Dear ROON Community member,
What’s - in your experience - the pros and the cons in using and living with ROON Nucleus as a ROON Core device? Myself I’m using a 2021 14" Apple MacBook Pro as a ROON Core and I’m happy with it, although curious to ROON Nucleus possibilities and more its performance.
Looking forward to hear from you.
With kind regards,
Sjors Scheijvens
If you’re happy with it, I think you should continue to be happy with it.
Regarding Nucleus, there are quite a few threads on its advantages compared to generic computers. This is just one:
Marian, thanks a lot 
It is always possible to be happier. I will speak in terms of a dedicated Roon appliance rather than just a Nucleus because functionally they are the same.
A NUC loaded with ROCK, or a Nucleus will be on and always there. No need to boot up a laptop to listen to music. It will perform all duties such as database backups and updates in the background if you wish. Minimal effort keeping it current. And you get enhanced support in respect of the fact Roon OS is looked after by Roon.
The major issue with the Nucleus is cost. It is expensive for what it is in material terms. But if you are using a Mac then materially there are cheaper ways to do that. So perhaps that aspect is of less concern.
One aspect of Roon functionally is that it is perfectly possible to be happy with Roon because you are used to the way it performs on your hardware. But the only way to know if Roon could be better would be to find a way to try it.
The appliance nature as @Henry_McLeod says wins all , the Nucleus is just one solution. I use a NUC/ROCK it just works , hidden in a cupboard I doubt it’s been touched for 6 months l since I last moved it.
I keep my library on my Desktop and after changes sync to the internal SSD of the NUC
Couldn’t be simpler , no OS to worry about , Roon looks after that
I bought one Nucleus+ for myself and a regular Nucleus for my mom.
Honestly it seemed amazing to begin with but hardware problems started popping up. Ultimately I had to send both back and have them repaired under warranty. All was good until my device fell out of warranty. A few months afterwards the motherboard died and the cost to repair was a significant fraction of the original purchase price. Ultimately I just bought a M2 mac mini (no mouse/monitor/keyboard just using remote desktop to administer) and haven’t looked back. Works flawlessly and I suspect I’ll get well beyond a few years of solid use at a fraction of the cost. You also get the added perk of being able to install HQPlayer directly onto the MacMini so the core can use it to upscale. The Nucleus+ just felt like a ticking time bomb and wasn’t interested in buying a new one after a random death. I also use the Mini as a server for Deep Harmony extension for roon + Harmony remote. And it’s easy to mirror/backup etc. The advantages are pretty extensive. I run multi stream/multi zone often along with hard core upscaling with no issues.
As for cons that I miss with the Mac Mini strategy - I lost multi channel HDMI out. Probably possible to replicate but I just haven’t invested the time. I also liked how you could plug in a usb CD player and insta-burn CDs with the Nucleus but I’ve burnt all the CDs I have so that feature isn’t needed.
For what it’s worth, mom still has the regular nucleus but I’m on standby to replace it when it inevitably dies with little or no notice. Sure the Mac Mini will die but my gut tells me it’s going to last much longer.
If that keeps you up at night, then it’ll make you sad.
I’ve had my Nucleus for about 3 years now and I have zero in regrets buying it.
Although I’ve been an audiophile for some 50 years, I don’t consider myself a streaming expert by any means and that’s OK with me. I learn only what I have to learn about computer audio to get the best possible sound out of my system.
Sure the Nucleus is pricey, but so is a dedicated computer to run Roon. With the Nucleus, I never have to think about my core, it just works and there’s no warm up or software updates to think about.
I sleep very soundly thanks. 
But you could always sleep more soundly.
I tried several different cores from laptops win10, to Small Green computer, and others, all with their anomalies. Went to Nucleus Plus, set it and forget it period! A bit pricey but then again what’s not considering what’s invested overall.
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