Hardware recommendations $350 - $500 per component

Audio Gear Talk
1

I’m new to Roon and the Audiophile hardware culture. I’ve recently setup a NUC8I3BEH with ROCK per the Roon Optimised Core Kit. I love it. That’s why I’m here.

I want to continue to build around the Roon Core on the NUC. I have 3 living spaces I want to setup: Living Room, Office and Master Bedroom, I’d like to add more spaces later.

One thing I liked about the NUC is the price tag. Buying components and parts that in total hover around $500 is great for me. I am happy to take my time building the system in stages. I’m learning as I go.

My current “architecture”(?) follows:

Living Room
Roon Core -> ROCK NUC8I3BEH -> HDMI -> Onkyo TX-SR313 + Onkyo 4800 5.1 Speaker System

Office
Roon Remote on iMac 27 -> Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 USB Sound Card -> Logitech Z906 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers System

Master Bedroom
Chromecast to Logitech Z623 2.1 Speakers.

Storage
Synology DS218j

I am not unhappy with the sound I have. It’s more a matter of not knowing what I’m missing. After trialing Roon on my iMac 27 I really began to enjoy my music collection in an emotional way. I didn’t know what I was missing.

Obviously I want to keep the ROCK NUC8I3BEH in the Living Room and the iMac 27 in the office. After that, jokers are wild.

A few items that have my interest:

?
HQPlayer ( Just stumbled on to HQPlayer today. Still trying to sort it out. )

DAC?
Pro-ject Pre Box S2 Digital
Dragonfly Cobalt Blue

RECEIVER / AMP?
NAD 3020 D
NAD 3045 D (exceed budget but do-able).

ROON ENDPOINTS?
Raspberry-pi
RoPieee

SPEAKERS?
Looking for recommendations within my budget, including DIY or cannibalising my existing Onkyo SKF-4800.

I have ethernet in the living room and office and decent wifi throughout the rest of the house. I no longer need surround sound. Open to all suggestions.

Imagine you could build your dream system for $500 per component. It doesn’t have to be perfect or forever. Just as great as possible within the parameters of the brief.

Thank you.

Best,
Dameon
Cairns, Australia

2

I’m using 4 Raspberry Pi/RoPieee endpoints and 2 Pro-ject Pre Box S2 Digital DAC’s.
Very good value for the money.
The other DAC’s are an Allo BOSS DAC and a Merian Explorer² for a mobile solution, but today I would buy the Dragonfly Cobalt Blue instead.

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3

Personally, I say just enough the sound and read up on things for now. Are you willing to give up the multi-channel sound?

4

Yup. I don’t want to spend a fortune on a new AV Receiver and I can’t say that surround sound has been life changing outside the theatre. I found the Nad 3020 D when I was looking for alternatives to AV Receivers.

5

I assume you mean v2 of that unit. I’ve used the first version for years as an amp/dac. Works great paired with the right speakers. Currently, I use Totem Arro’s with it and they sound nice and refined. Great for acoustic music played at lower volume levels. But, the Arro’s really like power which this amp couldn’t really give. Originally, I had them paired with Totem Dreamcatchers. Those were a much better pairing.

Just double check the power needs of the speakers and compare with the amp. The Onkyo’s you have are 130 watt 6 Ohm speakers. The NAD is a 30 watt amp at 8 Ohms. Doesn’t hurt to shoot an email to tech support at NAD and ask about that amp and your speakers.

6

Have a look at the NAD T758 v3.
It is good value for the money (AU $2,124.00) and is an excellent 2.0 and 5.1 amp.
It has a BluOS module, is Roon Ready (RAAT), plays MQA and has Dirac Live on board.
I had it on loan for 2 months while I was waiting for my NAD T 777 v3.

7

Not yet.

Save up some money and buy some decent speakers, at least for one room.

GoldenEar makes well thought of stuff. Or Kef, or Klipsch, or Harbeth. IMO.

8

$500 per component sounds nice but might not give you the right balance of things. From experience of many people, speakers are kind of the most important part of your system and should probably not treated as a component.
For my systems I used the following guidelines:

  • Take the budget for one room, divide that by two and spend that on your speakers
  • Split the other half amongst your other components with more weight on your amp.

This works for any budget and will give you a system that fits together nicely.
It doesn’t work so well if you consider active speakers though because they have the amps built-in.

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Thanks. I like the idea of putting something together like this. As long as there is no soldering involved, I wouldn’t mind assembling and configuring various components.

10

Yes I do @Rugby . What speakers would you recommend to be paired with the NAD 3020 D v2?

Do you think the speakers are worth keeping? If you were on a budget would you consider replacing parts of the speaker to improve it?

11

Eep! Outside my budget! Sounds amazing though. Ok it doesn’t hurt to look.

12

Ok. I’ll keep this in mind. Thanks @Dirk_Op_de_Beeck

13

My son loves his Klipsch. He’s a gamer though and that was his motivation.

I can’t save money. I’ve worked out that I can spend $500 every 4 to 6 weeks without my wife turning into a 800 pound gorilla. If I save it, that means I have to hide it from her, and she’ll catch me.

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14

Keep them and see how they sound.

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15

For that budget I would go with something like this:

RPi4
Hifiberry balanced hat (use Roon digital volume)
Genelec studio monitors

And if you do it right you could end up well below 500

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16

FWIW, having previously opted for an IQAudio Pi-DigiAmp+ and passive speakers (B&W M1) for a compact budget system, I would probably go down this route if I was doing it again (though rather more expensive), perhaps using something like the PecanPi. Nothing wrong with the route I chose but my hunch is that, for a physically small system, you end up with better performance from active speakers.

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18

yes its a whole different world! in the last decade its becoming more mainstream tho.

19

You would go with the PecanPi as opposed to IQAudio Pi-DigiAmp+ ?

I’m still trying to get my head around some of these things.

20

I’m still trying to understand all the parts that are necessary. Could you list the parts required and where to find them?

21

Could I ask that all parts required for a given component that is being suggested be listed and a good place to find them? I realise I need to do my own homework, there is so much to look at I’m having trouble narrowing down a starting point.