Upsampling adds bandwidth to the signal beyond the audible threshold. This means that different digital filters can be used which are gentler in the frequency domain than the brick wall type filter specified by the Redbook CD standard and consequently shorter in the time domain. It is these difference in filters that affect SQ. I think it is a tweaking type difference, but the differences relate to transients and soundstage which both contribute to a high fidelity experience.
Thanks Andrew
@James_O_Brien I would add that most DACs do upsampling internally, the theory behind letting Roon do it is that the Roon server has more horsepower than the DAC hardware and might do a better job. So itās a tweak-on-a-tweak.
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I concur. In addition to Gigabit I replaced all the cabling with CAT7. In a word - wow. Listening to AC/DC it now has more even harmonics - an almost valve like quality to the guitars. Its changed my life: friends (and romantic interests too) now āget meā. I canāt wait for Cat8 and ripping out my walls to replace the cabling again. Next time I wonāt wait so long to make the jump.
/sarcasm
I tried a 2nd 500GB SSD SATAIII (Samsung 840 and a 2nd 5TB 5400rpm SATAIII in my ROCK build (almost identical hardware to the Nucleus), and did a little IOMeter benchmarking before installing the ROCK OS.
Neither drives came anywhere close to saturating the Disk I/O or Network I/O when running as a service under W764SP1 and streaming local Hi-Res flac.
That prompted me to stick with the 5TB spinny drive ! At Ā£170 thatās a lot of storage for your buck.
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I have a Synology DS 918+ With roon installed on one SSD and the music files on the other SSD. Iām ok with the SQ but Iāll still go for the Nucleus plus as itās clearly optimized for Roon and pretty zippy too with the i7 processor. If I can afford it and I want more convenience and better sound quality, Iāll still go for it
It wonāt give you this. But it will give you convenience.
For me convenience wins over setting up another NUC / ROCK customised installation - I think this is an excellent option that is plug n go and probably better specs than mine
Thatās what I did also, still having probs to get the music from my NAS into the nuc ā¦
Cheers
Armin
Maybe just me but I looked a this thread and just kept scrolling 
I ended up picking up a Nucleus+ for the sole purpose of comparing it to my own heavily modified 2012 MacMini, 16Gb RAM with SSD, & UpTone LPS on Atomic Isolation platform ( no wifi and no fan) optimised script to reduce unrequired featuresā¦ I have been using this mainstay for my whole time with Roon. Have on occasion installed and ran Roon on my Synology NAS, but always reverted back to the āminiāā¦
Well I thought I would get the Nucleus+ to compare against the āminiā - see what a turnkey appliance was really like - evidently all this should sound the sameā¦such a subjective statement. And I suppose yes the Nucleus and the MacMini do sound the same, as probably does any of the ROCK builds on a NUC platformā¦but the Nucleus aināt going back ā¦there is zero noise from this thing, it does the job of getting the heck the way out of the music and allows your chosen endpoint - DAC/streamerā¦whatever to do its job play glorious tunesā¦I might even be tempted to build a Roon recommended NUC and see if itās as quiet as a Nucleus?
I have read the Whitepaper and background on the Roon Nucleus and all I can say, they have delivered a brilliantly executed product
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I installed a NUC7i7DNHE, with 8 GB of RAM and a 64-GB M.2 SSD, to replace my old Core, a 2014 iMac i7 with 24 GB of RAM. The NUC runs circles around it.
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@Evo1668 thanks for the comparison. I presume you used the stock power supply on the nucleus+?
Yes I used the stock PSU with it. Iām waiting to see if Roon, bring out their own LPS for the Nucleus, I would hazard a guess, this would improve things furtherā¦
Update - tried Nucleus+ powered by the UpTone JS2 - itās only a 12v supply, but can manage 10 amps peak. All works absolutely fineā¦and yes an LPS reduces noise envelope even furtherā¦
Iām really interested in leaving my Mac mini setup (UpTone JS2 + mod + Samsung 850 EVO) one day for a Nucleus or other music server solution. My biggest issue is choosing the right way forward and finding out what really makes a difference.
Nucleus or some of the Antipodes, Innuos or similar? Or just building my own machine.
Iāve been putting together computers since I was 11-12 so building a NUC in a passive case with ROCK should be easy. But I have to choose the right equipment and read up ā and even though itās sometimes fun I end up realizing itās also time-consuming to the level that it becomes expensive.
In the end how do I even know what made the biggest impact? I wouldnāt be able to demo Antipodes vs. Innuos vs. Nucleus vs. NUC with ROCK. If I go cheap and build a NUC and if it āsoundsā the same as my modified Mac mini? I will be stuck with the feeling that I should have gone with the Nucleus or one of the others (that might have given me the exact same results). 
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I had exactly the same dilemma in that I could of easily built a NUC as per the Roon recommendations, but ensuring the passive cooling, matched SSD and RAM requirements. In the end I went straight to Nucleus+ as I thought I would try and future proof as much as possible. In terms of end results I am very happy with the Nucleus+ā¦the difference I.e lack of computer noise is massive, compared to the MacMini. I wonāt say SQ increase as that is very subjective. But in my playback system itās undoubtedly a big yes, very apparent with a revealing front end.
Not the cheapest option for sure, but have saved much valuable time, frustration and potential dead endsā¦donāt know how you put a price on that?
The bonus being you can reuse the JS2, it improves SQ wise easily over the stock PSU even though itās only delivering 12v to the Nucleus, but with a 10amp peak load can easily cope with the current delivery
An Intel 7i7BNH Nuc is the route I went. Never touched computer innards before; scared to death.
I would say this is an attractive ābudgetā route. I doubt anyone would question my assertion that there is no give-up in SQ between the two options. There is give up in a convenient turnkey solution and possible service after the sale.
As for the cooling and noise talk about Nucs, mine runs 24/7 for six months without heating issues. Noise was a non-event for me since it resides nowhere close to the listening area.
IMHO, #1 change for me was adding the ROCK, #2 was a good DAC.
My 2c anyway. Good luck!
If you can build a nuc and use the js2 to power it itās a cheaper option for sure, but having said that time is money and nucleus is a good option for those with little time or no expertise in building a nuc setup.
I would opt the + model on the basis of future performance needs that are often unknown.
NUC Kit 7i7DNKE for me with Samsung 970 EVO and 16GB 2400MHz RAM. Works brilliantly.
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