You know it can sometimes be frustrating to field an opinion on a forum as it can bring out some rude and disparaging comments from some instead of honest debate. I have decades of experience in audio and that’s from the all in one record players to six figure rooms and systems. In that experience most all my knowledge comes from the experts I Hired to build my rooms and the dealers who I purchased equipment from. In fact I built a complete six figure system with TOTL Meridian SooLoss components( I understand the guys who started Roon came from that project) and that was over a decade ago. So respectfully networked based music I have had over a decade ago. Frankly I only mention that as some comments suggest I should not have an opinion as it’s not informed??? However I am not aware of the masses of audiophiles who actually get the chance to demo all the options available however optimum and desired that would be. It also happens that several IT departments were direct reports to me in my executive duties throughout the years. Again, Im not an expert but I have been surrounded by qualified people who are in these fields for years.
As such in very broad and general terms the specs we are discussing , Celeron processors, mechanical disc drives etc etc etc were always though to provide less performance that higher end chips M.2 fast SSD storage. That was how those products were always marketed. So it’s not a stretch in my view to question that. As always I am open to learn, if that’s no longer the case or the uniqueness of the Roon application makes that less important ( not unlike apple hardware and software control synergies) then in my view Roon should communicate that. I read some commentary for Roon execs claims that we don’t want to get into processor discussions as we “don’t want that to be the focus of the discussion” Ok then help your customers understand why the basic general spec knowledge that most people have about chips and drives doesn’t apply here.
Trying to shut down concern or criticizing the people who ask these questions like myself is not in my view the way to win customers in the long run. There is a world of alternates to Roon (increasingly more each day) and I can’t and most won’t be able to demo them all. So we read and watch reviews form others and people who do. Questions about all subscriptions music quality are all over the forums everyday. I must say Im surprised this appears to be seen as an unfair to question Roon new products???
Look if your happy with Roon or any other component that great, I am a current Roon customer, I have a Nucleus and I preordered the Nucleus One unfortunately for me “I Assumed” the specs would be a clear upgrade as most new tech is? So my faith in the Roon service overall from the get go made me feel confident to preorder and not overly research the offering. When I got more deeply into the product and began to surface my questions. that’s my bad. However I think that’s healthy and warranted with any product and it is my hope that instead of sarcastic comments and disparaging personal remarks how about we just discuss the facts and why those concerns may not be warranted? Part of my initial reaction frankly was driven by how Roon support responded in part like “Listen if you have concerns don’t buy it” ( that was the tone) that again is not a winning attitude and encourages the consumer to look at and research other current alternatives. That is exactly what I am doing. In the end if Roon turns out to be a solid solution for my application then I’ll be the first to acknowledge that and use it…so please let’s keep the cheap shots out of the conversation and provide some helpful information. I apologize if any of my initial comments came off as snarkie as I was turned off by the initial response I received from the support team.
I will now get off the subject (really) and continue doing more homework for my decision on storage solutions and sound quality.
Key words here are ´were´ and ´marketed´. I would not base anything I would call an informed decision on these two.
It is no longer the case.
Roon´s uniqueness makes benchmarks or usual methods to judge a CPU´s performance much less important. Particularly those relevant for multitasking, video/photo processing, (de)crypting or gaming (which are seemingly main reasons why individuals want to know about CPU performance for home use so most of reviews discuss these).
I think some members of roon staff have been explaining in detail why and my practical experience is supporting these claims. The only basic spec that seems to be somehow relevant is the single thread performance of a CPU.
That is the case, it is a clear upgrade in every respect, as explained (except from the need of a fan). So why care for outdated marketing claims and doubt the capabilities of the product you just ordered?
I absolutely agree, let us lead this conversation in respectful manner based on facts and experience. Sorry for being frank about informed decisions but I tend to take this a bit personal as was also facing similar comments like ´way below the minimum specs!´, ´forget Celerons´ or alike and bought my current machine with a certain feeling of cognitive dissonance. Just to find out that it works fantastic and all the prior warnings were everything but informed.
Thank you your response is much appreciated. I will hopefully receive mine today and get it set up and start checking it out. Again thank you. I apologize if my emotion showed as well. have a great day
Just because somebody dangles a sparkling new thing in your face doesn’t mean your old sparkling thing is automatically broken and you hypnotically have to pull out your checkbook. Nothing going on here but G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). My NUC 7i5 in an Akasa fanless case is humming along just fine and should be for a number of years to come. The ‘upgrade’ desire in our society (phones, cars, cameras, houses, you name it) is not healthy, imo.
