I am currently running Roon on a Beelink SEi Series SEi8 (Intel i5 8259U 2.3GHz, 8GB, 256GB SSD, 4tb SSD for music, connected via Ethernet) although I am wondering about getting a NUC12WSHi7. I might put it in a fanless case, which would likely be an appropriate Akasa’. Although I could leave in my server cupboard in its original case, this is where the Beelink currently is.
I have around 7000 albums (1500 from Qobuz), 100k tracks. I do some upscaling to DSD 256, to my Topping D90. I also run some Home Audio Fidelity Convolution filters. When I am doing this with 44.1kHz tracks, the processing speed reports around 3x.
The question is, am I likely to see any performance increase with the NUC 12? I do find some delays when using Roon, but this might be more down to my broadband (80meg max).
Some @Martin_Webster, but its not too bad. Some pages take a bit longer than I would like to load, those on my SSD too, but its a bit inconsistent which is the main reason I have left alone for the last six months or so.
Old NUC 5i3RYK with 16GB RAM and an old 128GB SSD running as ROCK core for three years now. All 170.000 titles of up to Hi-Res on my Synology NAS. Everything sitting in another room connected to my Cambridge Audio N851 via Ethernet. Flawless even with DSP, plenty fast.
I have ordered myself the NUC12WSHi7, I dont need much encouragement!
Another question though - I was wondering whether I would see much difference if instead of installing ROCK on the new NUC, but I went with windows 11 or Linux (probably mint), as I can then add a media player too. I was experimenting with jellyfin yesterday on another NUC I have. The aim obviously is to get the best performance, but I could potentially reduce box count!
Too many boxes is a grim disease. I get that. Still, for me the beauty in having an old cheap NUC with ROCK was and is peace of mind. The NUC is (together with the NAS with the database) in the laundry, far enough away from my stereo. I never had to touch the NUC in almost three years. It just works.
I‘m not the kind of geek, who looks for the difference between expensive and even more expensive cables. I think I have a decent enough setup and to me the sound is lovely. I have the above mentioned piece of mind, that there is no non-related software on the NUC possibly disturbing either sound or ease of use.
Just one of thousands of opinions - now back to you for decision making.
Thanks @boeing747430. I do like to tinker, so I do swap things around to try different stuff, its part of the hobby for me. I do currenty have the beelink in my server cupboard, but if I wittled the boxes a little the new NUC would need to come onto my desk, so I would probably chuck it in a fanless case so as to avoid the noise.
Specifically, I could always just try it obviously!
Running exact same NUC you were thinking of buying/bought and installed in Akasa Turing WS fanless case as it sits next to my Chord Qutest DAC and Michi X5 amp both of which are directly connected to it by quality USB cables. Couldn’t be happier as now I zero noise and the casing is cool all day long and only warms slightly when using multiple DSP filters which I generally avoid because the Chord DAC is so good.
