I purchased a Nucleus yesterday and due to high volume of orders I may not receive it for over a week. Much like awaiting the arrival of a child I’d like to prepare the nursery (my listening room) before my Nucleus arrives. Depending on your suggestion this may involve fishing my internet cable (not an easy task in my house).
Does the Nucleus emit noise, EMI/RFI that can interfere with my Naim Unit Atom if in close proximity or can I located the Nucleus on my audio rack? Can the modem be on this rack as well? This would eliminate the need to fish the internet cable. The router I can locate on the far side of the room.
I plan to connect everything to my router via ethernet and ethernet back to the Naim.
My gear:
Motorola MB7420 Cable Modem
TP-Link AC4000 Tri-Band WiFi Router (Archer A20)
Naim Uniti Atom Streamer/DAC/Amp
All hardwired using Cat 6 cables
Should I locate all of the above as far from my Naim as possible or ….?
The audiophile community is amazingly helpful with their experiences however, quite often, I find myself more confused then when I started my research.
I have an older model Nucleus which I have had an enjoyed for more than 4 years. I keep my Nucleus and its 19v Teddy Pardo LPS in my equipment rack. I do this because I use the USB output to feed my system. I have never had any issue with EMI or emitted noise. I don’t use the wall wart PS though which could make a difference I suppose.
My cable modem, router and NAS are all in another room, in my case it is in our laundry room.
I don’t have experience with NAIM gear but I don’t think you’ll have issues with putting your Nucleus in your equipment rack.
I have my Nucleus, Mac Mini (secondary server), and modem/router colocated in our main bedroom on the first floor. All three are fed power from an uninterruptable battery backup/power supply. I have three Roon end-points in other rooms, two connected by ethernet and my main one connected by WIFI on the second floor.
While not a Nucleus, my Salkstream III is essentially a very similar device (small computer in a fanless case running Linux Arch/Roonserver). It’s located in my equipment rack just like any other audio component with absolutely no issues with EMI/RF noise/interference.
If your server/core/nucleus does not need to be in your audio room due to it also acting as an end point, it should be somewhere else.
How much if a difference it really makes may be hard to quantify, but the idea is that it is a high powered computer, and does emit some of the nasties you noted in your OP.
I personally would not lose sleep over it being in the equipment rack. At the same time, if you are going to pony up big $$$ for a nucleus, you should probably also follow all of the best practices, and ultimately get your server out of the listening room.