB, thereâs no rational basis for sound differences between Roon Nucleus, ROCK, or Core on a Mac. I have tested it many times and there is no difference.
Iâm an audio engineer, and the hardest thing for me to learn was to get over any expectation bias. That is a very hard phenomenon to overcome, because itâs deeply rooted in how our brains process information. When we expect something to sound bette, because itâs more expensive, better looking, or has glowing review, our brain often fills in the gaps and makes it sound better to us, even when thereâs no measurable difference. This is known as confirmation bias and it can completely warp our perception, especially in subjective fields like audio.
We also tend to fall prey to cognitive dissonance: if weâve invested time or money into a certain setup, itâs uncomfortable to think it might not be superior, so we subconsciously convince ourselves it is. Overcoming these biases takes deliberate practice, blind testing, and the humility to accept that sometimes our ears are lying to us. Believe, it took me yaers, it was literally the hardest thing to do in my carreer but I had to do it because no one pays me for my imangined differences, they want to hear real results. Itâs not a flaw, itâs how humans are wired. But recognizing it is the first step toward real objectivity in sound. Offcoarse your reply will be that Iâm wrong and you are 100% sure you hear a differnce but thatâs exactly how this process in our brains work.
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Why donât stop this sort of âdiscussionâ here right now? 
I donât know why every single thread is hijacked by this whenever thereâs a smallest trigger you could sense.
Thereâs simply no reasonable common sense on both separate sides. And you cannot argue about people hearing/experiencing a difference while thereâs no difference in measurements. Furthermore, thereâs no reasonable base if there are no concrete descriptions about how things were done while experiencing some tiny or gigantic differences as stated sometimes.
But, you actually can experience differences even in cases when thereâs just a pretended change somewhere in the chain. So, it doesnât make sense to deny people experiencing differences because they simply do. But itâs a huge next step to let people know and understand that such experiences are simply part of our brainsâ everyday processing and not the result of e.g. changing an Ethernet cable or using an audiophile switch which makes the sound more detailed, more life-like, more whatever, due to sonic/physical facts.
You simply canât argue on base of the experience itself, because itâs there. And on the other side you canât say others should be able to experience rather the same because you can sense it.
So, no common sense, no common understanding, no common experience, no common will to slightly leave mental barriers to develop a higher understanding of the other side. So, absolute zero need to extend this very old âdiscussionâ unless you are really willed to learn 
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With a few adjustments, you can get much closer to that âdirect pathâ sound Audirvana is known for.
To improve Roonâs audio performance:
- Enable Exclusive Mode in Roonâs audio settings to bypass the operating systemâs mixerâthis gives you bit-perfect playback.
- Minimize or disable DSP unless you need it (e.g., for room correction). A cleaner signal path preserves more of the source detail.
- Separate your Core from your playback chainârun Roon Core on a dedicated device (like a Mac Mini, Nucleus, or ROCK) and stream to a Roon Ready endpoint or high-quality network bridge near your DAC.
- Use Ethernet instead of USB when possible to reduce electrical noise and jitter.
Hope this helps others fine-tune your setup!
I once worked at a studio that had this one rack of equipment that wasnât connected to anything. It was just sitting there, with a bunch of cables hanging out the back, all going nowhere. The rack was filled with obsolete equipment and it didnât actually do anything. We started calling it âthe magic rack.â
Whenever someone came in nitpicking about the sound and distracting us from our work, weâd casually start turning some knobs on that rack and ask if it sounded better. And more often than not, like 90% of the time, the answer after some serious listening was âyes.â It became a running joke. We even did A/B tests with the imaginary settings âonâ and âoff.â Again, 90% of the time, the reaction was, âLeave it on, itâs clearly better.â
Thatâs the power of expectation bias, it is very strong, Itâs like a mindf**k, your brain gets tricked into thinking things have improved when, in reality, nothing changed at all.
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Wouldnât this require a streamer with an integrated DAC? I think your #3 covers that scenario, and separation would still be maintained if an external DAC was connected to the streamer through USB.
Great questionâand youâre absolutely right that using a Roon Ready streamer with an external DAC over USB still maintains separation. The reason I recommended not using USB directly from the Core is all about minimizing noise and interference.
When you connect a DAC directly to your Roon Core via USBâespecially if the Core is a general-purpose computer like a Mac or PCâyou risk introducing:
⢠Electrical noise from the computerâs power supply
⢠Ground loops
⢠USB bus jitter and interference from other processes running on the machine
Even on a clean system, these subtle issues can affect sensitive DACs and result in less-than-optimal audio performance.
By contrast, using a networked Roon Ready streamer:
⢠Physically isolates your DAC from the noisy environment of the Core
⢠Uses RAAT to deliver a clean, bit-perfect signal
⢠Still allows USB, coax, or AES output to your DACâbut from a purpose-built, low-noise device, not a general-purpose computer
So itâs not about USB itself being badâitâs about where the USB signal is coming from.
Hope that helps clarify!
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Audirvana is imo superior to Roon RAAT. Better yet is Squeeze player. Thatâs optimal in my experience. Nothing beats the interface and music discovery tools offered by Roon. But for seriously listening Squeeze rules the roost. Most servers offer support for Squeeze though each company offers various degree of support regarding interface. Antipodes is superb. But you can also use Squeeze as emulator with Roon and is pretty good.
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But thatâs not a thing.
Would be interesting to see a physical explanation for that, if this were true.
