So I made my own NUC ROCK unit with these parts and it works fine -
*Intel BOXNUC7I3BNH NUC
*Crucial 4GB Single DDR4 2400 MT/S (PC4-19200) SR x8 Unbuffered SODIMM 260-Pin Memory - CT4G4SFS824A
*Seagate 2TB BarraCuda SATA 6Gb/s 128MB Cache 2.5-Inch 7mm Internal Hard Drive (ST2000LM015)
But I recently came into some unexpected $ and wondered if replacing it with the Nucleus+ would make any sense at all or if I was just audio splurging because I can (I’m sure some of you can empathize, right?). And, if I did, what could I do with the NUC ROCK unit?
Realistically, changing to a Nucleus+ will have little impact if your existing NUC is working for you. The N+ has a slightly more powerful CPU, but that only really matters if you are doing heavy DSP work (upsampling to DSD or applying room correction). When not using those heavy lift settings, Roon needs very little CPU.
The N+ also gets you their fanless case design. That’s only relevant if you have the N+ in your listening room. If you have your NUC tucked away somewhere else (like near your router in another room), then the noise from the fans in your existing NUC aren’t a problem and the N+'s fanless design won’t get you much here, either.
The final differentiator is the Crestron integration that is available only in the N/N+. That is extremely niche, and I’d be willing to lay odds that is something you’ll never use.
Thanks - I really appreciate it…