MOCK - Tell us what strange gear you've installed ROCK on!

[Patrick_Navin (Paddy Navin)]

Aliexpress fanless N100 running MOCK here with 16gb and a 128mb NVME. Copes very well with DSD 512 upsampling on one zone.

[Johnny_Ooooops (Listener in Chief)]

With many thanks to @David_Snyder for finding this, a dirt cheap option for a basic well-performing MOCK with absolutely no hassle. If I had to talk my grandma through building a dedicated core over the phone, this would be what I’d use!

Sub-$150 "easier than a ROCK": no hardware to mess with no BIOS to mess with NUCbox - it should be supported for ROCK!

Hi- I’m making a pitch that the GMKtec N97 should be supported as ROCK hardware (vs very easy inexpensive MOCK). First, it’s $137 on Amazon right now, and second it’s an easier install than any of the 3 ROCKs that I’ve built. Why? I didn’t have to build this - didn’t have to touch the hardware at all other than to plug it in; I’ve never opened it. To be honest, I didn’t even have to touch the BIOS, still haven’t. Even though it’s a MOCK, this is a better experience for someone who wants to…

[andybob (Andrew Cox)]

Thanks @Johnny_Ooooops and @David_Snyder for posting about this. It’s a really interesting little unit for people with a basic use case. Plus pink!

[Johnny_Ooooops (Listener in Chief)]

@andybob

It’s a really interesting little unit for people with a basic use case. Plus pink!

You’re most welcome! While the “Grandma’s Core” use case might be a little overstated, it’s really an amazing cost/benefit ratio. @David_Snyder is really the champion and explorer here, I’m just doing a bit of ‘rah-rah’.

My N150 (with limited edition blue top) is way better than my old 7i5 was as a Roon core. And now my 7i5 is working as a Ubuntu machine with HQPlayer Desktop running on it, happily doing PCM upsampling in my second home which doesn’t have any DSD DACs. And my pink N97 core is now on my way to my brother in law to try out Roon in his house. Repurposing hardware is great fun.

[MCMXC (Tinkering)]

ROCK VM on ProxMox in my HomeLab (45Drives HL15 NAS with a Xeon)

Nice way to carve a little bit of power off an overpowered NAS box, that’s always on.

This set up has a ton of fans, maybe a GPU coming. I hear chatter about the benefits of running roon in fan-less slimmed down boxes (eg the ROON products). Anyone have any experience with sound quality changes running roon in a hot busy box?

[Nils-Elling_Stubberu (Nils-Elling S)]

Hi,

I run a HP Prodesk 600 G3 with all Intel inside and Roon OS 2.1. 16GB RAM (with max 32GB if needed), i5 Intel CPU, a 256GB M2 local SSD from Samsung. It’s been up for more than 2.5 years, and with no problems.

I’ve removed the bracket ment for the 2.5" HD to have better cooling. To be sure, I bought an extra fan to have in spare. It’s still unopened.

As for my library I use 2 external SSDs, one for the music and one for backup. I use DSP (sample rate conversion, upsampling). The Prodesk have no problem with the higher CPU usage.

This gear might not be strange, but better than any NUC, if you ask me. It cost me $200 for the HP unit and $150 for the two hard drives (one is 2TB and the other is 1TB). Quite cheap, wouldn’t you agree?

[robert_vanarsdall]

I was running a nuc 7i5BAH 8/128 and was having problems with slow callups and occasional freezes, all on the graphics, never on the audio. Library is ~55,000 tracks. The nuc was hardwired to the router which is hardwired to the audio system.

Any rate, the nuc has been running fine for almost five years except for having to replace three fans. I just figured five years is about what you get from electronics these days, despite what Roon says about the adequacy of the hardware specs.

So I upgraded to this: Minisforum NAD9 Intel Core™ i9-12900H Mini PC . I must have gotten one just before they sold out. It’s an i9-12900H chip, which should be overkill for the next five years or so. I put in 16G of DDR4-3200 RAM and a 256GB M2 board, which again is overkill.

The install was incredibly easy following Roon’s directions: backed up the library, installed the M2 board, updated the bios, installed ROCK, installed the codec, restored the Roon file from the backup, installed the library SDD. Everything up and running in less than 30 minutes.

Response is now hugely faster. The “processing speed” that shows on Roon’s signal path is up over 80x on most files so far and I run some parametric EQ.

There are some reports of quality issues with the Minisforum nucs, but I figured a refurbished one might have been returned to be fixed and thus less chancy. Regardless, the price was right and the cooling design was attractive.

So the verdict: ROCK installs and runs well on this one. Another MOCK up and running.

[Mikael_Ollars]

I had a few reasons to move the m.2 system drive in my Streacom FC8 server, into a different setup.
So, i figured; Do i have another m.2 available, and yes i did…

A couple of years ago i replaced the m.2 in my Nucleus+ as the old one were showing signs of unstability. I installed a 256Gb Samsung 970 Evo and reinstalled RoonOS, had the Nucleus software added thanks to the ladies and gents of Roon support.

Anyways, following some update of Roon the old NUC7i7 barebone was really struggling with my pretty extensive library (around 10K albums on an internal 8Tb SSD). I took the m.2 with Roon OS out, replaced once again with a Samsung m.2 and installed Win10.. Wheo! New lease of life and the old NUC was really refreshed.

And now, i simply installed the Nucleus+ m.2 system drive into the Streacom FC8 and hey… Up and running! identifying as a Nucleus+!

The hardware is an Asus H610 mini-ITX mobo with an Core i3 12100, a couple of 8Gb DDR4 3200Mhz sticks. Media is on a 6Tb 3.5" WD Red EFAX and it has got a Streacom BluRay slot in optical reader. It even recognizes the optical and seem to allow CD ripping.