Hello. I need your help. I literally have a Nucleus One that that has been sitting in its original box in my basement for the last 9 months because I am at a standstill about hardware choices for getting Roon up and running in my home. For months I was trying to figure out if I needed an integrated amp, a DAC, a streamer, a preamp, powered vs. passive speakers, etc.
Currently my Roon server is on a Mac Mini in my basement music studio. I will plan to transition the server to the Nucleus One and house it in the basement near my router. I should point out that I mostly have ripped CDs as .mp3s or .flac files on my Roon Core (Mac Mini) and I don’t really expect to use a lot of streaming services Qbuz, etc., although I may look into Spotify. Again, I own most of my music, which I have ripped to the tune of nearly 1TB. I have three (3) rooms that I would like to have a Roon endpoint: (i) my basement music studio; (ii) the living room directly above my music studio; and (iii) an office above the garage. For each of these 3 rooms, I will be using powered monitor speakers (mainly either Kali IN-5.5 or Kali SM-5 speakers with a subwoofer). For the living room, I am under the impression that what I really need is a streamer, which will contain a DAC, but not a power amplifier. I am considering strongly the Cambridge Audio EXN100 network player (or which I guess is technically a streamer). As I understand it, I would connect the Cambridge Audio unit to the Nucleus One via an Ethernet cable and the speakers would be connected via XLR to the speakers. The Cambridge unit has a volume control (perhaps a remote) so I can easily control the volume. I do have an iPad Pro, which I would like to use. I’m not sure how I would use it though, any suggestions would be appreciated.
As a general question, do I NEED a streamer for each room??? For example, can I just continue to use the MacMini in my music studio - not as the Roon Core, but rather as an endpoint running the Roon software? My Mac Mini is connected to an audio interface (MOTU), which is connected to monitor speakers. I assume I would just need to connect to Nuclues One via Wi-Fi or ethernet and I’m good to go. I would control the volume using the volume control on the MOTU audio interface.
Lastly, is my office. I’m not sure I want to spend a lot of money on another high end streamer (Cambridge EXN100 is about $1800) so what other solutions would you recommend? I assume I would need some type of streamer, perhaps there are other less expensive streamers that still have a DAC and that I can control the volume, perhaps Wiim streamer. Any suggestions on what I should do for the office room would be helpful. As with the other rooms, I will be using powered speakers. I should point out I was initially thinking of purchasing KEF LS50 II or KEF LSX II, but they are expensive and I think using studio grade powered speakers will allow for better fidelity. The Kali’s are tri-amped speakers and very reasonably priced relative to competitors so that it what I would like to use. I later learned that you don’t need these KEF speakers, which have the streamer basically built-in and instead you can just buy a streamer and this would open up a much broader range of possibilities for speakers.
Thank you if you have made it this far. Please let me know if I am in the right track and whether I am missing anything or things I should consider. Also, I am looking for someone to help me transfer my Roon Core from my Mac Mini to the Nucleus One, so if you do any consulting (obviously for a fee) please let me know. I undoubtedly will have other questions/issues as I go through the process. Kind regards, John L.