I built a ROCK using an ASUS NUC 13Pro Tall with i7-1360P, 500GB M.2 OS drive, 4TB 2.5" SATA SSD & 2x32GB SODIM DDR4 3200 - RNUC13ANHI700000I. Very straight forward, I wanted something that was a standard simple & support ROCK build, so basically all I needed to do was just install & forget. Over time to improve the sound quality (SQ) in increments (some noticeable some not so) I got some Les Davis 3D 2 constrained layer damping to sit the NUC on, purchased the iFi LAN silencer directly into the NUC (BIGGEST improvement & BANG for your buck), Audioquest HDMI noise stoppers & Audioquest USB jitterbug. Basically V-spec’d it. I’ve been enjoying it for nearly a year but am noticing that these units are getting harder to come by now that 15 Pros have been released.
Yesterday I visited a mate who works in a local audiophile store with it in tow, We did a shoot-out with a Silent Angel Rein Z1 running as a Roon core. Blinged out, the NUC sounded better to us with the biggest SQ improvement by far being the iFi LAN silencer ($AUD149) which on its own would be all you need to be honest.
Next, we plugging in & configuring a Ferrum Hypsos LPS to 20v to power the NUC, this lifted the SQ to another level & it sounded simply beautiful. It lifts the cost significantly, but previously unnoticed noise just disappeared and opened a nice, deep, black sound stage so to speak less bright almost if that is the right way to explain what we were hearing. We were both amazed at the improvement the LPS made to the NUC SQ over their network. This is the next step in my ROCK build later this year along with the Silent Angel Bonn N8 network switch.
Before adding the LPS we switched between the shop ROON Core (Silent Angel Rein Z1) & my NUC 13Pro comparing the same tracks to the same Lumin T3 endpoint via Marantz Stereo 30 via pair of $AUD7.5k bookshelf speakers. Only stripped back was the SQ difference pretty much unnoticeable. (I was using an Audioquest Vodka ethernet cable from the NUC though). Interestingly enough to us we agreed that streaming tracks over Qobuz sounded better than Tidal but the local storage version of the track at the same resolution sounded better than either streaming service. Just some observations of the tweaks and a side by side shoot out comparison between a NUC and a dedicated DAC Roon core I have played with, not for everyone but may be of interest to some.
Based on the recommended specs for a ROCK any NUC 13 Pro i7 should be more than enough (over spec’d even) for most end users. I have 4 Roon endpoints in the house & rarely use more than 1 or 2 at a time. If you move beyond the recommended supported models listed on the ROCK pages you may have issues installing as some have observed, or you can simply run any OS and install ROON as a server on that OS to use any hardware that will handle your requirements but that requires some skills & time or a learning curve that some may not have the appetite for. Even this older NUC i7 13 Pro hardware does more than I need it to. I have 15K local files from CD quality to 32bit 384kHz & up to DSD512 (no MP3 [lossy] FLAC or wav [lossless] only) & another 16k in library from both Tidal & Qobuz streaming services but I don’t play with MUSE, filters or other processing that would call on additional CPU processing power.
hi all,
I’ve borrowed a Ferrum Hypsos LPS to see what the Watt & Amp draw for Asus NUC 13 pro i7-1360P. It has been set to 20v as per the Asus specs, I use the term (ish) because the watt requirement fluctuates depending on demand. I do not use Muse, DSP or any filters.
With only the Roon OS running on the NUC i.e. no zones sending music the draw is only 11.3W(ish) & 0.6A:
Sending music to 4 Zones only a slight uplift to 13.5W & 0.7A:
Only when sending multi-channel DSD128 down sampled to DSD64 2Ch did I see the watt draw increase to between 18 - 20W with 0.9A:
Hope you find this useful if you’re wanting to get better SQ by introducing an LPS capable of 20V & 6.0A as per the specs for an i7 13 pro NUC. it seems that the 120W based on the above may not be in essence a hard & fast requirement.
I’ve set my Background audio analysis speed to Fast12 to use all performance & eco cores in the Library settings.
Cheers
V/-