Roon Core options

As mentioned, there is not remote viewing for ROCK as there is no desktop. It is an appliance that is controlled through a web interface. And of that, control is very minimal.

If you use Windows or Linux (not Rock), then you can use a Remote Desktop app. For windows and Mac s, I use Teamviewer or Splashtop.

OK, thanks all.
Sounds like there are some good options to consider.

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I just bought the essentials. Now itā€™s time to read ā€œinstallā€ thread and continue to the next step.

All in, $750.34 with tax.

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Per your advice I am going to start off with MUSic on my 2 TB external Hard drive. Then if itā€™s slow, Iā€™ll add another internal hard drivf

It most likely will not be. Iā€™ve got my music on a 2 TB external USB 3 drive. No issues at all.

The important bit is the speed of the drive where the database is stored, not the speed of the music storage. This is what will largely govern UI responsiveness for a large library. OTOH a small library may end up getting memory cached I guess if there is sufficient memory.

As far as know the speed of the music drive may slightly impact initial import analysis, but mostly I think it just needs to be fast enough to support the number of concurrent playback streams at whatever bit rate they may be assuming a worst case of all zones are playing from NAS at the same time, so not very demanding at all really.

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Ah ok, that makes sense. My RAM is 16 GB and the internal ROON hard drive space is 256 GB. So hopefully I should be fine. Thanks !

Iā€™ve decided to install a 2TB SSD in my MOCK as prices are now under Ā£200 and current opinion is that SSDs, if written to infrequently , have a very long life-span - Iā€™ll keep a back-up on HDD which might need replacing every 5 years or so

Well, you are more than double the suggested RAM requirements, so your fine there. Just keep in mind that the 256 drive is used ONLY for the OS and never for data storage.

You will need another drive for data storage. Personally, adding an external USB hard drive is the easiest and best way to go, imho.

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Hello.
Check if NAIM can work as DLNA server for your HDD. If you have core somewhere else maybe it can be fed back to NAIM as end point.
But really - buy Synology or qnap and be free from where to put core and music. With Synology music station you can use your music remotely on mobile. For me it is perfect match. High quality music via Roon at home and wav quality on mobile. Regards

Naim says itā€™s a UPNP server. I donā€™t know what that means, I just took the word ā€œserverā€ and asked if I could install Roon, but everyone said itā€™s only a Roon endpoint. What are the benefits of NAIM being a upnp server? Should I have it on or off?

The Atom is an end point for UPnP not a server. If you use the Naim software you can play files on the Atom from a variety of UPnP servers.
Think of it like roon but using different technology. A lot of roon users have tried UPnP (which stands for Universal Plug and Play) in the past and discovered it is anything but universal and definitely not plug and play - hence their move to roon.

ā€œUniti Atom UPnP enables Uniti Atom to play audio files stored on UPnP servers such as the Uniti Core, network servers with integrated UPnP software, or Windows and OS X computers runnig 3rd party UPnP server software.ā€

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Atom, and other new Uniti and Streamers from Naim, is all three: a Roon end point (which you feed from your Roon core), a UPnP end point (which you can feed from a UPnP server, on a NAS or elsewhere), and, if you enable it, a UPnP server (which will appear on your network like any other servers you have running). The Atom UPnP server can be selected as the source for the Atom UPnP client, and it can ā€œserve itselfā€ (and of course any other clients on your network). The only material it can serve must be locally attached to the Atom (eg a USB drive). AFAIK, this drive is only accessible as local storage or via the UPnP server, and isnā€™t mountable as a network shared drive (so you need to remove it to load it, for instance). Edit: that means you canā€™t point another server, UPnP or Roon, to the local storage on the Atom (sorry if that wasnā€™t obvious).

In your case, going with Roon, there is no need to enable the Atom UPnP server or attach local storage. You can if you wish, but that is a completely different streaming approachā€¦

Regards alan

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I missed that sharing effectively turns it into a upnp server. Hard to decide from the Naim speak on the web site.

Hey everyone!

Just successfully installed R.O.C.K. on a 8th generation i7 NUC with 16 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD. As you all advised, the SSD only has R.O.C.K installed. I have all my music on a 2 TB drive. It took me an hour to install everything (hardware and software). Got stuck at a couple of areas, but figured it out quickly. Thanks to everyone for all you advice. This group is truly awesome and helpful.

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#1) none.
You also donā€™t want a computer of any type in your audio room. Music servers are computers. You donā€™t want hard drives in your audio room.
You want Roon app and index file on SSD, but SSD is overkill for music files.
Also, using usb to a dac is the worst connection type to use, same goes for wireless.
I have Roon running on a large iMac with 24G of ram, 16T of disk, SSD for Roon index, which is in my office using Ethernet to my dac in my dedicated audio room.
This way, the computer is just reading bits off the disk (no extra motherboard enhancements needed, computers are designed to do this).

If you canā€™t use Ethernet or you are stuck with usb, then you have to go thru hoops to get usb to sound right, you have to go thru hoops to not have hard drives in your audio room so you need to use a NAS or link to a remote disk from a server using minimserver or equivalent.

From what Iā€™ve read youā€™re certainly right about USB, but Iā€™m not convinced that wireless is a bad option. Yes, if you have a flaky network it can cause problems, but if your network is robust Iā€™m not sure why wireless is any worse that ethernet. Could you elaborate?

Thereā€™s nothing wrong at all with USB.
Get the core/USB DAC combo right, and it works perfectly.

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It works certainly. Many people are however concerned about noise being transferred from the host computer into the DAC and impacting the resulting audio clarity. For a similar reason some people choose to buy alternate low noise power supplies. Oddly I see a lot of people using one or the other, but not both (for eg low noise PSU, or a USB filter, but not both together which would seem to make more sense to remove all perceived source of noise).

TBH I have to question the quality of noise filtering and power supplies of many DACs (even expensive high end ones) if you take many peoples comments on the subject at face value.

As I have posted elsewhere, interestingly it is not a concern I have come across in commercial studios that are using USB or other direct host connected DACs. Maybe such DACs do indeed have better noise rejection and power supplies etc.

I guess for many, just removing the direct connection just removes a source of worry. Certainly some host platforms are known to be quite bad for USB DACs especially if the DAC is also host powered (R-PI with its standard PSU comes to mind).

I think itā€™s important to avoid, and eschew unqualified generalisations like ā€˜USB impacts on audio qualityā€™, etc.
In my own experience, a Nucleus=>USB DAC has performed as well, if not better than a Roon-Ready Ethernet endpoint.
Itā€™s important to use your ears, and see what sounds better to you.

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