Help understanding implementation in my home

Are you programming your own c4?

No my dealer / installer does

I haven’t really received any clear answer about how to implement it so it is more user friendly for the family to use and not more confusing and bug ridden than current C4 setup , since Tidal and local music already integrate very nicely with C4 and all separate logins of Tidal can integrate with C4 . Anyway I have ordered the nucleus and the license and likely will just use it locally with a Trinnov in my theater for high end listening , till I have more clear understanding on how to integrate it with whole house audio via C4 that’s is more user/family friendly .

On that note , what’s better way to connect Nucleus to Trinnov , via Ethernet ot HDMI , from sound quality perspective

If the Ethernet method works as you want it to I’d do it that way.

Thanks
Yes it will work just fine . I can make either HDMI or Ethernet work , just wanted to get an opinion why one is better based on facts . My theater AC panel has a separate ground from rest of the house . I can put Nucleus on the outlet shared by rest of the house and not by theater and connect it to gigabit switch that is on same network as theater .

@Mani - I agree with ethernet as well. It will be necessary if you want C4 integration eventually. Patch the Nucleus into a network switch. From the sound of it, I’m guessing that you have decent network gear. There’s a few people here on the forums who have had issues related to failing or poor quality switches. I use Ubiquiti UniFi managed switches. Performance hasn’t been an issue. Others have had good experience with other well built switches.

I too have a C4 setup and used Tidal in a similar fashion. I ended up really disliking the C4 Tidal interface. Since I have a ROCK I don’t have the C4 - Roon option. We just went with Roon as a source selection under “Listen” in C4 and we use tablets, phones, laptops, etc for music selection. The actual Roon interface is really nice, so the tradeoff may be worth it to you. If nothing has changed from what is posted on the Roon C4 page, the C4 interface looks OK. It’s not nearly as good as the native app interface.

One thing that I am pretty sure you will lose is separate logins for your family. I suppose everyone could use their own Tags to quickly find their music.

@danny - BTW - I would gladly pay Roon an additional fee for the opportunity to integrate my ROCK into C4. It’s built 100% to the NUC7i7BNH specs. Revenue? Blasphemy!

@Vincent_Kennedy, I’d like to know a little more about your system.

We are remodeling our home and I am finally able to get the home theater and whole house audio system I have wanted for years. I am considering C4 to run it all. I just signed up for Tidal a couple of months ago, and found Roon through it. I haven’t started with Roon yet, but as we plan for the theater, whole home audio, etc. I’m trying to come up with a system to start enjoying music again.

I am considering a Roon Nucleus just for the ease of integration. I then would need to rip my entire CD collection. I’m trying to come up with the best solution for that project - considering just an external drive I can load music onto, then plug into the Nucleus USB. Probably going with the NAD C658 for a streamer/DAC option.

My other conundrum is file type for ripping CDs. Everyone in family has Apple iPhones, so ALAC seems best choice, and I will look into dbPowerAmp for ripping. We have some music purchased through iTunes so that seems the easiest set up.

My question: Is the Nucleus the best option for the Core in my setup? Would I be better off going with just a NUC running ROCK and using the Roon interface or Bluesound interface through C4?

Thanks for any help

Can’t help with all of your questions, but most people rip to FLAC.

Many people are quite satisfied with a NUC Running ROCK.

1 Like

ALAC works just fine with Roon.

1 Like

While everyone will have their opinion of course, I’ve had whole house control systems since 2002 (elan, crestron, c4) and finally threw them all out. The advantages of them are you have a singular user interface to control everything – lights, blinds, hvac, music, video, etc, but the downside is you have a greatly inferior interface vs the native app with each of the systems and you’re at the mercy of the integrator to make changes and updates (and updates come very slowly). The latter eventually outweighed the former by a large margin IMHO.

I took the simple strategy of only buying systems that have an IOS app. I use Roon for Music (12 zones), Ecobee for HVAC, Lutron RA2 for lights/blinds, and a logitech harmony to control my theater systems (of course this is not an app). Of course the UXs are different for these but IMHO if you (and your family) is competent with apps in general learning 3 or 4 is not hard and the superior user interfaces that provide more functionality and get much more frequent updates far outweigh the one ring to rule them all approach of major control systems. For music, the roon app will be far superior to C4 or any control systems.

