If your after reliability then you cannot beat the Japanese and Koreans IMHO
1 Like
I find it odd that the German makers have stuck to 3 year warranties when everyone else moved to 5 or 7 years some time ago.
Back to the Roon NucleusâŚ
The car analogy requires a bit more tweaking from my point of view. Iâm going to buy a car. I am not going to build one. ANDâŚafter I buy the car I am NOT going to service it myself. Not even the simplest things (like changing the oil). I am going to pay someone to do it.
With that in mind back to the Audi/Skoda comparison. I canât afford an Audi so I might well buy a Skoda.
If the Roon Nucleus is an Audi â what is the audio equivalent of the Skoda? (Remember I donât want to do anything but turn the key/plug it in.)
Perhaps there is no Skoda equivalent. Perhaps the Nucleus is not equivalent to an Audi. Maybe equivalent to a Honda?
My point is what âturnkeyâ alternatives are there to the Roon Nucleus? And what are the differences between the two Roon products?
Thanks.
1 Like
SonicTransporter i5 or i7 
If there is a marked to offer turnkey NUC with ROCK, Iâm ready to start that business.
The internet says that Sonos does $1 billion per year, soâŚ
I too am interested in what are the proâs and conâs between the two nucleus models. The $1500 price difference is not inconsequential but if spread over the lifespan of the device, may certainly be worth it if the individual capabilities warrent it.
Will the i3 be as future proofed as the i7 over their lifespan? Does an i7 generate far more operational heat which could shorten lifespan? Hell, a lot of the terms used like convolutions ( room correction?), upsampling to dsd512 etc I donât know why , how often you perform these things. Itâs easy to say well if you donât know what these things are, you wonât need them, but if they are valuable considerations, maybe the i7 is the way to go.
I guess Iâm just interested in what people think .
1 Like
I use convolution, and chose the base model.
It can upsample to DSD128 (although I donât) and doesnât break a sweat with convolution.
I only play one room at a time, although by the numbers I think it could do several.
For the "extremeâ price why didnât they include Roon lifetime subscription?
Why âPeriodâ? The Nucleus is not a motherboard. It is a lot more than a motherboard. It is the sum of ram/storage/motherboard/power/case/thermal-dissipation/industrial-design AND most importantly, software.
Even if this was true (I donât know if it is or isnât), an Audi is no Lamborghini. If you need to ask why, you need to live with a Lamborghini for a bit.
Sorry but you canât. They support mini-ITX, which the NUC is not.
They removed the advertised NUC7i7BNH support on the Plato X7 because they had too many over-heatings. Theyâve recently released new cases the Plato X7D and the Pascal MD that support the NUC7i7 - but they are too new to know if it will be effective.
@Sloop_John_B â you didnât ask me, but my answer to both is: Tesla Model X P100D
The reason is the same reason why the Tesla is not any other electric vehicle. Having one or even riding in one feels like the future, and itâs just amazing how many details they just got right.
BTW, itâs clear that most people on this thread have not watched Hanâs video completely. He agrees with @AndersVinberg and @Chrislayeruk and @Geoff_Mirelowitz â and he spends far more time explaining why itâs not just a NUC. He summarizes this well at âThe Wrapâ starting at 7minutes into the video.
2 Likes
Itâs the ROCK SW, right ?
And what ever you say, it is the same MB, or ?
And if the selection of RAM vendor, and SSD manufacture matters, well then Iâm not sure what to say.
not quite⌠it is Roon OS w/ some Nucleus/Nucleus+ additions. We turn off stuff on the motherboard and we have different thermal management systems. The devices run fanless, so the system optimized for the stock NUC wonât work as well. There are some other minor differences too to make the whole experience much nicer.
yup, itâs a NUC. See whitepaper for confirmation.
Well, SSD absolutely matters. There are some pretty crap SSDs out there. However, our links to build-ROCK-from-parts-from-amazon include similar SSDs.
However, the fact that there is an SSD, there is the right RAM, and there is âthe right everything elseâ is what makes it a Lamborghini and not a Skoda.
2 Likes
Thanks. I will watch the video you suggested. Does Hans take up the issue of the differences between the two Roon servers? If not, could you possibly explain the differences briefly in laymanâs terms?
the Nucleus+ is capable of 2 things that the Nucleus is not:
- the Nucleus can handle about 100,000-120,000 track library, the Nucleus+ is much more.
- The Nucleus+ can handle the load put on the system when you use DSP on high rate DSD. For example, convolution filters with a large number of taps on DSD256 are probably not going to work on the Nucleus.
You may see specs thrown around about i3 and i7 and about RAM/SSD sizes. While they make people happy, they are not a good way think about the product for 2 reasons:
- we plan to upgrade the hardware as needed in the future, we plan to keep the hardware differences similar, but scale both up with time. This is covered in the whitepaper, and one of the reasons we love the NUC line so much.
- non-consumable specs rarely tell the whole picture. For example, the quad core NUC6i7 is much faster than the dual core NUC7i7 we currently use in the Nucleus+, but I hear people complain about the NUC6i7 often, wishing that they had instead waited until NUC7i7. The NUC6i7 overheats easily and has a much lower lifespan. Weâd rather explain functionality differences, and not compete on specs. You can build a much faster Roon Server machine than Nucleus or Nucleus+, but usually itâs a waste of money/heat/power/headache.
3 Likes
Danny, could you explain , in absolute laymans terms , what this means, in a typical loungeroom/listening room environment .For example. I have no DSD 256 files, I have a dozen or so DSD64 and a 1000 or so 24 bit albums out of 5000 albums or so on my drive.
Thanks
Thanks very much.
Honestly the size of the library the machine can handle is of less importance to me than it once was. Increasingly I listen to Tidal. I have a decent sized library on external hard drive and still have 3,000+ CDs. The stuff on the external drive does not all have to be immediately available on the server for me.
I donât have any understanding of âconvolution filtersâ (nor âtapsâ) and few if any DSD files so thatâs not a big deal to me either.
The danger of the less expensive machine overheating and having a âmuch lower lifespanâ is a definite concern however.
I will give the white paper a try but my guess is I will get lost on the first page. 
In conclusion: a Nucleus is just fine for you, and the Nucleus+ is overkill.
The Nucleus can grow to about double your current library size, and will have no issues doing ANYTHING Roon can handle on your PCM files. Your DSD files will be fine as well.
1 Like
I need to second this. The first time I sat in an S and interacted with all the controls, I was shocked. It was just ⌠right. Normally, Iâm pretty good at saying, I think this or that would be better, but, I couldnât think of anything I would change.
Thanks Danny.
When I hear the term upsampling used , not ever having used it myself, I wonder if it has real, tangable SQ benefits or is more a tweaking thing with much smaller SQ benefits?
If I wanted to experiment with it , is up sampling something the i3 nucleus can handle without any problems?
1 Like
No it doesnât, but some of R8 does.
Although, VAG already owned Lamborghini when that engine was developed.
Note that the V10 used in Gallardo LP560-4, HuracĂĄn LP610-4 and later R8s is developed by Audi AG.