A recommendation for fellow Luddites based on this Luddites experience. Start Roon with the Nucleus! It is worth every penny for simplicity to not pull your hair out.
Yes Roon works with all kinds of other devices perfectly well, but if you are not computer savvy and still want the beautiful Roon system, the Nucleus makes it soooo much easier. I finally gave up mastering Roon on a QNAP. Nothing wrong with QNAP, but you need more than my level of computer knowledge to make it work properly.
Roon markets the Nucleus for it’s superior sound and performance qualities. This is probably true, but for me if Roon wants to sell to Luddites, I think the simplicity is a marketing opportunity.
And to prove my ignorance, I have a suggestion for the Nucleus set up instructions. Your instructions say:
You can copy music to this drive (Nucleus Internal Storage) by visiting the network share:
From a Windows PC
\NUCLEUS\Data\Storage\InternalStorage
If asked for a username and password, use Guest for both.
You could add: Access this from your file explorer NOT your browser.
Obvious to anyone with any decent knowledge of computer systems, but I have already excluded myself from that crowd. It would have saved me a lot of frustration and embarrassment.
If you are using Roon and a Nucleus you are certainly NOT a Luddite. Computer-challenged maybe. Good to see you are taking full advantage of new technology and loving it.
Well yes, the former is essential given the target market, but for the latter, Nucleus is marketed as an appliance, like ROCK and all the other music servers. By definition, appliances need little knowledge or maintenance to run.
Hmm see quite a few support tickets for Nucleus as well as other systems. It’s not infallible and is reliant on other things being inline to work effectively.
Not many pieces of software depend on using a particular machine to make them work acceptably. I wouldn’t use Roon if I had to buy a Nucleus to get acceptable performance. All one is asking of Roon is to drip a tiny amount of data to a USB port and manage some files and maybe pull some stuff from a streaming service. If you don’t want exotic DSP or a dozen zones there should be no need for a Nucleus whatsoever.
The issue is really about the fallibility of the user, not the hardware or software. And that is the very reason for the inception of Nucleus. The OP has it spot on. Forget the HiFi hyperbole that attributes the Nucleus with superior SQ or any of the other stuff. Nucleus was simply designed to purchase, unbox, plug in and get Roon. There are quite a few here who have never really gotten the justifications for Nucleus. It isn’t supposed to be better. It’s just supposed to be easier.
I must be one of the lucky ones. I have a Nucleus tethered by Ethernet to my Google WiFi network. I have not had a single network issue since I purchased the Nucleus in November 2018.
Roon has never marketed the Nucleus for these attributes and steadfastly declines to attribute any SQ benefits to using a Nucleus.
As far as performance, the OS in the Nucleus is written with Roon software in mind, so there’s that, but running ROCK on an Intel NUC will get one to just about the same place.
OTOH, the Nucleus hardware is bog standard i3 or i7 hardware.
The thing about Nucleus is that it’s mostly turnkey for the ‘Luddites’ who want to use Roon.
Interesting to read this. Got my MOCK (not even a ROCK) setup up in literally less than 5 minutes. Maybe 3 minutes total. My opinion is Nucleus is for the people who truly doesn’t want to touch a computer. I had a better performance (in computing and digital domain) than the nucleus for half the price. Setting up the Nucleus probably should have taken me 2 minutes versus 3 setting up the MOCK for half the price? Well, I can spend 500 USD in better analog cables, or even buying music? All in all, those who decide to buy a Nucleus are very happy, those building a ROCK are very happy, whatever you choose we are all enjoying our music collection with an incredible program called Roon
A Nucleus is a great device for anyone who doesn’t want to fool with building a NUC and who follows the Roon hardware requirement guidelines. There is no SQ difference versus another computer device and it runs Roon as well as any other device. If your library exceeds the Roon guidelines for a Nucleus, then you need a more powerful device. If your network or other hardware is problematic, you need to solve that or no computer device is going to work.