I am new here and a new user of roon since I installed it yesterday on my main windows 10 PC.
I will try to sketch my setup.
My music (about 700 Gb) is located on a Qnap TS453A Nas with 4Gb RAM, mostly FLAC files.
I installed roon and the core on my main PC, an older Windows 10 PC (i7-4930k / 16Gb RAM / GTX780TI Gpu / Samsung EVO 250Gb SSD. Roon is now installed on the SSD where windows is on also. I stream the music to this PC from my nas network share to a AMR DP-777 DAC and Preamp to my AVM monoblocks to my Dali Rubicon 8 speakers.
It works pretty good after my library was scanned. (pretty fast running on 12 cores)
I also have a Raumfeld One M, chromecast access point in the kitchen.
Also at my gym room, I have a i5 Pc with SSD and windows 10 as another play point, this is connected to a Chord 2Qute Dac to another stereo.
Now after reading into the Roon materials a bit, I have read it’s better to split the core and server.
At first I was thinking to upgrade the NAS to a newer model, bu maybe it’s better to buy a NUC with SSD and run ROCK since my nas is still fast enough for all tasks I can think of.
Do you think i will have better sound if I do this investment?
I can tell you what my preference is, and other folks will chime in and suggest what works best for them.
I have the NUC/Rock setup with my library on a SATA drive installed in the NUC. The NUC is wired to the router as are the endpoints. Only WiFI that comes into play is for the IPAD and phone remotes. For backups I use a USB connected SSD.
The dedicated music server setup is always on and always available. Only software updates that will come into play come from Roon, no Windows/MAC/NAS OS to worry about or cause issues. Use your NAS for backups.
The sound quality should not differ between the choices for the core platform with at least the minimum basic requirements for CPU, Ram and SSD. Availability, performance and reliability will be the difference. The robustness of your internal network will also play a big part in your overall satisfaction.
Good luck, welcome to the forum, and enjoy the music.
I’ve run Roon both ways and I think you will find it hard to detect any difference in sound quality between your current setup and, say a Nucleus. I currently have a Nucleus and I think it was one of my best music investments simply because it is an appliance. No worries about Windows updates messing it up, I can leave it on 24/7 and can stream music to any place in the house with an endpoint. If you want to improve the efficiency and convenience of your setup, you might consider a Nucleus (or Rock). Also you might consider Pi based units as endpoints. They work really well with Ropieee and also can be left on 24/7. If you want to improve sound quality, best bang for the buck is your analogue setup including speakers, amp, DAC, and your room layout. You already have top of the line speakers so I would look at room improvements to tweak the sound to your liking.
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Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
5
Hi, Frederick. Welcome!
The sound will almost certainly be exactly the same.
But running the Core on a computer and keeping the music on a NAS seems to be a bad idea, because the Core has a hard time talking to NAS shares. Putting the music on a USB SSD attached to the computer the Core is running on seems to be a good idea, because the music files will be fast and local and off the NAS. Whether you need to buy a separate NUC to run the Core on is questionable; if the computer you’re using works, why not just use it?
Hi Guys, thanks for your thorough answers, really appreciated. Did some testing yesterday in my gym room and tested the sound with the chord 2 Qute dac that I just bought. Was pretty good, only missing some bass, there was alot more Bass from the same songs played from my samsung phone to my IFi Bluetooth receiver. Probably got something to do with EQ. Is there somewhere I can download DSP or equilizer presets for Roon? Thanks, Fre
There are presets out there for headphones but I don’t know of any other presets because each setup is so different it wouldn’t make much sense. I think you’re going to have to experiment to get what you want.
