Thanks @wklie, sage advice! I have throttled the signal to 96Khz inside the DSP settings and also in the “device setup” screen for the LS50W speakers, all running fine this afternoon so touch wood that has nailed it. With this adjustment the processing speed indicator is certainly much higher than before as well (see attached) so hopefully this negates the need to move to a different core/ server. Appreciate all who chimed in on this newbie DSP dilemma, cheers from NZ @CrystalGipsy @GKern @Henry_McLeod @ged_hickman1 and @Phil_Wright 
Hi Frank,
I was having the same issues with Roon through my Antipodes DS server/streamer.
Antipodes, incidentally, are made in NZ and their online service is second to none.
Anyway, it appears that my server was a little too old and under-powered to run DSP and reacting in the same way as your Mac Mini.
For me, I moved Roon core from the DS to my desktop PC which has plenty of grunt and the problem went away. The down side? I must have the desktop running to listen to music. No biggie.
So, I think the weak link in your chain may well be the Mac Mini.
regards, Ian
What was the processing speed shown in the signal path when the problem occurred? Note that Roon Core minimum requirement is i3. The Intel Atom is much below that.
Your Atom N270 has a single thread rating of 164. It clearly is too underpowered to run Roon Core.
The OP’s i5-2410M has a single thread rating of 1221, more than 7 times faster than yours. As discussed above, his processing speed did not indicate a CPU-related deficiency.
@wklie @Roadrex FYI- I’m no IT guy but my thinking at this point indicates an issue with sample rates above 96Khz as Peter has suggested, to do with the Kef LS50W implementation over this rate via network (LAN ethernet) or USB… and nothing to do with my 2010 Mac Mini.
Subsequent to the above infos and helpful suggestions, I limited upsampling via DSP to 96Khz going into the Kefs (direct) and indeed this fixed the “freezing” issue. Over the last 72 hours I have also been experimenting with a good external DAC (Musical Fidelity MX-DAC) going into the analogue inputs of the Kefs. I have been feeding the MX-DAC with DSD128 via USB (upsampled by Roon) and the 2010 Mac Mini is still knocking it out of the park with 4.8x - 5.4x processing speeds in this setup, and no freezes thus far, so touch wood (and unless I am very much mistaken) the issue is Kef-related.
I hope this helps anyone else who might be wondering if their ageing core/ server might be at fault when connected to these wonderful speakers (and kudos to Musical Fidelity for manufacturing such a fabulous DSD converter!)
Well, that’s good news Frank.
I’ll dig into my issue a bit more based on what you have done and see what happens.
I am using a Denafrips Pontus DAC and have passive speakers.
Hopefully, my problems can be resolved as easily and cheaply as yours were.
regards, Ian
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