Once again, let’s not forget that Roon is first and foremost software. You have the liberty of running it on every supported OS and get support for it. In the world of software, basically every platform is 3rd party. That’s the beauty of software. I would have never used Roon if it required a dedicated platform.
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I just set it and forgot about it. It works all the time.
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True enough as Enno founded Sooloos, a hw/sw platform that led to Roon and the Nucleus. Clearly the choice to lead with a portable sw platform made sense at the time. Dedicated platforms are more niche. However, as a marketplace solution category matures, whether hw or sw, and customers seek out the best total experience, marrying hw and sw that optimizes the end result, that’s where solutions find opportunities. There are numerous servers that offer running Roon Core today which seek to deliver, at quite high prices, such optimized hardware.
As I say, with Roon’s clear advantage with Roon Core it would seem a competitive solution would be a natural. Having had some other pre-Roon systems in my system, I’m not keen on giving up my retired Nucleus or current Nucleus Plus. That’s why I hold out hope for a Roon “flagship” product.
Well, they certainly advertise it as “optimized”, but I doubt those servers are significantly different than any other mass-market PC. They don’t need to be.
I’d think that’s quite likely.
I’m not sure that “better” (or not) is the way to look at it. The topology of your home/ listening environment, type(s) of listening environment, number of endpoints/rooms/locations, whether you use ARC, all contribute to what you want, need, prefer, and has a price-point that fits your budget.
There are many answers in this thread that are vastly different, and not wrong in the eyes of the author, but not the preferred choice of others either.
I have a Meridian 818v3, a Meridian 218, and three NUCs as endpoints. Two are media players attached to TVs in different parts of the house and one is my main work PC in my home office). I listen to music on the deck via my iPhone on phones or a Bluetooth speaker, and my houseguests listen to Roon on their iPhone/Pads.
My Nucleus+ has an onboard 4tb SSD and sits in a wall-mounted rack in the basement along with the cable modem, 24 port switch, LinkSys Mesh AX6e router, aa well as other wired ‘stuff’.
I haven’t touched my Nucleus since I installed it over two years ago. Although quite capable of doing a lot of computer tinkering I find a core/music server that supports more nodes than I’ve thrown at it, without being touched or even seen in several years to be brilliant.
Music is ripped or downloaded via the NUC at my desk and transferred to the onboard SSD in the Nucleus (seen as a network drive) as well as the back up drive attached to another LinkSys Mesh node in my garage.
This would obviously be gross overkill for someone living alone, but for me, it’s a whole house/family/friends/entertaining solution with a Meridian-based main rig in the living room and a couple of Grado GS2000 alt listening venues elsewhere in the house.
It’s horses for courses, not “better,”
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That’s not false, however I believe some people forget that there may be resampling that occurs if you are using your computer to play through it’s computer monitors outside of the DAC (which will obviously modify the sound in the conversion in some way), Windows may resample the music. If you are streaming from Windows it’s not such an issue. If you’re into super geeky audio, filters and resampling in Windows stuff feel free to read this. Link
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Computers are inherently noisy devices. Powered by DC usually. I used Audirvanna for a while before Roon and it switched off a lot of most stuff to keep the computer quieter. I checked the task manager to validate this. But a custom-made streamer or device that is dedicated to audio has to be the way forward. I just don’t like paying huge amounts of money for a fanless computer with a bit of ram and a reasonable hard drive. I believe that Roon Rock is Linux based.
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The “noisy computer” is just an audiophile phobia; there is no need to “quiet it down”. If that’s the only perceived benefit of ROCK (or trimmed down systems), then it’s irrelevant. That goes for everything in the digital domain, before the DAC: there’s no need for them to be “dedicated to audio”. So, if you don’t want to pay huge amounts of money on a computer, but you do it on a streamer (or even a DAC), you’re still wasting money.
Also, pretty much everything is powered by DC internally.
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Thanks for referencing that article. Audio Science Review is a great source that cuts through the subjectivity, love it. What the article finds fault with isn’t the computer hardware but the software, operating system and drivers. Windows specifically. According to the article upgrading your sound driver on Windows to ASIO solves the Windows problem. It would be nice to see the same analysis on Linux.
I think this would also mean the Roon Core hardware should have no effect on the sound quality but the Roon Bridge would. Many of us use a Raspberry Pi as a Roon Bridge endpoint. This may be the weak link depending on it’s operating system and drivers. It is Linux of course. With Ropee being one of the big Roon bridge opperating systems for Pi I wounder what @spockfish thinks about this?
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You’re welcome. I agree with you as well. The hardware is perfectly fine if you’re using your PC as a Roon Core streaming to another Roon endpoint.
I hope sharing the article will help some people who are using their PC’s as a Roon Endpoint/Audio Out have a resource to make sure they get the best transparency from Windows. Additionally, If the PC is used as an audio out it will of course require the same considerations as every other Roon endpoint, such as software resampling (like Android devices), PC internal DAC filtering, up/down conversion, DAC used in the PC etc.
A well designed DAC works fine no matter what it is connected to. You need a streamer/bridge only if you need multi-room capabilities, or if you can’t put the Core in the listening room. Sound quality is not a factor.
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I love this discussion and would offer the following contribution.
