New Nucleus Titan?

[davidh (JimmyTwoTimes)]

Look at that price! LMAO

[Billy_k]

A £3,700 NUC? Really?

[paulgh (Paul)]

@occasionallyhere

@Bill_Janssen

And don’t the Nucleus and Nucleus+ also have silent, fanless operation? How does the Titan’s cooling design “surpass” those products?

Nucleus is 1 x fanless, Nucleus + is 2 x fanless, Titan is 4 x fanless…

I assume that the new Titan has increased computing power and increased heat output. Hence the need for those massive cooling fins on the side. It’s possible that the old nucleus+ cases just won’t do the job with a more powerful computer inside - particularly with everybody wanting to do mega DSD upscaling these days.

[Marian (I stand with Ukraine)]

Or, just add a fan and don’t worry about it. If it’s too noisy, relegate it somewhere where it doesn’t matter. If we feel the need to beautify tech, it means we think “regular” tech is ugly (not a personal opinion), so probably the best way to deal with that would be to just move it out of sight.

[Gareth_Irwin]

Nope. The size of that heat sink would probably deal with a core i5 13th gen no problem. I imagine its there because it looks purposeful.

[NipperDog]

And I thought that my Nucleus was pricey when I bought it a couple of years ago.

[occasionallyhere]

@paulgh

Hence the need for those massive cooling fins on the side

Hence the wooden finish…

[danny2]

Agree. It’s for people who are willing to pay for looks and who want an “appliance” instead of a PC that you have to set up and do maintenance with.
Not a value proposition for me, but I bet there will be a market for it.

[DancingSea]

@Arindal

Some people might argue streamers, CD players and cables also have little to nothing to do with sound quality. Does it mean there should not be expensive ones or they meet defeating criticism as well?

Why is is not possible to except that some people like beautiful things or those made with craftsmanship or simply look nice in their environment or simply work hassle-free? This all is about luxury, user experience and enjoyment.

Yes, exactly. But what the el cheapo crowd doesn’t understand is that in the high end world, right or wrong, those manufacturers and customers believe that well engineered, audio specific music servers do sound better than a regular computer and they’re willing to pay big money for those sonic, looks, functionality, quality etc improvements.

That’s how the high end music server market operates. The Titan comes in at the very least expensive tier for high end servers which can stretch up to $30K or more. That’s the market which cares little for what the bits are bits an $89 WiiM Pro is all one needs crowd thinks.

It behoves Roon to make a case for why their server is engineered to sound as good as or better than other servers in the high end market. It’s not just about looks to that crowd. And it matters little whether they are right or wrong about the sonic benefits.

I can say from personal experience that once one hears those high end servers, it’s difficult to argue that they don’t sound better than a computer. Whether or not they’re worth the money for the improvement is a different issue.

[Bernd_Kurte (Bernd)]

It’s the case. NUC comes for free.

[Ljad (LD)]

@Saturn94

At $3700, no thanks.

Same opinion
And forever You sit stuck with Roon (if there becomes beter options).
Just like choosing between Nikon and Canon after buying some pricely lenses.

I will wait.

LD

[miklats]

I am stuck with Roon since 2015. Feels really good. Hope I remain stuck for many more years.

[neil_balfour1 (Chuvallo)]

I have a nucleus + version 1, happy with it. Have been considering Grimm Mu1 or Mu2 to reduce the box count. I would have been extremely interested if it had an optical network connection (SFP). Personally think they missed a step in this instance not including SFP(optical).

[Elberoth (Adam)]

It is not possible with the platform they use (NUC).

[MikeD (- Music Is In The Ear Of The Beholder)]

@Terry_Fell1

For this price I would want a service engineer sitting permanently next to the “Titan” to press the reset button when things go due south

For this price, a 1 800 number to call would be nice.

–MD

[gTunes]

I’m a bit disappointed that the first product of the Harmon acquisition is a high-price server targeted at the very upper end of the market.

I’m fairly certain Roon needs to scale to survive. Mega-pricey servers can’t be the path forward. They may be high margin and they’re certainly fun vanity products but the market is definitionally small and easy to saturate. They probably see these as a way to retain or expand their presence in high-end audio shops and the real goal is the attached, recurring subscription revenue. I get that.

What I think they really need is a much more moderately priced version that has more mass market appeal. It’s not either/or, though, so maybe we’ll see Harman branded versions or even, more likely, versions embedded into existing Harman products. Long term, I think they’re up against Sonos if they want to scale and Sonos manages to do their thing without a dedicated server.

@DancingSea

I can say from personal experience that once one hears those high end servers, it’s difficult to argue that they don’t sound better than a computer.

Servers don’t have sound. They process deterministically, independent of model, and send identical bitstreams out over ethernet adapters. This is true of the servers that Qobuz and Tidal run and it’s equally true of the servers that we run in our homes. We can think as magically as we want about this, but it won’t change physics.

@DancingSea

It behoves Roon to make a case for why their server is engineered to sound as good as or better than other servers in the high end market. It’s not just about looks to that crowd. And it matters little whether they are right or wrong about the sonic benefits.

Fortunately, Roon appears to disagree with your assertion that they should make this case. The Titan announcement steers well clear of any such nonsensical claims and sticks to manufacturing and aesthetics: “With Titan, we’ve created a high-performance device that fuses precision manufacturing with aesthetics that evoke the interwoven nature of our music collections and Roon’s finesse for music exploration.”

[Menzies-Old]

Not sure I have anything of value to add to this thread

Cost of an item is subjective to the purchaser.

In my eyes all cars do the same thing; get you from A to B. The level of style/build is different, and some say better with extra cost.

The current Nucleus devices are not for me and nor is the Titan. Outside my budget range. As are many other audio equipment. That’s fine.

$3,700 to me = 7,400 CDs purchased from my local charity shop

…

Nothing I do or say will change Roon’s release of the Titan or the cost of it.

I guess my beef with Roon can be addressed via the feedback section of the forum

[Jim_F (Minimalist)]

I think it would be good if people could keep an open mind.

[Tor_Gunnar_Berland]

I have not read all posts here, but do we know which processor (CPU) the Nucleus Titan will get ?

[404]

From the photos of the case and passive cooling setup, I’d estimate 100~150W heat dissipation max. So maybe current gen i5 processors (or their AMD equivalent)?