Nucleus with MAN301 best connection?

Hello, I am new here and hope I selected the right category for my question.
Today I use an MAN301 from Weiss Engineering Ltd. with integrated DAC and preamp. Since a few weeks I use now Roon on my Macbook Air, it is a fantastic concept, well developed software with a great user experience.
As I know the MAN isn’t certified and do not support RAAT. Airplay isn’t a solution because I have a lot of HiRes files up to 24Bit 192 kHz.
Therefore I think about to move to Nucleus (I want to have a dedicated Roon Core server anyway) and want to connect the DAC from my MAN301. But the MAN301 offers only the following digital inputs:
XLR, RCA, Toslink (optical), Firewir. All inputs accept professional or consumer standards i.e. accept AES/EBU or S/PDIF, no USB (3.0).
What would be the best solution?
PS: I thought I can use the “V Link 192” from Musical Fidelity but they have discontinued the production.

Best regards
Crooner

Is the MAN301 a DLNA renderer?

Hi Jesus,
to be honest I don’t know but don’t believe so.
The MAN is a streamer with his own DB and it was a very nice UI several years ago. In the meantime the UI and fuctionallity get outdated and I can only use HiRes files stored on my NAS. Streming services are not integrated, can be only used via Airplay ;-(.

If your amp does not have usb then the Nucleus is not going to work on it’s own you’ll need another device to get the music to your amp. You can buy usb to spdif converters but your can get a low cost endpoint like the Allo DigiOne for about the same money and this would follow Roons best practice of separate core and endpoint.

If you want an all in one solution then I think some of the Innuos servers also have a digital out option that is not usb.

Hi @Crooner
Daniel Weiss was one of the few DAC designer that used Firewire, because it was by far the best interface for audio back then. It probably still is, because the DAC can reserve bandwidth on the FW link.
So I have taken an old Late 2009 Mac Mini and connected it to my Weiss DAC202 through firewire. On the Mac Mini I run El Capitan and Roon Bridge. The combination sounds fantastic.
It should probably be fairly easy and cheap to get a used Mac Mini with FW.

Just for information.
Under the following circumstances I have solved the synch problems and can use now my MAN301 from Weiss Engineering as DAC with Preamp.

Short summary:

ROON Bridge with RCA output.
I use Raspberry PI 4 with 2GB and HiFiBerry DIGI2 Pro Board, RoPieee OS.

ROON settings:

  • Enable “DSD Volume Control”
  • And Sampling Frequency conversion to “Max PCM Rate”

MAN 301 need to be set in Pre Amp Mode

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