this question might have been asked a few times in the past, however things have moved on and new hardware has become available.
I’m about to pull the trigger on HQPlayer 5 and plan to put both RoonServer and HQPlayer (embedded) on the same NUC running Ubuntu Server for convenience reasons.
From experimenting with HQPlayerOS on a Pi4 and some older/out of Service (10yrs!) OfficePCs with Core i5 and Core i7 processors (again dating around 2010-2012) an my Matrix mini-i 3 pro DAC I’ve come to conclude that SDM sounds better than upsampled PCM alone (even if the DAC is ESS based and not “native DSD”), so I’d like to go that route.
Favoured config at the moment (not far from default settings): poly-sync-gauss-long / ASDM5EC / DSD128. I got DSD256 to work as well, but it sounds kind of fuzzy in my setup, so I prefer to stay with DSD128.
I think my current Roon Server (ROCK on a NUC7i3) isn’t powerful enough for this task, so I’m looking to replace it.
Currently I’m looking into a NUC10 i5 which should be around 2-3 times the CPU power of my current NUC (and is available at quite an affordable price).
I’m quite confident, that this should work, however would be happy to get some feedback on experiences from other users running similar setups.
At minimum the device should be quad core, preferably 6 cores or more. Real physical cores, not just threads (siblings). And equipped with AVX2 instruction set (well, any Intel Core CPU since 4th Gen should have that).
I missed the ending of an eBay auction with the internals from Taiko Extreme, (Sage C621E & twin 28 core CPU’s) <£200
Out of interest have you read through the Taiko thread on AudiophileStyle site.
For me the ability to put in PCI cards is neat, my cobbled together system has a jCat net card, which I think sounds good, and bundled in a HDplex case with their new GAN power supply is dead silent. Its not Taiko killer though
You want a desktop to run HQPlayer, like you used, not a mobile core NUC, especially if you are also running RoonServer on the same box. I would suggest just keeping the NUC running Roon and add a desktop PC to run HQPlayer.
Hi, I right now run a setup as a PC that I have built myself, rather than NUC with approximately same purpose as your.
My CPU is I9-10900, 10 cores. I have also a nVidia RTX 3060 Ti cuda off-load graphic adapter, that made my wishes finally fullfilled. It works hard, fans are running high. I have tried it at my friends place @512 DSD, it stops working, unless using much lower modulator and filter characteristics. It works very well connected to my RME DAC (direct DSD mode) via a NAA @ DSD256, ASDM7ECv2, poly-sinc-gauss-xla, DoP … To be honest, I today wonder which DAC would ever sound as good as this set-up, and I have listened to some seriously priced units. Remains Chord Dave to try, as it uses FPGA chip as DAC, and does not upsample in DSP, but playing as is (same operation as RME with the DSP section bypassed).
I think that if you are to choose a NUC, I would recommend 10 cores as a minimum, with the specs you referred, and if you intent to experience heavier re-sampling specs, you should abandon the NUC idea, build a mera powerful PC and have a NAA close to your rig. IMHO
I’m looking into building a custom Desktop-PC instead of a a NUC as well.
A reasonably specced PC (Intel Core i5 12th gen, 16 GB RAM DDR4-3200) isn’t much more expensive than a NUC, if you don’t need a fancy case and LED strobolight inside the case .
This also leaves the option for later upgrades of CPU an GPU, if needed.
It’s just a question of where to put it (away from the listening room).
It is good you counterbalance the (things) I have received from the Chord Electronics Sales. They clearly stated that the FPGA played bit-for-bit, without DSP, unless an external dito.
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