Hello, I have a Minix mini PC, fanless, i5, 16 GB RAM, 1TB SSD. Is there any agreement whether ROCK “sounds better” than a Roon server under Ubuntu ?? I’m not doing any exotic plays, basically a library of 1500 CD ripped by me in the last decade, nothing higher resolution, no MQX, etc…
I remember 3 years ago I tried to install ROCK on whatever I had then as a mini PC (not a NUC) and wasn’t successful. It looks now it might be possible.
Thank you, Alex
Try it yourself - only you can determine if it sounds better in your setup, that said I would always use rock over a Linux install as it’s less to setup and maintain if it works on your hardware.
Coincidentally, I got similar hardware configuration, and software voyage.
Look, I’m using a fanless Intel i5 NUC powered by LPS. In past, I used to use mpd for music files playback on highly trimmed Ubuntu 22.04 with its latest real time kernel. The music files were stored in a local ssd. That’s my headless music server.
Last month, I’ve installed Roon Core side by side with MPD in the same platform to compared their sound. MPD played better sound. Few days later I installed ROCK in the same PC (ie. overwrote that Ubuntu, and those music files). Even ROCK just streamed the files from NAS, the sound is obviously better than I used to listen to. After I added the music files in another local SSD, needless to say the performance is further elevated.
Btw, installing ROCK is very smooth and fast, only a few minutes. I got 13065 tracks mixed with .wav ripped from my CDs, different resolution files, DXD, and various DSD formats. And running convolution dsp for digital room correction. It’s great fun!
There really isn’t but there is never an agreement on these things regardless of how often Roon developers repeat it. ROCK is essentially Roon Server running on a minimal Linux. It’s just a server streaming digital data that’s always the same (assuming no DSP)
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I think the key is in the OS, esp. the kernel. The sound is very different between a real time kernel and ordinary kernel, even the playback software is the same. A tailor made kernel and an ordinary kernel also makes a big difference. From a layman guess, it’s about the latency.
- There is absolutely no reason for this. The only effect that an RT kernel has is that audio processes get their data to the consumer in time, without possibly getting preempted by other processes. This is important in some applications because otherwise it would lead to clicks, pops, silence, or simply desynchronization between different data streams.
However, the transmitted data is exactly the same, so if the machine is fast enough for the task and the data arrives before buffers run out, there is no difference in the data
- Do you even know if ROCK uses an RT kernel that makes your hypotheses even theoretically possible?
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I’m just an new layman user here and would like to share my experience to Alex for his concern.
Thanks for your constructive sharing. Farewell.
While there is no single topic on which an opinionated group of people will ever agree, you shouldn’t expect the OS of a digital data processor to have any influence on the sound your DAC/Amp will output to your speakers, as long as the hardware/OS/network are fast enough to read the data from the storage device, process it and get it then to the output…
As to ROCK vs Linux server, there clearly seem to be more users running ROCK than those running Roon sever on a mainstream Linux distro. I am in the latter group, having run Roon for the last 3,5 years un Ubuntu server. I do this not for any gain in sound quality, but for the following reasons:
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My Roon server runs in a fanless passively cooled case in a rather hot environment, and I wish to monitor the thermal parameters of the processor cores and the SSD. I can’t to that on ROCK.
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My Roon core device is connected to an UPS. So I want this device to be able to monitor the UPS and shutdown itself, should the UPS charge fall below a certain threshold. I can’t do this directly on ROCK, and I don’t care for the possible workarounds.
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During my time on the forum I have seen too many reports about failing NVMe M.2 SSD drives, and so I wish to be able to use SMART monitoring on my Roon core device. I can’t do this on ROCK.
Apart from this, installing a minimum Linux server is easy enough, and apart from regularly updating the OS there is no other maintenance work to do. It is my opinion that the value of an appliance like ROCK on a NUC is little to someone feeling moderately comfortable with the Linux shell. Others will disagree on that.