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Well, the thing about this hobby of ours is that so much is subjective. I consider/regard music as art. How does one measure a Picasso or a Monet or a Renoir? Yes, there are computer geeks who like to measure frequencies and distortion but at the end of the day all that has ever mattered to me is what I hear. Itâs similar to the age-old discussion of cables. Many insist cables do not matter. I know that they do. Who is right and who is wrong? I personally do not go there any longer. I know what I like and I know it sounds best to me.
Itâs almost as though the differences we hear are within the universe of quantum physics that would be nearly impossible for lay people, even with the best instruments, to discern a difference. Itâs all about what you hear. I would suggest you find the means by which you can judge for yourself. A few moments of listening and the differences are quite stark.
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Thatâs fine. Building sound machines on the other hand is not art, itâs just science and engineering, which rely on hard, cold measurements. Boutique manufacturers who consider their engineering âartâ produce poor products from a fidelity point of view.
Youâre switching from music to visual arts, but I will follow the analogy. Letâs say an engineer needs to render visual arts. For that, they donât measure the artist, they measure color, and thatâs very much science and engineering. If prints or displays tinted colors, reproductions would be (or should be deemed to be) poor, regardless of whether you prefer Picasso or Monet or Renoir.
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Fair point. My only point is that PRESUMING most all things being = from a build quality there are certain âsoftware stacksâ as developed by a companyâs engineers can and (imo) DO make a sonic difference that most listeners can observe. Such differences are not always distinctions one can measure with instruments bc they occur on such a subtle level. Antipodes is a great example of how a software update can result in better sonics and the engineers there will themselves be the first to acknowledge that their latest update did yield a better sound field based on what they refer to as their âsoftware stack.â If you visit the Antipodes user forum there is a range of user feedback on this topic. I was a skeptic that a music server could make a significant difference in SQ but when I upgraded to the Antipodes K41 server w companion K 22 player I was stunned. If only I had the budget for their flagship unit - the Oladra. But a little out of my league at 30K US.
The âsoftware stackâ canât possibly make a sonic difference unless itâs specifically designed to, i.e. if itâs DSP. Outside of that, the only thing that any âstackâ, hardware of software, does on the digital side is to move bits from one place to another, and there is exactly one correct way to do that. Public opinion on the impact of software updates on SQ is all over the place and canât be trusted. The âresolving systemâ unicorn is invariably pulled into the argument, which renders any meaningful technical discussion useless.
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The Nucleus devices before the Titan and Nucleus One are/were NUCâs in a fancy fanless case. Itâs a computer, nothing more.
The Titan is a computer.
The Nucleus One is a computer.
None of the Nucleus devices have any special components to âimproveâ sound quality.
Their pure function is to run RoonOs and Roon the music server software. Roon call them an appliance.
They are just computers.
Some folks like the concept of the Nucleus range being a plug and play appliance.
Some folks roll their own using ROCK.
Some folks will run Roon on Windows, Mac or a Linux OS.
I think some folks believe the device or OS Roon runs on affects the SQ. I donât. Thatâs just my view. Each to their own.
I think how you connect the Roon server into your system has a greater effect on SQ than what Roon runs on.
Personally I would focus more on the room, speakers DAC, amplifier and then streamer in this order. Again, just my view.
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[Moderated]
We all have opinions and for me personally what maters ONLY (to me) is what I hear. I choose not to get involved in pedantic discussions involving technical matters in which I do NOT profess to be an expert.
If you are curious I suppose you could visit the Antipodes community forum and pose a question for Mark Cole or Mark Jenkins and put up for discussion those matters I myself an ill-equipped to answer, but they certainly could (if inclined)
Or you could read serious reviews from true digital audio experts like Christian Punter who can perhaps offer a deeper dive into what makes the higher end Antipodes gear among the very best in the world at any price.
I choose the opposite. As a software engineer, âsoftware stacksâ are my expertise, and I think it is - or should be - plenty clear to everyone that it takes precisely pedantic technical people to develop audio hardware and software - Roon included. Without those people, we wouldnât have audio forums to start with. As far as Iâm concerned, I listen to experts when I donât have the expertise myself, especially when it comes to money, but thatâs just me.
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Agreed, and with emphasis: if the manufacturer uses a rational calculus of science and engineering to create their product, they clearly have some kind of objective measurements that were key to the engineering process. Itâs in their best interest to publicize those measurements with clarity about how they were obtained and to educate their buyers as to why those measurements are important. These should not be one-off claims but must show how the device improves SQ as part of a high quality sound reproduction chain.
Thatâs not pedantry, itâs the highest level of sophistication that we can hope for in the arena of sound reproduction. There are a few vendors who get close and succeed, but far too much memetic nonsense crouches on the fringes.
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So, I guess we are agreeing then that as far as the sound (a purely physical phenomenon) goes, there is no difference whatsoever. Which is just as well, as otherwise we should be expecting jet-propelled pigs zooming past our windows, spontaneous human combustion, and God knows what else. But, if one is sufficiently disinterested in how things work, one can easily persuade oneself to perceive any kind of striking sonic differences, in any direction they heart might desire.
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No mention here of the massive variability in recording SQ at source, completely unrelated to what ever electronics you have
As a classical listener it is not uncommon to find recordings from the 1960âs-,1970âs etc that will never live up to the demands of SQ the users above are quoting.
If you want âreference interpretationsâ some times you must grin and bear it
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