-MacMini 2012, Late, i7, 16GB Ram / Evo SSD running Roon Server 1.8.
It’s headless in my rack with a default resolution of 1280 x 1024. This was my first Roon Server. I picked the mini up used for $20, disassembled it, cleaned it, swapped the battery, swapped in the RAM + SSD and I was off and running with Roon for well under $200.
-MacMini 2020, late, M1, 16GB Ram / 256 SSD running Roon Server 2.0.
It’s headless in my rack with a default resolution of 1920 x 1080. This was my second Mini I wanted to give the M1 a shot. Picked it up on a BF sale over a year ago.
I remotely access them from time to time to check & run updates from my MacBook Pro. Other than that they sit in the rack doing their thing, never have any issues with them. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are disabled. When they reboot after updates Roon Server fires right up and I am back to music.
I have been following those updating to the M2 and one of my take aways from this conversations is I need to pick up display emulators
As tempting as an M2 Pro 12 core CPU with 32GB of RAM may be I am not sure the (apple) juice is worth the squeeze coming from an M1. But also not crazy considering Nucleus pricing…
Roon should really have it blatantly obvious when you download the Roon software that it is preferred to use RoonServer and use the Roon app for the control. But they don’t, and we get surprised fellow Roonies finding out later that it works better and they should’ve set up Roon this way from the start.
I think perhaps some feel it’s better to have less apps running, which in this scenario is not the case.
I can’t remember if RoonServer was available in 2016 when I started using Roon, but I can’t remember not running it. 2016 seems so long ago!!!
RoonServer is roon core. You just switched it over from Roon to RoonServer. This seems to confuse people. I believe it does use different folders in the preferences though.
FYI mike, you can leave the Roon app on the mini and use it as a control for setup. The roon app will ask to connect to the roon core that is running from the server app on launch. This is by far the best way to run Roon if you’re not using ROCK or a MOCK setup.
Congrats on figuring this out. I can’t remember that last time RoonServer has locked up and forced a restart. I’ve had several clients here and there lock up and/or just quit but the server kept running and the music kept playing.
@ffk has a very good point.
I’m on a headless m1 mini, did installed roon just as I used to, the app… after 2 months I found out about the Roon Server and the performance is better (faster loading, search etc)
If your 2012 Mac is showing signs of age and its time for an upgrade, don’t get the M2 Pro Mini. It’s overkill (for just using Roon Server - if you’re using this as a Roon Core AND doing other things than YMMV)
Either get yourself the entry level Mac Mini ($599, can be found for $499), or build a NUC and put ROCK on it, if it really is time to upgrade.
Personally, I’d get the Mini over a NUC, but lots of people disagree with that.
I am actually more interested in the HDMI capability of the new minis. Previously the M1 Macs HDMI port could only pass 24bit 48kHz 8-ch, while the previous Intel minis could do 24/96. I use other digital outputs on the mini for stereo but for surround out of Roon, the HDMI port is necessary, so if the new minis can do something like 24/192 or better it will be nice. In fact I will buy a M2 Pro model just for this, despite the M2 base model can already do very well, but the Pro model has HDMI 2.1. (just as a note I don’t run the core on this Mac, I got it running on a Synology DS1821+)
We’ll, I got my M2 ProMini yesterday and set it up as RoonServer. Seems to work fine with iPad control. The Roon app resides on 2012 Mini.
I am trying to add a few Convolution filters with iPad, on RoonServer. When I try to add I get message:
“Adding Convolution filters is not supported on this platform. To set up a Convolution filter, open on Windows or Mac OS”
I was able to set up on 2012 Mini where Roon core resides with no difficulty.
I believe the original poster didn’t understand that you can run RoonServer and Roon on the same machine.
So he installed RoonServer, used an iPad to access the server only to find out he couldn’t apply his filters. So he then went to his old iMac to use that as the control. But he could’ve just used roon on the host machine running RoonServer.
That’s because the iPad interface doesn’t allow you to upload to the core, you have to use a desktop remote to do this. This has always been the case and nothing to do with the M2 it’s by design.
Perhaps a throwback to a legacy restriction on iOS apps being local only. They certainly have opened up iOS more now as you could never get files on or off an iOS device easily on older versions without iTunes or iCloud… Now it has a built in network file browser. I don’t remember being able to do this last time I had iOS which was before 2015 admittedly so no idea when it was added.
These days there’s even a concept of local storage on iOS. Sharing a zip from Dropbox would be no problem. They could also make it possible to load filters pushed to the core by another means, e.g. FTP. They have an interface for core file browsing already in settings.
I agree with upgrading to the M2 Pro to get the HDMI 2.1 capability. My question - is HDMI the only way to get multichannel out of Roon? Does RAAT not support multichannel audio?
There are a few ways to get multi-channel out of Roon. But in the context of a Mac mini already exists as an End Point for a given setup, then its (built-in) HDMI port is much more straight forward than other methods since that usually means another piece of hardware. And then that mini’s HDMI port is very likely already connected to your surround pre-amp / receiver anyway for 4K video, where you already have your surround speaker setup right there.
Also a confusing bit is how Apple’s specsheets actually also classify the M2 mini, the one without HDMI 2.1, also getting “multichannel audio support”, so it is not just the M2 Pro mini / 14" 16" MBP it seems.
I can’t remember that last time RoonServer has locked up and forced a restart. I’ve had several clients here and there lock up and/or just quit but the server kept running and the music kept playing.
