Roon Nucleus versus Small Green Computer

Thank you. That’s the sort of empirical observation I meant to find.

Also, quite honestly, SGC has been doing this for a very long time and has a very good general reputation. Roon is new at hardware in a relative way and it wasn’t clear to me what, if any difference, existed between a Nucleus[+] and and a DIY Intel NUC running ROCK besides the pretty case. Maybe there’s more than I or anyone else currently know (or maybe not).

To be fair, the fanless metal case can be rather important for those that need to have the unit inside their listening room.

In my previous, much larger home, I could have my Roon Core on the other side of the house, so I didn’t care about fan noise. In an apartment later I needed to have the Roon Core inside the listening room, so a fanless design was great and kind of essential for me (especially doing DSD up-sampling at the time).

If you know you will never need to have your Roon Core inside your listening room, then ROCK on a NUC should be ok if the person is ok with the DIY process (obviously you are, but I’m just writing in general terms).

So for some people, in their setups the pretty metal fanless case (whether Nucleus or sonicTransporter or whatever) can sometimes be a key feature/requirement.

I appreciate visual aesthetics, too, part of the reason I would likely not go for the DIY NUC running ROCK. With regard to being fanless, does the SMG sonicTransporter i7 have a fan? I don’t see anything about that on the website. While my dedicated Roon [Physical] Server will definitely be in my bedroom, and I run old-fashioned metal fans at my place a lot anyway to circulate the air, that would just be good to know. Thanks.

Fanless and silent. It is mentioned there:

Hi @Robert_Schaub

You may be interested to read the white paper on Nucleus https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pUj-yFsAHPgTuV1TbcESA4va1_mxv1M_VQPJV___nuQ/edit if you haven’t already done so.

Hi, Sean2016. Thank you. I could not find that somehow. Without meaning to kick a dead horse, does the SGC (not SMG, don’t know why I keep typing that) come with a 19 Volt DC power supply or is that an add-on of some kind? Thanks again.

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No, this horse is very much alive, so keep asking away :grin:

It does come with a 19Vdc external PSU. Shipping from the US it didn’t come with the required Australian mains power cable but I got one for about $2 locally, so not a big drama at all.

And just like Nucleus, you can add your own external linear PSU later, if you fancy.

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Thank you. I’ve read that before. This is the section that originally got me interested in the potential advantages of ROCK over other “Linux Lite” implementations:

“Roon OS departs from both of these approaches. The operating system is assembled using a proprietary build system developed at Roon Labs. Each package that makes up Roon OS was selected and configured by hand, carefully considering how it will be used and making significant effort to keep the operating system as trim as possible, both while the system is running and at update time.”

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Mods have cleaned up the thread and deleted some posts and responses about other posters. Please try to talk about the ideas and equipment, not each other.

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One difference is that the Nucleus(+) supports Crestron Home Automation, whilst the necessary software components are not (currently?) included in ROCK.

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[moderated]

When I respond I’m responding to all readers for their benefit.

Everything I have posted here is true and balanced. Trying to make people worry about nonexistent issues is nothing more than fear mongering.

I appreciate your comments. I just wanted readers to have all the information. I contribute to SonicOrbiter which runs on the sonicTransporter and on the Rendu series so I’m in a position to comment on it. The webpages are static and are only used for configuration of the apps. The less apps that are installed the less configurations are available. With Roon installed there not much at all to configure and it’s ready to go on boot up.

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Everyone who develops an operating system for audio or a Linux box for audio is doing this to some extent or another. Even the guys who make Windows based systems are doing this in some fashion. It’s also a double edge sword and can have unexpected consequences, but that is what updates are for.

This is my understaning as well. Also, one is a finished product or an appliance and the other is a DIY project and these appeal to different people.

Hey guys great thread going here. I’ll try to answer all your questions.

sonicTransporter i7 runs our own custom Linux based Sonicorbiter OS. It has a quad core 7700 intel CPU and 8GB of RAM. It also has dual Ethernet ports so you can attach your player directly to it. We also make custom systems so we are happy to quote options like more RAM, Faster CPU, SSD for music storage (up to 16TB), JCAT Ethernet adapters, etc. It can also run HQPlayer embedded if you are interested in that.

It has no problem running upsampling to DSD512. The more DSP functions in Roon you want to run the more CPU is required.

It has a 19v external power supply that works in any country. This supply can be replaced with a Linear supply if you want that.

The Nucleus+ has a dual core i7 and 8GB of RAM.

We also sell the sonicTransporter i5 that has a dual core i5 processor and 8GB of RAM.

The Nucleus has an i3 (dual core) and 4 GB or RAM.

Sonicorbiter OS has a lot of different features that you can install and uninstall so you are not tied to one music server software. It will run Roon, LMS, DLNA, HQPlayer and others. So you can make a dedicated Roon box or run other music server software.

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If users cannot resist the urge to post about each other then Mods will close this thread.

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I, for one, want to apologize for anything I said in anger. I only altered posts in accordance with the moderator’s requests, not to “hide the evidence”. I mean no offense, but I work at a company where honesty, transparency, integrity, and decorum are very highly valued. So I’m not used to getting attacked for simply asking a question and, after a certain point, I did lose my patience. Not to be pedantic, but contrition means, “the state of feeling remorseful and penitent“.

I honestly try to be respectful of others and to engage in polite conversation or debate; but we all have personal boundaries and I simply won’t allow anyone to cross mine even if that means I end up leaving the Roon forums.

Thank you.

The best course is to flag the offending post. See this thread. I can’t remember a thread where engaging has achieved anything.

Now let’s get back to the topic under discussion.

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Having first hand experience with the Nucleus + , Roon runs flawlessly on the Nucleus. Is Rock the better OS for Roon than the Sonic Orbiter? This I can’t answer.