Light and very cheap Roon Core replacement- suggestions?

Tinkering
1

Hi guys happy New Year to you all…

I wanted to ask you a question and just needed to get a couple of ideas for a new piece of kit that would replace my qnap NAS for the Roon Core.

It’s a bit of a long story and I won’t bother you with it but essentially I want to take my roon core off my qnap NAS and have it on a dedicated endpoint so that the NAS gets freed up with other applications as at the moment it can be slightly clunky as I use a VPN for my NAS and this has issues with Quobuz which as some of you may know does not like VPNs!

Any suggestions. I’m thinking of a mini micro PC intel type device or something that is very cheap to build or buy

Also - would a Nvidia Shield box work as an end point? This runs over android. Probably not but thought I’d ask as I have a spare.

Cheers

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To be clear, are seeking to replace Roon core on the NAS, or only the digital outputs?

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Hi Martin

To replace Qnap and swap for new Roon endpoint where Roon will run from

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Martin

In an ideal world I’d like to keep the Roon on the Qnap but have it broadcast non VPN but run all the other qnap apps via the VPN. Essentially dual tunnelling? Not sure if anywone has done this ? I use Surfshark VPN now

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Not totally clear for me yet. So the core you will run on the Qnap and nothing more. And the endpoint on a new, seperate device?

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Joost sorry my mistake

The Core will be off the Qnap. I’ll still use the Hugo TT as end point. My mistake sorry

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Well, a cheap but well-working streamer to your Hugo TT could be a RaspberryPi with USB-out running Ropieee, dedicated software for running RoonBridge. Used by a lot of Roon users.

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Ok cool. Much appreciated. Any suggestions Amazon etc ?

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Just annoying about Quobuz VPN block. Wish someone had found a way around it.

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As An example?

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What VPN do you use? I have no problem using Proton VPN with Qobuz, and I’m aware of other users who use Qobuz in different countries to their subscription.

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I’d second this, if you can source a Raspberry Pi. Incidentally, this is what I use with my Chord 2Qute (with coaxial S/PDIF hat.)

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Wow. This is a confused thread.

I think the OP is asking for a new device to run Core. At least, that’s what the title indicated.

And these -

If that’s true, an RPi will not work for that purpose…

3 Likes
14

OK, so still confused here, you say:

Do you mean your core will stay installed onto and running off (or from) the Qnap?
Or do you mean you are removing the core off (from) the qnap, i.e. taking it “un-installing from” the qnap and you are looking for a new device to run the core?

If you are looking for a new device to serve as the Core then you will need either a Nucleus, Nuc with Rock, a PC, a Mac, or an appropriately spec’ed NAS. My suggestion here would be a NUC/ROCK setup.

You can not use a Pi to run the core. It would only be able to serve as an endpoint.
If you are just looking for a new endpoint then the Pi suggestion would work. But it does not lighten the load on the QNAP as the processing would still be done on the NAS.

Also a Shield would work as an endpoint via chromecast.

1 Like
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Take a look at this brand new thread:

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Hi

Yes I want to use Roon as the core - its a shame as I have surfshark VPN and you can exclude apps on android etc but it’s not supported via Linux. Very annoying

But interested about Martin’s point about his VPN as even using a UK VPN Quobuz eventually kicks out.

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Can I use a cheap android box and flash it with Linux OS ? Would that work ?

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No. Roon Server or ROCK requires, as a minimum, an i3 or equivalent processor plus 4 GB memory, so 8 GB if you’re running an OS other than ROCK. Roon needs to be installed on an SSD, too.

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But something like this would probably be fine:

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A NUC from the list of supported Roon NUC devices.

1 Like