Hello Fellow Roon Friends,
Now I use a old PC Laptop, with Roon, Signalyst HQPlayer, NAS (with ripped CDs and DSD) and of course TIDAL HiFi mostly playing the new Masters, I love the sound from MQA !
But I need new hardware, please help me to chose that I shall buy!
I’m open for any suggestions as long as it’s a hardware, that I can use for a longtime and upgrade after needing!
I now that here on Roon community people are helpful and trustworthy!
So I put my faith into your experience and knowledge, when it comes to that I need and shall buying!
Remember that I now how music shall sound, but my skills in the computer world are so I managed to get a pc laptop run !
I have been a professional musician and studio producer, studio and live engineer since 1978, so almost 40 years!
But when the computer started to get used in the studio, well I changed my tape boy for a computer guy instead!
I hope that you will help me with my new hardware, so I can get everything running smooth and better!
Although it depends on your personal needs, I hereby share my setup with you. Starting point: silent and audiophile.
Intel NUC 7th gen i5 (NUC7i5BNH or NUC7i5BNK). I chose the i5 above the i7 because of the Thermal Design Power (TDP). The i5 has a 15 watt TDP and the i7 has a 25 watt TDP.
Use of a lineair power supply SBooster BOTW P&P ECO 18V - 19V with a maximum power of 36 Watt (3.5" HDD 10W, 2.5" HDD 6,5W, 2.5" SSD 5W, Msata SSD 5W, Soundcard 6W, DVD player 7,5W, USB device 3W)
Kingston HyperX Impact is very fast memory. I use 16 GB but 8 GB is OK. Always choose a kit of 2 ie 2x4GB or 2x8GB. A kit works dual channel and is faster.
Finally, I chose a NVME SSD from Samsung, the Samsung 960 EVO 250GB.
The NUC works like a charm. with 3500 albums and 50.000 tracks
It seems you may be thinking of a NUC server to run ROCK, but you are currently using HQ Player. ROCK is specialised to run only Roon Server and a very limited number of ancillary programs. If you want to continue to run HQ Player then you will need a conventional operating system. You can run Roon Server on one machine (say a NUC/Rock) and HQ Player on another, but I don’t think that is what you want to do.
Can you describe how you are using HQ Player and your upsampling and DSP requirements ?
Hi Andrew,
If my memory is totally gone!
So do we now each other and send you a email to you yesterday.
But to your company, okey I can be totally wrong!
Check out and come back to me.
If I’m wrong so will I write her again and answer your questions!
But I must come back later because I have another thing just now!
Hi Andrew,
In fact I almost never use the HQPlayer anymore, since Roon update to 1.3! It’s perfect to play DSD files, so I can live without the HQPlayer.
My needs are Roon and TIDAL HiFi and their Masters or MQA and my NAS, with my ripped CD’s and DSD (what I only play sometimes)!
So what’s the necessary things for me!
What do you suggest for hardware products that can handle this!
Or must I buy a SOtM, Aurender etc…
Network player for $$$ or something like this Roon ready advice, to play my music on?
Do you knowing what we are about 10-15% of the people, that spends more than 500€/$/£ on music products!
The other 85-90% use Spotify etc…playing OGG (MP3) to a Bluetooth speaker or Sonos device and think that sounds great! And think that we audiophiles are totally crazy, what spending so much money on a cable, that there hole music equipment cost!
I don’t now about you but, I rather don’t listen on music or listen to (MP3) on a Bluetooth speakers!!!
What type of hardware are you inquiring about? Hardware to run and play Roon, or hardware for playback (such as speakers, amps, DACs, headphones, and so on)?
Hardware for playing Roon, TIDAL HiFi/Masters (MQA), Music from a NAS!
Everything else do I have.
I want/need to change out my old pc laptop, that runs everything now!
So a great streaming device, that can handle Roon, TIDAL…
I would suggest an i5 NUC running ROCK along the lines suggested by @Marius above as a server.
Instead of optimising the power supply to the NUC however I would recommend a microRendu operating as a Roon Ready endpoint with an LPS-1 UltraCaps power supply.
That can then feed into the MQA DAC of your choice.
CPU: Intel i7 7700
Minne: 16GB DDR4
HDD1: 250GB SSD
HDD2: 3TB Lagring
Agg: Knäpptyst och modulärt Nätaggregat från Corsair
Moderkort med ett bra inbyggt grafikkort och nätverkskort 1Gbit. (Gigabyte Z270M D3H)
I detta utförande kommer datorn att landa på 10500kr. Då är inget extra ljudkort eller andra tillval medräknade, enbart en ren, färdigbyggd dator med ovanstående prestanda.
Skillnaden på 1TB SSD och 3TB vanlig hårddisk är fortfarande enormt stor i pris (+2200kr för 1TB SSD). Den vanliga hårddisken har gummiupphängning i chassit så det mesta ljudet filtreras bort. Vill man minska ljudet ytterligare så kan man slänga in en 5400rpm hårddisk istället för 7200rpm. Dessa är mycket tystare. Rent prestandamässigt så är där ingen större skillnad så länge man använder disken till lagring.
Jag rekommenderar en komplett installation + licens av Windows 10. Detta kostar +1195kr.
Grafikkortsmässigt så skulle vi kunna slänga in ett passivt kylt ASUS GeForce GT 730 2GB. Detta har både ljud och bild via HDMI och klarar 1080… Detta till en kostnad av +800kr.
Som du kunde se på bilden jag bifogade i första mailet så kommer datorn få 6st USB3.0 på baksidan + 1st USB 3.1 typ C + 2st USB 2.0 på framsidan.
Hi Anders. I would agree with that music is best served on the finest systems, but the old photography adage applies; the best camera you have is the one you have with you
I have had some GREAT times with streamed music via bluetooth to my Riva Turbo X portable loudspeaker
I didn’t mean to offending anyone, so I apologize for that I wrote every person has right to like what they do! I only wrote my own opinion that I think about whose music formats! I’m sorry and I hope that you expect my apologize.
No offense taken at all Anders - I just wanted to highlight that sound quality is not the only criteria for musical enjoyment. Roon is very effective at helping us explore exciting musical paths which can be enjoyed on modest systems. I am a sound quality junkie, like most here, but find the search for sound quality is just a means to the end rather than the end itself, if that makes sense. The “end” is to enjoy music. It’s like most things we enjoy, we can still enjoy a good meal with cheap ingredients, but finer ingredients can add to the enjoyment; we can enjoy a good film on a 12 inch laptop but it’s better on a 65 inch 4k TV. I’m not even sure where I am going with this, lol. Time for bed!
As noted above no one can tell you whether ROCK will run on that hardware as it is not a recommended NUC.
I have a similar server myself using an i7 7700 and I use it to upsample to DSD 512 in HQ Player. I run Windows 10, Roon Server and HQP on it quite happily and communicate with it using an iPad mini by RDP.
So it all depends how important ROCK is to you. To me it’s not significant to have it. YMMV.
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, Thanks Marius