All this talk of the value of Nucleus is really strange. The product exists because people asked for it. And it continues to sell well. There is a market for it for buyers who frankly don’t care about those who don’t think it is “needed”. It is certainly wanted by a significant number of Roon users.
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Well it’s understandable that not everyone understands that RoonLabs is dealing with a userbase where not everyone has the technical knowledge and / or inclination to build a NUC, or one where people struggle to understand that a magical cable or device will not change the sound of a digital transmission, yet simultaneously believes itself technically competent to advise on architectural minutiae.
To be fair the post said the CEO of Roon’s ex-financial partner … not the ex-financial partner of your CEO 
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Nobody needs an expensive server for music full stop yet they exist and many users have them from Innuos or Melco and they cost as much or more than the Nucleus.
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If you talk to Roon normally, they basically don’t care. But if someone slapped them at the forum, please - a developed statement…
We make hundreds of posts daily here… We read a lot more. I know your name because I saw your joke about Julia’s name. The forum has an enormous amount of daily posts and readership.
Support team and moderators respond daily with feedback to help users, but I only do it when I’m not working. No support person is going to address items like this, and in most companies, no one will.
Unsure what your problem is…
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You were doing so well until you tried to draw a parallel with the Nucleus product and snake oil/foo and the sort of people who buy into that!
Nucleus people are mostly just folks who buy them because they can’t or don’t want to build and have that sort of cash to drop. If Roon didn’t meet that demand, someone else would.
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If that’s what you read, I misspoke… I was just reiterating the obvious context as a marker of how unusual I found RoonLabs’ candor as to what makes a Nucleus, and also the “we make no claims as to audible improvements from our hardware” position.
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Give us a break. You think a basic NUC tarted up to 3-4X the price vs a custom built device for about the same price is snake oil? Well perhaps in your world you see snake oil, but let’s look at it like this - one at least has to actually try and catch a snake, the other just puts lipstick on a pig, which is a snake oil in its own right (why not just sell reasonably priced NUC’s to customers so as to bring in the sub? Or have a tier that doesn’t start at four figures? Esp if it supposedly doesn’t change the sound at all). It all comes down to use as well - if using as an endpoint as well as server, I’d much rather put my money on an Innuos with it’s optimized USB output and power supply.
I’m glad Roon is selling the Nucleus well, just as a longtime Leica user I’m fine with Leica selling pricy special editions for some extra r&d padding (or however they choose to spend the profit). But that doesn’t discount the other fine mfg out there selling equivalent products as 'snake oil. That phrase gets bandied about too much on this forum.
Apologies then for misreading. 
So defensive Charles. Read my post. I was suggesting someone else thought they were snake oil (which he since confirmed he was not) and in my mind I thought I was defending people who wanted to spend more on bespoke products, be they Nucleus or Innuos or Pink Faun or any other brand. All that matters to me is they love Roon because it’s success means I get to keep on using it! I really don’t care what you choose to listen with and my point was I didn’t understand why others seemed to care so much.
Ok, got it. Sorry. But ever since someone on here equivocated people who do hear differences with cables, power supplies etc (such as myself) to anti-science anti-vaxxers, it’s been a point of contention. Not sure why I care what others are missing out on by not optimizing their systems with ‘snake oil’ (and a lot of it certainly is - one needs to choose carefully), and I certainly don’t care how people spend their money. I was just reacting to a post above by somebody that implied that Roon was a non-starter due to the need for a $1500 plus server in order to run it, which is certainly not the case.
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Hey, we all know Roon ain’t no PSAudio… 'cause if they were, that’d be a $6000 server, they’d claim it sounds better than the competition, and you’d have to buy it to run their software. 
(ducks)
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It’s not all “tarting up”… You are forgetting that there is added functionality for nucleus as well: c4/crestron integration and a 30% Roon performance bump over any other server that isn’t running Roon OS.
Also, a reasonable fanless chassis will make the “custom built” cost a lot more… The factor will drop from ~3x to far lower.
I hear you. Having just gotten the Black Friday email, I will say it is a beautiful looking unit, much classier than the $120 fanless Akasa chassis I put my NUC 7i5 in. But mine goes in a closet nowhere near the hifi so everybody’s needs are different. I guess my point is I’d hate for anyone to get turned off to Roon thinking a Nucleus is a requirement.
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Ugh, metathreads about stuff on other forums. 
Either engage with them where it has been posted or ignore it.
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I don‘t see the issue.
Bought a cheap NUC off eBay, installed Rock, use NAS for storage. Everything streams perfect via a Cambridge Audio Azur 851n, Tidal, Qobuz and Spotify included. HK990 Amp and Q Acoustics Concept 500 speakers. Sounds lovely!
Not as nice as Vinyl from the LP12, but that is personal taste.
The NUC doesn’t need too much tinkering. Installing Rock was easy enough with all the good instructions from various sites. I cannot imagine that Nucleus is necessary.
Never had any performance issues as well. No waiting on anything and if needed, sound tweaking is not a problem for the NUC as well. Got an Synology 418play NAS, but any other external or internal storage should do well enough.
I have seen sooo many discussions about whether or not the sound is better or worse coming from a remote server connected via ethernet as opposed to the server connected directly to the streamer or even integrated into. My conclusion is: ‚The jury‘s still out!‘
I tried connecting the NUC directly via USB to my streamer, had a large PC as source directly connected as well, put some Hi Res music on the internal storage and compared it to external drives connected directly to the PC, NUC and streamer and then tried the NAS again. Even had an Oppo here. The differences are there, but marginal.
Too small.
Don’t you lose the artwork display on the 851 by USB ?
Not essential but nice , Ethernet would give that
Aw, c’mon. If you don’t want to buy a Nucleus+, you could always buy a Pink Faun 2.16x instead.
As for me, I’m running Roon Server on an Odroid H2, which is yet another order-of-magnitude cheaper.
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Great!
Now I want one! But Pink only!!!
The H2 seems nice. Never heard of it before. Thanks.
I think I did. I don’t recall exactly. I did the tryouts earlier this year together with my best mate simply because we were curious and I had just bought the Q Acoustics.
We tried different amps, speaker and rca cables as well, played some old DAT and cassettes on my Pioneer CT-757. Huge fun!
But it was clear from the start that I‘d go for having the NUC and NAS in the other room and having the ethernet connection. My house has a homenet solution which makes use of special shielded cables between the rooms. It may help a bit. But again: very subtle differences.
Very happy with my solution.
For me it’s still a lot of vinyl and usually I sit down for either vinyl or the 851n on the day.
Rarely both on the same session.
I have my cds stored as ALAC, a few downloads, also as ALACs then Qobuz and Tidal. I‘s have to say, Qobuz is my favourite. I prefer the sound.
BTW not a huge fan of MQA these days.