I am looking for an inexpensive and stable endpoint that can play hi-rez multi-channel. I’m thinking a low end NUC with ROCK might do the trick. Can ROCK be used as an endpoint only (I have a Nucleus as my core).
Thanks in advance for any info!!
Maybe you can find some answers in these already existing threads.
https://community.roonlabs.com/search?q=rock%20as%20endpoint
I know it works as a stereo endpoint no problem but @danny can confirm if a ROCK’ed NUC works as a multichannel endpoint.
This is about the only thing I haven’t tried myself.
I think as long as your dac is multichannel then you should be ok…I’m assuming you are using hdmi?
Yes, I was planning to use HDMI.
I thought that you had already asked this, and that Danny had confirmed that a NUC running ROCK will work as a MCH endpoint…
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I use a NUC with ROCK as an end point into an AV receiver via HDMI for 5.1 flac and DSF files. It works fine.
The only proviso I’d make is the sound was a bit rough before I upgraded the NUC power supply with an ATL L100. Also put the NUC in a fanless case, but it may be possible to get away without doing that.
I thought that you had already asked this, and that Danny had confirmed that a NUC running ROCK will work as a MCH endpoint…
I do recall previously discussing a NUC as my core and as a MCH endpoint. I didn’t recall from the previous discussion whether ROCK could run as an ENDPOINT ONLY with a Nucleus as the core. Thank for the confirmation!!
Any advice on the LEAST EXPENSIVE device I can get away with to run ROCK only as a MCH endpoint? Ideally fanless, but not essential.
Maybe this one?
The Celeron NUCs won’t work?
They may, but they won’t have been tested by Roon Labs, and they aren’t supported. However, Roon Labs are testing and supporting NUC hardware from the perspective of being able to support a Roon Core. That’s why the minimum requirement is quoted as being a Core i3. Since you are only wanting to use the NUC as an endpoint, a Celeron NUC would certainly suffice, IMO.
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I ran ROCK on my NUC N2820 Celeron to test Roon before purchasing and didn’t have any issues but I didn’t use anything other than Lossless for playback (no DSP). Not supported but worked fine for me… YMMV
Now running on i7 NUC that is supported 
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Hi!
I would also like to use one of the recommended Intel NUCs with Roon Rock as endpoint only (Roon Core should remain on my iMac).
Will the Nuc with Rock be able to feed my DAC via USB? In this thread you were assuming that HDMI is used, but I would like to use it with USB connectednto my DAC.
Cheers,
Chris
Yes it will work, but be warned not all DACs have good Linux support. ROCK is a linux based OS so relies on Linux support for your DAC in the Linux kernel. So I would check your DAC first to see how well it works with Linux, some only really support windows and mac. If you want multichannel audo you will need to use HDMI.
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In my case it is the internal DAC of my Rotel-RA-1592. The manual does not state anything about Linux.
The manual states that you have to use PC USB connection to get DSD playback in native or DoP. If you go with a Mac you get DoP, to get DSD Native you need to use a Windows PC and run the Windows drivers.
If you don’t care about native DSD then you can use Rock and will get the PCM and probably DSD DoP.
If the NUC is just going endpoint duty, then it can be generations older, even a celeron based NUC would work.