In my understanding the most interesting scene is his live testing of roon´s UI after initializing his 138k tracks collection. That’s above the recommended track maximum of the N1 and he seems to have considerable amount of classical music (which is in most cases eating up even more computing power). One can see that some pages do not open instantly but it is still surprising how reactive this Celeron-based server acts.
Alright, some posts directed at a particular forum user crossed the line and were removed. You can have quiet opinions, but think before you post. Ad hominem comments won’t be tolerated.
Sorry if I missed this, but now that the One has a fan, does it still have special tailored temperature control software like the original Nucleus had? (Which has to be enabled by Roon staff if a user reinstalls ROCK due to an SSD failure?).
I’m trying to determine the hardware specifications for the new Roon Nucleus One, and to make a judgement call on whether to purchase the machine or my own NUC for upgradability.
Is there hardware specifications for the Roon Nucleus One available? I can’t seem to find specs listed anywhere on the site. Cheers.
They are unlikely to declare a specific hardware component so that in future manufacture they are not held to a specific processor etc. (Didn’t Eno say as much in a recent interview). I am not aware of many component manufacturers who will specify openly what the circuity consists of. For example do you know what processor Cambridge Audio use in their CXN Streamers , do they declare it ?
Roon with the 2 new Nucleus are making appliances and as such the DIY side of ROCK etc and the NUCs which are supported will become a thing of the past except too those users who make their own Roon servers.
Those that choose a ready made product should sit back and let the manufacturer worry about how it manufactures to meet it’s declared specification, In this case based on Track count and DSP usage
One could argue that the internals of the Nucleus are as much Intellectual Property as the code running their apps other than the fact that you can see it with a screwdriver , would you ask them to open source their apps ??
Which does not leave much room for interpretation. Can be either a Celeron N5xxx or one of the J64xx family. They all offer pretty good performance, very low TDP, faster than the i3 in the legacy Nucleus and multitasking-capable.
If your library is not overly huge or complicated, N1´s performance should be more than enough for a smooth roon experience including DSP and multi-room. Really cannot imagine reasonable DSP use which such a machine cannot handle.
I don’t care too much about the processor since I am not a IT guy, but wonder why I don’t see any data on power consumption. My switch has a lot of numbers about idle and max. power consumption, although it is only a few Watts.
The Nucleus One is 60 Watts but that is only what is written on the adapter. I can’t believe it truly is that power hungry.
60 watts in The Netherlands means €167,- per year electricity cost at the moment. 2022/2023 that would have been €500,- per year.
Stereophile measures equipment and states that the old Nucleus+ is 10Watts.
Before I buy the Nucleus One when it comes available here in Europe I would like to know more about that.
Has anyone measured it already?
Whilst, in general, I don’t hold with the ‘Roon need to publish the processing specs’ idea, I do think that power consumption (at least idle and maximum) should be published in some form - but not necessarily as part of a ‘specification’ which must be adhered to. Lets face it, our streamers, dacs and amps etc almost always quote typical standby, idle (where appropriate) and maximum power consumption.
Of course, adding a media HDD/SDD or changing the fitted RAM or connecting any USB powered peripheral immediately means that these figures become useful as a guide only. With this in mind though, it’s worth noting that the power supply (60W) has to be able to accomodate an internal HDD/SDD (which may require as much as 8 or 10 W on startup) and two USB powered external drives (USB 3.0/3.1/3.2 [without power deliery] can supply 4.5W per port) or other USB powered peripherals so, with a 60W power supply, it should be hoped that the maximum power consumption of the Nucleus One as shipped will not exceed something like 40-45W.
Having said that, such power consumption figures for processors or the computers (including NUCs) that use them are not usually quoted. The quoted TDP might be used as a guide - but it is only a guide. Even so, it should not be difficult to obtain some idea of what the idle and maxium power consumption will be when used as shipped.
60 Watts is the maximum power capacity of the power supply and I would not expect any mini pc to consume that on a constant base.
I have no insides about the N1´s motherboard, energy routines and other parameters but mini pc´s with similar CPU draw in the region of 5-10 Watts if there is no standby or power-saving routine enabled.
The TDP of the CPU alone is not really important in this case as it is usually measured under load and power consumption of motherboard, fan, RAM and storage is an unknown factor.
Thanks, that makes sense.
I’m going to use it only as a Roon server and connected to a switch (ethernet). So it will not have to power other devices/storage.