Roon engineers have created a superb software suite - it really is unsurpassed in the crowded space of digital audio.
- For me, Roon offers freedom.
I can choose how to control the sound, which audio kit I want to use, and where it’s located, and which bits of the system I want to play with. - the constraints are how much I want to spend, how much knowledge I have, and how much I want to experiment.
The delight is that Roon functionality is offered to the community in an almost free and open choice.
- you can buy a certified appliance - Nucleus - plug and play - easy and reliable.
- you can take the software image and run this on your own Linux hardware - Rock - your own Nucleus - just cheaper but you have to understand a little about what you’re doing.
- you can take the application software and install it on your own computer - Linux, windows, or Mac - but you’ll have to know a bit more about what you’re doing.
Once set up, Roon links to a huge range of audio gear - all controlled effortlessly from iPhone, Android, windows, Mac (but sadly not Linux - yet?)
You now have even more choice…most of us I guess want quality audio with the unmatched functionality of Roon - and the decision becomes simply economic
- Roon will play to a $20 wifi speaker that fits in your pocket, right up to a $300,000 valve amp with speakers taller than you.
I am fortunate being a graduate in electronics and computer science.
- I have designed and built my own amplifiers and speakers.
- I have designed and built computers and network equipment.
…but I now choose not to build any of these - I choose from the myriad of offerings on the market and get my wallet out!
Roon then takes my audio kit, my audio files and manages the library, the transport, the locations and the filters.
So I know how to manage electronics - so how do I set up my Roon Core and control?
I don’t ever rent anything.
- I have a lifetime subscription to Roon.
- I run Roon on a Linux server - I use a dedicated Intel mini-pc from PRC costing $120 with 4Tb SSD.
- I hard wire into Gb ethernet - I don’t use WiFi - too insecure and too fragile.
- I don’t use Nucleus - too expensive and I can’t manage it.
- I don’t use Rock as I want to manage my own Linux.
- I don’t use Mac computers - I have little knowledge of them + too expensive.
- I never ever use windows - junk software, selling your data, and conning you into rent.
- I interface into my music with Roon app on iPhone, Android Phone + Tablet - never windows.
- I’d love to use a Linux desktop app but Roon hasn’t got round this yet.
- I listen through a variety of audio gear - Naim, Cambridge Audio, Monitor Audio, KEF, Bluesound, Quad.
- I have over 30,000 audio tracks mirrored between a linux NAS and the Roon server SSD.
- I backup Roon and my audio files on to the NAS.
Roon integrates all the blocks and brings them together beautifully.
- Roon gives us the freedom to choose within each part of the system.
I play with the technology - I like this.
I experiment with Roon filters - individual room setup.
I add bits to the audio equipment - when my wife allows it 
I regard Roon as one piece which costs less than a modest amp.
I take my hat off to the Roon engineers who give me this freedom - but regardless of how I use Roon I get superb sound.
So my answer to the question of this discussion -
- Nucleus isn’t better - it’s just simpler.
- Using your own machine doesn’t compromise anything - you just have to work a bit harder.
- Using your own machine gives you new options - if you need them.
But be warned - if you opt to run Roon Core on your own machine use Linux - avoid windows like the plague.
I hope this helps.
JJ
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You spend so much time glorifying choice, then shut down Windows, which has an install base a few times larger than Linux.
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I think not.
You are perfectly free to choose windows to run Roon.
My technical expertise shared here is that windows is a very poor choice if you want excellence in running any server, especially a Roon Core server.
The oft quoted share that windows is accredited with is for desktops chosen by consumers.
For technical work, no engineer worth their salt would consider using windows - cost, insecurity, unreliability, poor performance, bloat, vulnerability, lock in,…need I go on?
In the server world Linux dominates so completely that windows is to all intent invisible.
I have shared this with others as my learned experience and expertise in running Roon servers (and many other servers).
So why not try Linux Roon Core?
Then why don’t you download a Linix Desktop image and test this for a couple of months. I’d be surprised if the experience didn’t blown your mind with the fabulous performance - personally I would recommend KaOs.
Join the elite - break away from the herd.
JJ
Is Windows really that bad
I have run virtually every release from 3.1 to 10 , i need new Hardware for 11
I ran Roon on Windows for 6 years without a blip , i only moved to ROCK NUC for convenience otherwise it would still be Windows
The X M( is it B)illions Windows users may disagree with your analysis
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Running Linux doesn’t make you elite it just means you are running one server OS instead of another, jeez.
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Ok I usually hesitate to feed the troll, but factual ■■ is so easy to call out. Windows Server has a 25% share of the global server OS market as of 2022. Hardly invisible.
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What would excellence mean? We are talking about a consumer app running in a home environment, not about corporate servers, serving millions of clients. Also, your expertise excludes Mac completely, which is another OS with a consumer install base larger than Linux.
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Thirty years ago it was UNIX zealots proving themselves to be individuals of a type, now it’s Linux. Ho hum.
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Look, I’m a Linux user as well. But I could fill auditoriums with excellent engineers who do their technical work on Windows computers. Because that work is not about the operating system, it’s about the app environments those engineers spend their days in. And those environments are usually supported on Windows (and more recently Macs). For the same reason there’s no Roon remote for Linux – the client base is too small.
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