Sound quality improvement from roon core to roon nucleus

I have one of the Teddy Pardo’s on an opticalModule. Also very good.

Excellent thread. Thanks for pointing it.

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@Charles_Peterson atm, Sonore is out of stock of linear power supplies for the microrendu, so a big thank you for the fallback solution! I’ll check it out.

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The Sonore power supply is back in stock.

My DAC is a Bifrost 2 with Schiit’s Unison USB. Allegedly it’s better than electric SPDIF (allegedly).
I have never had any other DAC, so I don’t know.
In my experience, the Bifrost hates any type of DSP, oversampling etc… It always sounds WORSE, whether with Audirvana or Roon.
My hypothesis is that Unison USB is still USB, which can be noisy, and oversampling etc makes the port noisier.
So I am trying to make my Vivo mini a more silent USB streamer:

  • Tweak the power settings and bios? risky, lots of discussion out there
  • Ethernet versus wifi? definitely (there is a good reason why the Rendu’s don’t have wifi, right?). My router is far from my DAC, so I stole a cheap very very very long blue ethernet cable and will try, to check if I hear a difference.
  • As advised on this forum, I will installed Roon server on my machine and only use this when in headless mode. Hypothesis: no GUI means less noisy USB means happier Bifrost…
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If your problem is USB noise, you may need to use a USB filter / purifier. There are many such products, for example this one: iSilencer+ by iFi audio - USB3.0 Audio Noise Eliminator

Going to throw a cat in the pigeons here. I never have agreed with nor noticed a difference in server hardware changes until last week and I have moved my core a few times to different hardware. Last week I ordered more ram for my Roon core which is a bespoke silent pc pc made Tranquil PC, it’s nothing special they just stick in off the shelf motherboard and components, custom mill their own case and tweak the bios. It’s an 7i7 and It runs Rock flawlessly and has for a few years.

When fitting the ram I had to fully remove the mother board and disconnect the case from the CPU. I didn’t have any thermal paste to stick it back together so had no core until I got some , rookie error here… In the meantime I transferred core duties to a 7i3 NuC I picked up 2nd hand recently to run Plex all pretty easy as I keep regular backups. I listened the next day on my headphone system and I noticed a difference in sound reproduction in my chain and not one I liked. I am using networked endpoints here nothing is directly attached so I was not expecting this at all.

Now a few things have changed with switching to this machine. It’s not running Rock, it’s not just running Roon, it’s not in the same location nor the same hardware nor does it have an LPSU like my normal core. The day later paste arrived reassembled my regular core normal service resumed sound signature returned to what I was used to.

Not sure what to get from this but as a firm believer that this stuff can’t affect playback it did in this case and I won’t be using it again in a hurry. What the actual determining factors were I can’t say,. It could be one, or a combination of some of all of them it’s not in the most electrically quiet area as it’s the data cupboard, normal core usually lives in the dining room. Ot it’s my mind, even though a change in sq had never entered my train of thought.

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This morning i installed Roon server on that same little Asus Vivo and set it up remotely from a full app core installed for that purpose only on another machine (a 6 year old i7/1070 asus gaming laptop). Now i am just running the server remotely from my iPhone remote (with all full app cores turned off). It seems to work (not sure if the iphone remote needs a daily “feed” from some desktop full app core?).
I don’t think it is possible to setup a server from a full app core installed on the same machine :partying_face:. I am such a noob in IT, sorry, haha.
ANYWAY, I am having a listening know to work out if getting rid of the GUI on the PC hooked to the usb DAC is improving SQ.
Otherwise, i now have a Roon brightness and stage experience on par with what i have with Audirvāna.
Settings: DAC: WASAPI and importantly multi channel mixing in channel mapping only mode, fixed volume, DSP oversampling filter on, no oversampling, just so that i can set precise linear filter on.

Yes, you can do that, but why?

Only to setup up the server. Then only use server in headless mode piloted by phone remote. Did that to see if using stripped core server (no GUI) makes for a quieter PC (directly connected to schiit unison usb DAC).

Just install the Roon server app instead of the full version. Not sure it will change much as the app is very busy with or without a GUI it just allows you to run it as a service in the background and on startup.

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Very interesting. You could temporarily test your LPSU with the i3 system to remove that variable from the equation.
Other than that, do the Roon logs show any errors or issues on the i3 system for that listening period? I have no idea what to look for but I have always wondered if RAAT is either 100% accurate (bit perfect) or whether it can run in a degraded state (ie somewhat less than bit-perfect without error messages to the GUI) temporarily. This could be due to NUC resource issues or network/endpoint problems perhaps?

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The psu is under voltage for a NuC as it’s 12v they need 19v I think. Not checked any logs it’s still installed but disabled so I could have a look. I would say it’s likely it’s environment. It’s got my router, main big switch, modem, fans, Nas, home hubs and pi’s all pretty close together. So it’s a hotbed for RF noise, but of course we all know that can’t possibly go via ethernet :thinking: so must be something else.