Just my 2 cents…

5 Likes

An alternative to dbPoweAmp is XLD. While more complicated to learn than dbPA, it has many features to ensure you have an accurate rip like rereading sectors multiple times if necessary, an optional second pass to make sure it gets the same results as the first, a comparison to other XLD users rips (if it matches 99% of other users rips its likely accurate), etc.

1 Like

Yeah, thought I read where Apple now supports FLAC, but that was only on the newer phones.

@Bruce_H - I personally would rip FLAC. Remember that your phones, tablets, computers, endpoints, streamers, etc are all going to interface to your Roon Core.

As far as Core is concerned, it really depends on you. Nucleus (and the +) are designed to be an appliance. You don’t really need to do anything with the physical host itself. Plug it in and configure it with a relatively straightforward UI. With this you get automatic updates. Just sit back listen, mine metadata, build your library, and enjoy. If you are just slightly handy, you can get one of the “approved” NUC’s, storage, and memory and build a DIY ROCK. The ROCKs are very close in performance to what you’d get with a Nucleus for considerably less cost. There’s an entire page on Roon’s site that discuss the options and method for buidling a ROCK.

The ROCK is purpose built and gets you to the point of having an appliance. The OS is really stripped down and isn’t meant to run any other app than the Roon Core. I have one and other than an occasional reboot for slowness (don’t know what causes this, but it happens approx once a month), and an odd issue with my backup window moving on it’s own (which was resolved by a super simple reinstall), my ROCK is very stable.

Hi @Mani,

Thank you for your questions here. The way that Roon (and the Control4 integration) works is that you can have separate Roon playlists on a per-profile basis, but you will always see the playlists tied to the main TIDAL account that Roon is logged in with regardless of the profile in use.

For example, if you were to create a Roon playlist on one profile that includes TIDAL tracks, then that specific playlist would only be accessible by the current Roon profile. The Roon playlist has to be created from inside of Roon and yes, it can include TIDAL content.

You can switch profiles using a Control4 touchpanel by navigating to Settings -> Profile like so:

As for setting up the C4 setup to work with Roon, this would best be handled by your Control4 dealer and by following our Control4 documentation. It would involve using Composer to connect to your Control4 processor, importing the Roon C4 zone modules and pointing the Roon Core module to the IP address of the Nucleus. You would also need to set up the Zones in Control4 and have one Roon Zone driver linked to each zone like so:

For your connection question – provided you have a properly set up network that meets our Networking Best Practices and your DAC is Roon Ready, then I would suggest an Ethernet connection over HDMI.

Hope this helps but any other questions you may have just let us know!

Thanks,
Noris

1 Like

@Craig_Palmer, Thanks for the info. That’s definitely something to consider. I thought C4 may be easier for my family to interact with, but the limitations and dependence on an installer are a concern. Lutron RA2/Caseta may be a much cheaper route. What do you use to control your Whole Home Audio - source switching etc? Is CasaTunes an option with Roon? They look heavily connected to Sonos, but I really don’t want to jump into Sonos.

@Vincent_Kennedy, I was leaning towards FLAC, but then we are all on Apple devices. so ALAC seemed the easier choice. I could go FLAC and batch to mp3 with dbPowerAmp I guess for mobile device playback. Slim_Fishguttz, while the newer Apple phones and devices like 4K support FLAC, iTunes 12 still does not, so it’s still a game of conversion to play local music on your phone. I don’t want a 14 and 11 year old “streaming” off WIFI.

Is a stand alone NUC Roon server like the Small Green Computer an easy middle of the road option? Honestly, I don’t have the interest or time to build anything right now.

Thanks to all of you for your answers.

@Bruce_H - I wish I could give you some advice about your Apple questions, but I have never been an Apple user.

As far as the the Small Green Computer is concerned I took a quick look at their site, and it looks like they have some pretty nice hosts. You might want to poke around here on the Community and see if there are any users of their gear. I’d be surprised if there aren’t. If you don’t see any comments I’d start a thread and see what happens.

It’s great to see you so engaged, your family should be grateful!

Cheers,
Vince

@Bruce_H I use EZ CD Audio Convertor with a drive connected to my Win10 computer. It rips (FLAC in my case) directly to a SSD I have installed inside a Nucleus.

@Bruce_H - If ease of use for your family is the critical objective, then c4 is a good option. I use Roon for all music zone control and have bluos devices (NAD CI580 and CI720) for my extended house and patio zones and lumin/sonore streamers with chord DACs in my primary listening zones. You can see my setup here… Showing (off) your Roon setup - description and photos