Roon Optimized Core Kit (previously reported as Roon OS)

Rene - that will give me just about enough time to get the Raspberry Pi endpoint that arrived today up and running!

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Super excited about this. My Win10 NUC is waiting to be wiped. Question…i currently run my USB dac straight out of the NUC. Will this work ok still?

Yes. See the above posts in this thread.

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I had a rough date once … but that’s another story.

The DAR article mentioned 1.3 was expected around the end of January but no one really knows. The more those pesky alpha testers bash things around the longer it can take. They really are a menace.

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How big a library could roon core kit handle while providing snappy performance and assuming using the best hardware supported (i.e., 6i5 & max RAM)? I’ve got 110,000 tracks. Thanks.

Hi Peter,

I understand a max spec i5 (RAM is less significant) will handle current Roon loads for very large libraries including 110,000 tracks and more. It may be that @evand can assist in this regard (he’s got a big 'un :wink:).

But current Roon loads are not future Roon loads. If you have the half dozen or so zones of a normal house (as distinct from the Scottish castles I understand @danny likes to roam, transferring zones as he goes) you could do some parametric EQ in each Zone simultaneously (for example) and still not overly tax a full spec i5.

When you start upsampling and convolving Room EQ, however, things start to change. If you were upsampling to say DSD 128 and convolving to one Zone only and using some EQ in others, then I think you might find an i7 would make a difference and as soon as you start upsampling and convolving to multiple Zones (especially multichannel convolving) then I think you would definitely need the extra grunt of an i7. In a little while we will all be able to check out how these sorts of workloads affect our hardware.

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Hi! any ideas on when you plan to release THE ROON KIT? Running Roon on a Synology DS916+ with 8GB ram and still have issues playing hi-res material: dropouts! discussed this in this forum and was told that considering the size of the library THE ROON KIT running on a NUC may solve all the issues. So looking forward to a release date!

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I’ve not read your other thread, but tbh I would suggest you look into your networking infrastructure. While the DS916+ is not a particular power monster, I fail to see that hi-res dropouts are caused by it’s CPU.

My Roon Server is running on a way less powered system, and I’m playing high-res content fine.

So again my tip: look into your network infrastructure before reaching out to other hardware.

Thanks! The library has around 127,000 tracks. the router is the linksys EA4500 and it is dedicated. does not have anything else connected to it other than the NAS and the player! All connected with CAT 7 Cables. So technically not a problem here! But I think I will try another router and see if I still have these issues.

So what is the current recommended NUC for this now?

The Series 5 NUC’s seem to be EOL, now a newer 6 Series is the go… BOXNUC6i7KyK3 according to the local NUC distributor here in Singapore

Hey guys. Just a quick question on Roon Optimised Core Kit (and I apologise if it’s already been answered).

Due to lack of Ethernet connectivity in my listening room, I connect my microRendu directly to my 6th Gen Intel NUC. This works really well and was actually pretty straightforward to configure. I just downloaded a DHCP server package for Ubuntu, configured a quick scope & told it to service the LAN interface only. I then connect the mR to the LAN port (no crossover cable needed), it picks up an IP address from the DHCP scope & immediately shows up in Roon as an audio device. The NUC then connects to my home Wi-Fi for Roon Remote and copying music to the library. The only slight drawback is that I occasionally have to unplug the mR & attach it to my home router in order to do firmware updates.

I really like the minimalist, low-maintenance approach of ROCK but wonder if my mR will still work in this configuration, as I won’t be able to do things like run a small DCHP scope anymore? Of course there are other ways to get Ethernet connectivity to the mR in my listening room but the solution I have works really well for me & I’m loathe to add extra elements where they are not needed.

Ultimately it’s no problem for me to continue to run Roon on Ubuntu. It would just be nice to simplify things even further with ROCK!

Many thanks,
Grant

Hi Grant,

Intriguing solution, using a DHCP server effectively as a switch. Unfortunately you are correct that ROCK won’t run the DHCP server; it’s a dedicated OS for Roon Server only. Not sure what advantage you would get from ROCK, your current system seems to suit your needs. You could try a physical switch if you wanted to try it out.

Love the name change to ROCK btw. :grinning:

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Hi Andy,

Thanks for the clarification, much appreciated. You’re right, there’s nothing wrong with my current setup. As the NUC is solely dedicated to Roon however, it would be nice to have the OS as lean & maintence free as possible.

I think I actually do have a spare gigabit switch laying around somewhere, so I can certainly give that a try. Not quite sure how the IP addressing would work though (in the absence of a DHCP server). Will ROCK allow me to set a static IP address on the LAN interface?

Congratulations on a fantastic product BTW. Very much looking forward to all the 1.3 goodness!

You could either re purpose an old router and use it’s DHCP server, or add a two or more port bridge (often sold as gaming adapters or wireless range extenders) and add internet connectivity. Often routers can be configured to work as bridges.

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My accountabt and I both wish I could take some credit for Roon, but I’m just a volunteer moderator user (full price life member). It’s the devs vision and a mighty fine one it is.

ROCK has no access points open to users. You won’t be able to SSH in. It will update as required automagically.

So not sure where the LAN interface you refer to is. If on a physical switch or a bridge, dont see why not. If running on the NUC, no because no LAN interface is accessible under ROCK.

UPDATE: I’ve moved the contents of this post to a KB article that i plan to keep up to date:

http://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_Optimized_Core_Kit

What else do you want to know? Ask questions, I’ll update this list, and delete your question

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Thank you @danny . This is the exact type of post we need as delays occur so we have an idea as to how to plan.

Press on.

Thank you, I now feel confident in buying a Nuc.

see my note at the end of the page… you might want to wait… we will give you notice so you have time to buy hardware before we release, and we have a surprise for you that may (or may not) be interesting…