Simon sounds like you were getting quite close to making a sacrilegious statements there :roll_eyes::hear_no_evil::see_no_evil:

You should borrow a £1000 audiophile switch and see if it makes a night and day difference in the sound quality :grin:

All joking aside, that’s the kind of thing where you are hearing such differences that you start to question your knowledge.

In my Roon journey over the last 3 years, I have made many incremental changes to my setup and many have gone unnoticed in SQ but maybe all together they add up to a bigger improvement.

I did test my old Nuc7 i5 against my Nuc10 i5 with LPSU and didn’t really hear any difference, but they were running on relatively clean power feeds and both from battery backup so maybe not enough difference to hear anything but the music.

It would be good to see (or hear) if you can isolate your issues and see if it improves the sq of the old setup as that seems to be the goal of so many on these forums.

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A NUC will run on 12 to 19v and up to 24v if you use the internal header. What a NUC won’t tolerate is a sagging supply where it drops below 12 under load. So if you are going with 12v make sure it is a very good PSU. Better to go higher to cover off the likelihood of voltage sag.

I’m happy with the setup, not changing anything. I just noticed that using the NuC whilst my normal core was out of action sounded off in comparison, not like changing an amp or speakers but it must seemed not to gel as well as it did before. Regular core is all back up and I am happy. Just never expected to hear a difference., I have no urge to tinker but it does make me think that possibly not all things are equal but it’s not worth higher investment.

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I have no intention of using the NuC with it nor the NuC as a core it was a temporary solution whilst I waited for thermal paste to arrive it’s for Plex usually . But when my core does die I won’t be rushing to a NuC to replace it given this experience.

I have a feeling the issue is less your hardware and more the OS but that is obviously speculation on my part having never heard your setups. I’ve switched between different NUCs and a mini ITX build all running ROCK and could have lived with any of them but stayed with a 7i7 NUC because it was the most stable. I remember thinking the ITX build ‘sounding better’ when I built it but went back to a NUC build when the M.2 card failed in the ITX build and never went back. There are other optimisations in my setup though and maybe they play a part.

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The transducers (loudspeakers or headphones) determine the sound of your system!

With the Bifrost DAC, you have an excellent multibit DAC (assuming Bifrost 2). Bifrost 2 has an excellent USB interface and SPDIF interfaces. All Schiit DACs work well with Raspberry Pi based stream endpoints. I have 2, an Allo Digi One Signature and a HiFiBerry Digi+. Both connected to their DACS by SPDIF. DACS are Modius and Gumby Multibit.

Schiit UNISOM USB branded DACS have excellent USB interfaces supporting the Audio 2 protocol portions used for PCM audio.

If you are streaming to a Roon endpoint, there is more than enough buffering and sample stream regeneration to deliver a clean stream to the DAC. Bifrost will buffer and re-time the sample stream yet again. Raspberry Pi USB is notoriously noisy and jittery so best plan on a hat and SPDIF interface. Or an Allo Digital USBRIDGE streamer which has clean USB.

In a streaming configuration, the Roon Core host is less important but some choices are less fuss than others. If you’re not computer DIY-interested, Nucleus is an excellent choice. You can put it in the rack and forget about it. It will keep its OS and Roon up to date.

Meanwhile, Windows 11 and MacOS 11++ are coming. There will be updates to apply. Roon may be affected by the new versions.

Here, Roon Core runs on my file server, TrueNAS 12 Core in a virtual machine. PopOS Linux is the guest OS. https://pop.system76.com/ If not running ROCK on a NUC or Nucleus, PopOS is a good Roon Core host choice. The UI is clean, management is clean, repositories are put together with care to support scientific and creative use of computers. My music library is in a TrueNAS share on the host BSD OS. The shares are ready for mounting before TrueNAS starts the guest OS and Roon core. Its a bit slow coming up but when it does, it is ready to play.

Choice of core hardware matters if you have a direct USB connection between Core and DAC. USB drivers are pretty complex and most of the I/O activity is on the USB bus. Latency and jitter are most variable on host USB. Also, there is a good bit of differential and common mode noise that gets out via the USB cable.

Here at home, I have 2 paths to the Modi in my study, USB off of a CalDigit USBC/Thunderbolt dock and TOSLink off of a Raspberry Pi/HiFiBerry Digi+ streamer. Both sound excellent (LCD-1 headphones) but I’ve not done the sort of listening that would tease the 2 apart.

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I’m running my Roon Server served core on a WIN10 laptop, Intel i7, 8th gen chip. The laptop is not used for anything else; the lid is down all day and Task Manager turns it off at night and on in the morning.

I have 1500 local tracks and mostly use Roon for it’s meta-data discovery and organization, combining my limited local library with my TIDAL “library” to use at home and then have that experience duplicated in Roon Arc for mobile use.

Why would I want a Nucleus?

Thanks!