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Thank you guys, I appreciate all answers…Andreas you bring excellent points, there are/will be maintenance jobs and very important I wish to rep CD’s and I think one cannot do it in ROCK. So, I’ll try to install a ROON server under Ubuntu 2.2
Again, thanks a lot, Alex
Just do add, it’s no problem to rip on a different PC and copy it over the network to ROCK.
As always, Andreas does make good points. Some prefer the control that a Linux machine gives, some value the simplicity and no-maintenance of ROCK. That’s a personal choice. (I was a Linux user for 30 years and know my way around, but personally I still cherish that I installed ROCK 3 years ago and it has just worked without issues and without spending a minute with maintenance)
I think ROCK is the best Roon OS.
On the other hand, if you choose ROCK, you will often not be able to do it as Andreas_Philipp1 mentioned earlier. For example:
- Dual boot with Windows
- Use of equipment based on the latest CPU and chipset (due to driver compatibility issues)
- Maintenance of PCs including OS
Personally, I think the real solution is to install a realtime kernel on Linux desktop and run it on a multi-user target. Even compared to ROCK on older equipment, I feel that the sound quality is better in that it can use the latest one.
Why is there need for a realtime kernel? I thought a server is supposed to maximize throughput?
Audiophoolery
This is, to me, the most important point. Run Roon Server on the operating system that you are most comfortable with chosen from among those that will meet your needs.
Only if you want to do anything other than run Roon Server ( including other network services or hardware monitoring tools), Roon OS (as installed by ROCK) is not an option.
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Hi,
As weird as it can be;
- One Celeron NUC using Rock for the “Player”, linked to a USB Dac
- One i3 NUC using Rock as Server.
- Music comes from Qobuz or DS423+ NAS
This configuration sounds fantastic.
I did try to run the Roon on a Synology DS423+ as Server (Still having the Celeron NUC as Player). Theorically, it should make no difference right ? Player should absord server latency if they were any. It did sound great but it seems to me Roon Rock on i3 Server sounds slightly better.
I’ve run Roon Server on MacOS, Linux Mint, LMDE and currently Roon ROCK.
It ran solid on LMDE 6. Only the occasionaly fresh reboot after updating the system every few weeks. I did have memory leaks on Mint before that, but no such a thing with LMDE.
However after buying a tiny mini PC (Intel N97 CPU, 12 gb RAM) I have been running ROCK the last month or so. It has been running rock solid. I’ve only restarted the system twice. First after it finished ananlyzing my music collection after importing it to give it a fresh start. Second time was I had to change the order of the power cords on the power brick to make room for a new adapter. So I had to power it down. It has been running ever since.
For me personally I’ll be sticking with ROCK on my mini NUC. I only need it to play my music and don’t need it do additional things. So ROCk serves me just fine. But running the Server on Linux worked great as well.
Bizarrely, though I went all the way down the GMKtec pathway - and I do think ROCK/MOCK on an N97 is what most people with reasonable (50k? 75k?) size collections should use because of cost/ease/power consumption - I now am running Ubuntu server on a headless 10i7. Never thought I would say that! but in the age of ChatGPT even I can administrate a simple single server that runs Roon core, SongKong, plex, and a few other little non-sound related things. I ran ROCK on the same device for a long time, but was wasting most of its resources (I now know). I ran my Roon core on my Mac mini for a few days and that was blazingly fast. But I didn’t want to deal with killing my music if I pegged the processor on the Mac or had to reboot or whatever. So a separate machine works best. ROCK was right for me for a long time, now Ubuntu on the same box works great. But in my second home I have a GMKtec N150 - running on the same exact library perfectly happily.
So I really think it’s different strokes for different folks. Get an N97 or N150 and run mock/rock if you have a reasonable library and want it to be set & forget. At <$150 it’s crazy not to. If you want to use your machine for lots of stuff and/or you linux administrate in your sleep, do that. If you love your Mac or PC, do that.
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