Interesting. My library on my NUC 7i5 has seemingly bloated to 75,000 tracks (when did that happen?!!) and I only have 8gb of RAM. Would I see a performance increase with the NUC if I up it to 16gb?
EDIT: thing is, it doesn’t seem slow at all with 8gb. I wonder what the M1 is doing that it struggles with 8. Curious as I’m sort of planning on getting a 16gb one to replace my aging Mac Pro ‘trashcan’ that has 64gb for desktop and photo editing duties.
Rock/nucleus is way way lighter than macOS bigsur and roon’s database can get pretty big when it’s over 100-150k tracks… it matters not if they are local or streaming service additions
That’s great I just got one myself and will try it.
The M1 is also getting good feedback from HQPlayer users - being capable of handling some of the more onerous filters and modulators when upsampling. If I was in the market for a Roon Core to run in tandem with HQP embedded, I’d be looking at a Mac M1.
I’ll be holding out for the 2nd Gen M1 chips coming soon I hope.
Yes, absolutely. I even run it as an endpoint as well; previous homebrew endpoint was superlative, but this is just as good. Use Intona isolator and rotate between AQ Diamond/Pranawire to MScaler. Love it. The ARM-based chips just sound good, I don’t know why…had similar results with Surface Pro X.
I have pretty much the same requirement (my music is on the laptop) but wasn’t sure about the NUC or Mini approach since, although they are both small, you still need a keyboard, mouse, monitor, CD player - lots of boxes compared to just 1 laptop. Is that a problem for you and if so how did you get round it? I’m also using the admirable itunes to manage my music. I’d heard that it’s not available on the mini any more but is on the NUC. And, another question if you don’t mind, how did you transfer your music to the mini from wherever it was? Thanks.
When I set up my ROCK NUC, I just used the TV via HDMI to set up the bios and install the HW - yes, one does need a wired mouse (not sure about the keyboard but probably - been awhile) but you could get those super cheap if need be (I use an ergonomic wired mouse on my work desktop). After that it’s all headless from another device. You can use SMB to transfer music to the ROCK device.
In my instance when I got the Mac mini new I simply plugged in to a keyboard mouse and monitor that I had already and set everything up to automatically login. All of my music was already on an external SSD so I just took that and plugged it in to the Mac mini. If I need to get into it I just use Splashtop.
Ditto with me here.
I agree 100% with you!
You can always use screen share from your MacBook or similar tool from a PC.
Hey Doug
Thanks for the MAC Mini M1 information. I am a lifetime Roon subscriber and currently using a 2014 Mac Mini as the core coupled VSSL 12 Zone airplay distribution amps. I am using AirFoil for the Airplay volume control around my home instead of Roon Zones, as when trying to play more than one zone thru Roon the music stops and the Mac chokes.
The question is with your success with the new Mac Mini M1 Roon server, are you able to play multiple zones and if so how many at one time. Its that or a NUC or Sonic Transporter.
Thanks
Ron
So far the max number of zones I have tried is three… It’s not something I do a lot. But when I did they all worked with no problems. I was able to stream to my USB DAC, Bluesound node 2i, and AirPlay all simultaneously with no problems.
The M1 is a beast. CPU and RAM usage of Roon Server are all modest thus far, and DSP is there, smooth, when I want it. Library is about 700 Albums, so not huge, right now.
It’s important to note also that I am running ONLY Roon server on this Mac. (I do rip CDs to it, and have a Time Machine backup for music files). It’s not a machine I use for anything else.
Not sure if that helps but there you go! For $699, it’s compelling for this purpose.
I did a benchmark test on my 2013 6 core Mac Pro with 64gb of RAM and 512gb OWC SSD, and the basic M1 Mini benchmark was double, and my Mac Pro isn’t exactly slow. It’ll smoke a 2014 Mini. Keep in mind though even an older NUC with ROCK will run better than your mini because ROCK is a much lighter OS (I use a fanless 7i5), but yeah, at $699 the basic M1 is something of a bargain, though perhaps a bit of a waste to run just ROON. I’ve got my eye on a Mini M1 w/16gb and 1tb SSD to replace my Mac Pro, but that’s for heavy lifting Lightroom and Photoshop and office chores primarily (just Roon remote).
A word of caution - do not try to restore a Roon setup with database etc as this is a known issue with respect to timemachine and roon restores.
USE THE ROON PROVIDED BACKUP/RESTORE OPTION.
Sounds great. I would only use the Mac as the server. Airplay is what is throwing me a bit as I need to control 12 Zones and currently use AirFoil. So I am hoping Roon and the mac can handle that. Is your USB DAC connected to the port on the Server? What DAC are you using. Thanks again for your advice.
Correct. This is strictly a mechanism to backup the 400GB or so of files I have, something a NUC running ROCK doesn’t natively provide.
Yes running the DAC on the USB port directly connected. It’s a Topping D30 Pro.
Understand your use case but others have fallen into the timemachine restore in the past when moving from one Mac to another using timemachine for migration