Is there a well-designed fanless NUC enclosure out there?

Audio Gear Talk
1

Hi,

I know, ROCK is not quite ready yet but nevertheless I find myself browsing the web for fanless enclosures already :slight_smile:
My question is: Are there any enclosures out ther which meet these requirements:

  • tiny, lightweight
  • nice looking (read: unostentatious)
  • no ports on the front but an on/off switch (on the back)
  • can take a SSD or HDD for storing music

All the products I can find right now are quite big or awkward shaped and have blue/orange/whatever ports on the front with useless labeling next to them. I’d like to have a tiny, neat looking device and nothing more. Any ideas?

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2

Check out this site http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?tpl=product/product.list.tpl&type=Fanless%20Chassis&type_sub=Fanless%20NUC you should find somethng there to suit your needs

3

thanks for the link! But actually, all of these have front-facing ports…
Not that these enclosures are bad, not at all. I’d prefer a more seamless design, though.

4

The design of the NUC has front facing USB ports so I think it doubtful you will find a case without them.

5

ah, well that explains a lot… Thanks for the insight!

6

For NUC6i5SY, I ended up with Akasa too. It wasn’t the best looking or the smallest one but it was priced enough to make it difficult to pick other alternatives.

7

I know what you mean about the ports. I was also searching for something discreet looking and without any bright led lights. After a lot of searching I ended up buying this:
http://minix.com.hk/en/products/neo-z83-4

Fanless and with no front facing ports. The power led is the only thing at the front and it is super discreet. Costs around £130 in the UK and comes with Win 10 preinstalled.

I set it up as a Roon Bridge and I am using it with a usb dac to feed my main HiFi. Love it so far.

One other thing to note is that it comes with ac wifi so dual band 2.4Ghz and 5GHz bands. The antenna is removable if you want to use an ethernet cable.

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8

cool, that thing looks good, indeed. But since it isn’t a NUC I’m not sure if it’s capable of running the (ROCK) core. Let’s wait and see.

9

Ah yes my apologies. Completely missed that you intend to have the ROCK installed. Besides the AKASA I have not yet found something as small and fanless unfortunately. A youtube review of the AKASA newton showed it to work well but unfortunately it appeared to have a VERY bright front facing power led :frowning:
I am also keen to avoid fans as some users report noise from the small fans in intel NUCs.

10

You could always put a bandaid (or something; I put adhesive dots on the lights on alarm system control in my bedroom.) over the LED. Seriously.

It’s funny how hardware designers succumb to the urge to slap on bright lights in front of a box. I recall from years ago a Krell amp (or maybe preamp) that had the most obnoxious set of lights.

11

I’m with you on this one. The audio industry’s fascination with blue LEDs really drives me nuts. The power LED on the amp in my system is bright enough to cast shadows! Drives me nuts as I like to listen with the lights dimmed (or off).

Came across these a few years back and they’ve been a sanity saver for me. The LED on the amp takes 3 layers, but they’re discrete and you can’t really tell that they’re there.

www.lightdims.com

4 Likes
12

@AMP been using them for a few years my self. I feel ur pain!

13

You should also try something like this to cover the USB ports

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14

that’s a good idea! Combined with the these stickers mentioned by @AMP there is actually hope for the front panel…

15

How about this (coupled with a usb dust cover for the single front port)?

http://www.streacom.com/products/nc1-fanless-chassis/

16

Streacom make great cases - I use an FC-10Alpha with my i7-7700 and its great.

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17

cool, thank you guys! The streacom products look very nice, indeed!

18

Another well designed case but not cheap: Cirrus7

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I don’t think Streacom support 6th gen NUC.

I’ve seen the Cirrus7 and they are very nice. They have the NUC6i5SY versions except that, once RAM and NVMe are added, we’re looking at ~US$1,200.

20

We are using a blank front case for our sonicTrasnporter i7. The power switch and power LED are on the side.

https://www.smallgreencomputer.com/collections/custom-units/products/sonictransporter-i7-for-roon-1-3-dsp

This is fanless and has a full quad core i7. I think this is a bit more powerful, and maybe a bit larger, then what you are looking for but it’s nice if you want to use all the DSP features of Roon.

A little more then the $1200 you would spend on an i5 NUC but does a lot more.

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