Oh, you never mentioned anything about my case or any case.
You asked “Why the latest generation CPUs, Intel i9 for example are not compatible with Roon?”
Definitely can’t put that CPU in my case 
Anyway, if the DIY option becomes a headache, you have Nucleus Plus and sonicTransporter i7 as great fanless (silent) options.
Why ? This cpu is not fanless ? Inappropriate ?
The CPU needs to be adequately cooled. Some fanless cases only support max. 65W TDP CPU’s. Some fanless cases supprt max. 95W TDP CPU’s.
You need to look up the specific CPU and find appropriate fanless case.
Unfortunately I don’t have the time to look at every CPU for you, to find a matching case. But a great starting point is looking at the CPU TDP and then looking at what max. TDP different fanless cases support.
If the DIY option becomes a headache, you have Nucleus Plus and sonicTransporter i7 as great fanless (silent) options.
Fanless (silent) can be important if the Roon Core will be in your listening room. If it’s not in your listening room, then maybe the audible noise of fans isn’t as much of a problem (depends on the person how annoying the noise is).
Hope this helps.
Almost any modern processor on the planet can be used to running Roon Core in one way or the other. But the point of using the NUC platform is convenience and the ability to run ROCK as the OS.
A modern generation 7 or 8 i7 NUC is more than powerful enough to run ROCK for years to come. No point in chaising more power than that for a dedicated music server with Roon.
It looks like there is some confusion about connectivity. The Ares G2 is Roon Ready with an Ethernet input. If you setup a Roon system the G2 is your endpoint. It would be connected to the local network via Ethernet.
You would then setup your Roon Core device and hook it up to the local network in turn.
Finally the control device is setup such as a iPad.
You will also have to define where your music is stored, etc…
Picking a Roon Core machine is an interesting problem. You can buy say a Sonic Transporter or a Roon Labs provided one. There are many others.
You can use a conventional desktop PC or MAC. You can build your own.
There are a lot of variables and some of them may effect sound quality. One example is the PWM fans in some computers add noise. Or the power supplies might effect things. Other issues that people address is operating system adjustments or running dedicated OS variants that help.
In my personal case I have been running a Sonic Transporter that works very nicely. I am playing with Audio-Linux as an OS and have been testing with a Linear Power Supply on the server. All of this has lead me to designing and building my own server. The parts are coming in now and I hope to build it this week. Will it sound better? I hope so! I just do not know till I build it. This is not a commercial venture for me, it is a personal mission.
I get to tinker with hardware and software along with listening to great sounding music. A lot of fun for me. Maybe not so for others.
If you are going to be running Roon with multiple endpoints and DSP make sure you have a reasonably robust server.
Good luck.
Keep us posted on any improvements and experiences!
I do not know if I’m right but I have the impression that the server wyred 4 sound ms is more powerful than nucleus + and sonictransporter i7, right?
so it would be more appropriate for me if i want to upsampler all streams in dsd, correct?
Any current NUC i7 should be able to upsample to DSD. Just need to turn on Parallelize Sigma Delta Modulator. Get a fanless build or case if you decide to buy a NUC.
I suppose the other mentioned alternatives (at different price points) should work well too. If you decide to buy the $3999 option I’d be interested to read about your experience with it.
Dear all,
I’m new to roon and I’m in the middle of a decision: Roon nucleus or diy core. I think I can face the build process… and I would like to ask you if the following fanless machine with 8gb ram, i7 quad core, 128gb ssd and 1T hard drive could be a good soolution. I know it’ s a good solution in term of specification but after reading tens of thread I have a bit of confusion. I can install roon rock on this:
Shall I format everything, update the bios and install roon rock? I wouldn’t operate on win 10.
Rock’s supported hardware is posted in this FAQ. https://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_Optimized_Core_Kit
Only thing I"d change is to go with a Samsung internal SSD and an external USB hard drive for music storage.
thanks Rugby. I looked at that, btw I don’t understand if the link I posted above is considered a NUC.
I ask you to apologize me if that’s a silly question. thank’s for the suggestion of the drives. I thought I red that external hard drive it’s not the perfect solution in term of SQ but as I told you I have a bit of confusion in my mind at the moment
There is Kleenex and then the generic facial tissue also referred to as a “kleenex”. The term “NUC” has come to include other companies small all in one computers. So, in one sense yes it is, but, not for ROCK’s specifications.
When Roon says NUC. it means specifically the Intel NUC for which the Rock includes the necessary drivers. So if you want to use ROCK, you should use the specified Intel NUC… Non-Intel hardware will be different and ROCK will most likely not have the driver support. And with ROCK, there is no way to load drivers, as it is a completely closed OS.
Drives are more flexible in choice, but, remember that the OS drive cannot act as a storage drive. I like external USB storage for ROCK NUC’s, because I can turn off the NUC, move the hard drive over to my other computer and fill it up and then move it back. Otherwise, you will have to copy everything onto an internal storage drive via the network once ROCK has formatted it.
So if you want to use Rock there is no Fanless NUC solution? (I haven’t seen it on their list). Has Rock a realistic better SQ?
Thanks Rugby for your support
I would look at the Small Green Computer sonicTransporter series. If you don’t need a high power solution for DSP functions, I would look at the sonicTransporter i5. That’s what I have been using the last year and have been very impressed with the performance and reliability. Software updates are a breeze and you need no Linux knowledge. It’s also much more versatile than a Nucleus or any system running Roon Rock.
But if you really want to use something other than a NUC, like the HISTTON you posted, it will work just fine. Just use the regular Roon Windows program instead of ROCK.
You can run ROCK on other hardware but not supported officially… can search MOCK here
you don’t need 2 Lan or all those USB/COM ports either so something less busy might be cheaper.
failing that run Linux or Windows on it
Thanks. Does the community think that there are SQ differences btw rock and roon on win10?
I don’t and I have both.
Not unless you transplant the motherboard of an Intel NUC into a fanless case (e.g. the Akasa line of cases) specifically designed for that particular motherboard.
Some of us (including me) have done this. Bear in mind that this is not officially supported by Roon Labs, as the ROCK OS is designed specifically for the Intel NUC products, which have a fan cooler on the CPU. The only fanless products that are officially supported by Roon Labs are their own Nucleus and Nucleus+. Here they have done some tweaks to the OS to the power management specifically designed for running it in a fanless case.
Having said all that, whilst not officially supported, my ROCK NUC in its fanless case has been rock-solid, and I’ve been very happy with it.