Hello all. Been watching room on utube and reading about it online and love the look of it and how it works compared to native apps . I subscribe to quboz. I’ll be streaming to an eversolo A6 then into a technics g700 mk2. Question is ,I’m an IT novice and just use an iPhone and iPad. Do I buy an intel nuc, or a Mac mini or run roon? This will be just to run quboz. No ripping of cd’s or connection of a nas. Is it possible to set all this up using just an iPad, or will I need to buy a laptop ? I know a nuc can be run “headless” but I’m assuming I’d have to install the roon rock software onto it or a Mac mini first. Thanks for the support, this looks like a great community.
Roon needs a PC to run the server software. You don’t need to buy a PC just to run it, if you already have a PC that is suitable. I often run my RoonServer on a Windows PC. The software has two distinct parts and you need both.
- The RoonServer which is a non-graphical server running in the background.
- The Roon Client (known just as Roon) which is the graphical control point for the server. It is this piece that you’d be running on a phone or an iPad.
If you only have an iPhone and iPad, the easiest way would be to purchase a Roon Nucleus One that is basically a headless computer that runs the Roon server software (comes pre-installed). You can get it with or without an included data drive to store your music files.
Next, you need a control device. You can use your iPhone or iPad or both by installing Roon from the app store. It is a free app that you use to talk to your headless Roon Nucleus One or other Roon server device, and control the settings, what music you want to play, and where you want to play it in your house.
If you don’t want to go with a Nucleus, you can install Roon server and Roon client on a laptop or desktop computer or you can use a NUC headless computer or MacMini or several other third party computer devices.
Most people probably start out using an existing computer or laptop to make sure they like Roon and want to get into the Roon eco system before actually investing in hardware.
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In addition to what has already been said.
You cannot install ROCK on modern Mac Minis (or any other modern Mac). Instead you would just download the Roon installer for Mac and configure Roon Server to run at startup. I believe you also have to take steps to ensure you Mac does not sleep when idle because Roon will not work if the Roon Server machine goes to sleep
By contrast, ROCK is an installer for Intel based NUCs (there is a specific list of supported models and using ROCK on other models is not supported - though it can work on some other devices). The ROCK installer completely erased any previous OS install on the NUC and installs RoonOs (a minimal Linux OS) and Roon Server to turn your NUC into a kind of homemade Roon Nucleus. However there is a post install operation - installing ffmpeg - that would be difficult to do without another PC or Mac since it needs another computer to do the download and then connect to the network share on the RoonOS NUC.
A better option for a novice without any other computer would be to purchase the Roon Nucleus One. This will give you the same RoonOS setup as the NUC/ROCK setup but it comes with ffmpeg already installed and so it really should be plug in and go.
You can also use Windows or a Linux distribution (I use DietPi) on a NUC or any other intel/AMD mini PC and then install the Roon Server software.
I would not recommend Linux for running Roon Server to a complete computer novice. Whilst this works very well, it is probably not a good idea due to the increased complexity of setup.
It should also be noted that with any solution other than the Nucleus, you will need a keyboard and monitor/TV to be connected for the initial setup.
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My advise is borrow a laptop from a friend or relative. Connect to your network and install Roon on the laptop. Then you can run the trial for a few weeks and see how you like it. If it works for you, then get a Nucleus One and jump down the rabbit hole with the rest of us.