Is Nucleus worth it? YES!

I’ve had 3 different cores in my system (Core, NAS w 76,000 tracks, iPad and MBP controls, Ethernet dac end point):

  1. For the longest time an HP i7 W10 machine dedicated to Roon. Most services turned off. Serviceable.

  2. A sonicTransporter i7. Roon server so completely dedicated to Roon. Nice but nothing really noticeable as far as sonics go. Kind of a disappointment.

  3. Nucleus+ Wow. Why does this sound so much better? Roon special software and firmware running in the background? Different i7 chip? Power management? The case? Must be the total package.
    Musical, body, depth, dimension, detail. If your system is worthy, and u value an audiophile approach you really owe it to yourself to get one in your system…I think you won’t regret it!!!

How did you arrive at the conclusion that the Nucleus+ “sounds so much better” than your other cores? How did you compare your other cores to the Nucleus+? This is an honest question. No sarcasm!

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Good question. RAAT should be delivering the same bits in all three situations to the Ethernet DAC.

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Same songs same volume…
Insert first core, remove insert 2nd, remove insert 3rd. This over a period of a week or so

Experiment…u might find the results shocking…

Is this with your Core connected by USB directly to USB DAC?

Or your Core streams to a networked endpoint?

Sound quality is incredibly subjective. I am very surprised that a device that is transferring bits from one place to another (your music library to your DAC) could have such an impact. But I am happy that you are happy with your purchase.

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I’m sure Team Roon have done plenty of experimenting. If the bits aren’t transferred error free in all cases then RAAT is broken or error prone (which I’m sure it isn’t as it uses TCP).

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well… i think nucleus, or any other core, simply “do not sound”, not better neither worse. simply, do not sound.

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My core streams to a network end point

Meridian discovered some time ago that noise transmitted over ethernet cables into their 8xx series influenced sound quality. Given a PC is an inherently noisy environment, noise injected into a DAC from a cable running from a PC is almost inevitable.

Anything Roon can do to cut this down should make a difference and, given Roon is a child of Meridian, I’m sure Roon are aware of this and given this some thought.

I agree with you, the Nucleus+ sounds exactly the same as my MacMini, yet contributes zero noise to the music. Oh that must be why it sounds better…

To demonstrate the issue of computer noise - listen to music via your favourite computer/server versus UPNP, if your endpoint can play tracks using just a UPNP control point…listen for yourself, same track and see which one you will prefer, they both do not sound the same, even though bits are bits…