NUC w/ROCK and Linear PSU

Recently built an home made PC for use as Roon Core, but the sound quality was not as expected and ended up with an noisy PC in my HiFi chain…

Therefore, I’m now considering an new hardware version for my Roon Core.

Current setup list:

- Intel NUC10i7FNH2 built into a HDPLEX H1 V3 Fanless Chassis runnning ROCK
- OS Storage: SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2 250 GB
- Music Storage: Samsung 860 Evo 2000GB 2.5" SATA
- Network Switch: English Electric 8Switch
- HDPLEX 300W Linear Power Supply

The HDPLEX LPS is feeding the NUC in the HDPLEX cabinet with 19V.
In additional, I’m looking for to run an 8Switch from English Electric and fed from the LPS as well.

The Roon Core will also be used as an Endpoint to feed Multichannel music to the Meridian 621, then to the 861 via MMHR (Cat.6 cable & proprietary protocol). ID41 card in the 861 is an Roon Endpoint as well for streaming 2CH music/Tidal. The Meridian equipment and speakers are fed from an PS AUDIO P10 power plant.

I know some computer audio enthusiasts build more extreme computers, but my main goal is to run ROCK and only to be used for Roon. Since the Nucleus+ is powered by an NUCv7 motherboard, I may assume that running ROCK on a supported Intel NUC like above will hopefully be more or less identical to an Nucleus+. See below for picture.

Any thoughts about my temporary setup?

First step to getting the best sound quality is following the manufacturer’s instructions on how to do so with their product. Before you do anything else, please carefully study the knowledgebase article on sound quality: https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en/kb/articles/sound-quality

Since you require multi-channel audio, I think your architecture is fine…you just need to add a 2nd NUC that you can hang off of that bottom switch and dedicate 100% to running ROCK (no HDMI or USB connections to any DACs).

You’ll install a light-weight Linux (eg., Ubuntu Server or Arch) on the HDPLEX NUC and run Roon Bridge. For this system, you will be much better off with a lower-spec NUC board. Even the i3 is massive overkill.

Thanks David. I’ve been reading that article as well and was hoping to use one device and not two when I first started the re-planning. But as you mention and what is stated in the article, running an NUC with i3 for example will be a better solution for a multichannel Endpoint to the 861 processor and keep Core with Rock as standalone.

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Here comes a new drawing of the current planned setup. Might look for a smaller cabinet for the Endpoint, but the HDPLEX cabinet is best looking chassis I found so far.
The HDPLEX 300W LPS only have 1x19V output, so I have to use a second LPS for the Endpoint :expressionless:

I don’t think you need the fanless chassis and LPS for the i7 Core. Otherwise, this looks great.

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Fanless chassis is more or less to avoid any use of cooling fan in this setup, fans may generate noise as well in the chain and in the computer world, you never know…

Except of the Meridian equipment, total price is still under for what the Nucleus+ costs :grinning:

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Can you share what sort of measurments and/or double blind tests you did to confirm that you have a ‘noisy PC’.

This is all a hoax imo.

Tested an Nucleus last night with same hifi setup, totally different sounding and multichannel listening was a pleasure.

When it comes to multichannel, the recording need to be very good for my ears to be able to listen to it :blush:

Nucleus in house now and will never regret it :slight_smile: