Now Roon has introduced their own server hardware, prices appear to be rather steep.
That might lead to high expectations and web trolls making nasty remarks.
So let's investigate.
The Nucleus was already announced at the High-End Munich show 2017.
Two models came to market: the Nucleus and the Nucleus Plus.
The first is equipped with an Intel Core i3 processor and the second with an Intel Core
i7.
The i3 version is suited for the average user that has up to 12,000 albums and about 5 zones.
It is able to do limited DSP functions like EQ, headphone cross-feed and the like.
The i7 version is for power users that have even a larger catalogue, more zones and/or
want to do DSP functions like convolution - used for room correction for instance - or
heavier upsampling like PCM to DSD.
I was lent a Nucleus Plus - the one with the Core i7 - by Dutch Distributor Viertron.
Both models use the same housing made from mat grey solid aluminium with cooling ribs
on the sides and top.
It measures 212 x 157 x 74 mm and the front holds only a logo.
The rear is slightly more crowded with on the left a recessed power button, the 19 Volts
DC socket that needs to be connected to the supplied switching mode power supply, an HDMI
output for if you want to connect to an AV-receiver - or DAC -over HDMI, a giga network port,
two USB3.0 sockets for connecting for instance an external drive or a USB DAC and a Thunderbolt
socket that currently isn't used.
When placed top down, a thick metal plate can be removed by unscrewing five bolts.
The review sample was fitted with a 220 gigabyte SSD for music storage.
Far more storage can be mounted, up to 4 terabyte SSD's are available nowadays but they come
at 1200 euros.
You can also use a traditional harddisk.
9.5 mm thick drives are available up to 2 terabyte and perhaps a 15 mm thick drive might
just fit and those are available up to 5 terabyte at only 175 euros.
But check first, I wasn't able to try whether it will actually fit.
The drive is mounted on a sturdy metal plate that also contains the PCB holding the SATA
connector.
When removed, we see a 7th generation Intel NUC motherboard with the memory cards, under
a small cushion the M.2 128 GB SSD that holds the operating system, Roon Core and database,
the SATA port plus power supply for the 2.5 inch drive that is connected to the SATA board
as we saw before.
We even see two USB ports and the 3.5 mm headphone socket that on the normal NUC housing are
accessible from the front.
So it is exactly the same board as in my Intel NUC 7i7BNH that costed me 600 euros including
the 128 GB M.2 SSD and 8 GB of memory.
Let me start with the differences between the Nucleus Plus and my NUC: the Nucleus is
passively cooled while my NUC as a - rather silent - fan for cooling.
And the slot for the 2.5 inch drive in my NUC is limited to 9.5 mm thick drives.
But I have access to the front USB's and the 3.5 mm headphone jack.
At 900 euros you buy the same NUC board plus memory and M.2 SSD for 900 euros built into
for instance the Akasa Plato X housing that is functionally the same as the nUcleus in
that is allows for passive cooling.
But whether you buy the original NUC or the Akasa variant, you have to update the BIOS
and install Roon Rock yourself.
With the original NUC you often have to mount the SSD, the hard disk and the memory too.
I know, it's a piece of cake, you will say and for many it is.
But I have been paid several times by people in the industry to do it for them.
So it might be a piece of cake to many, it's not to all.
And then there are people that have more money than time and hire a so called custom installer
that will do all the work for them, often including the luxury, several thousands of
euros costing remotes.
They want top quality and they want that the quality can be seen on the outside.
They are quit willing to pay for that too.
Those custom installers need a margin that is considerable bigger than the computer industry
offers them for they have to go to the customer whenever he - or she - has a problem.
That's something your computershop or webstore won't.
Furthermore Roonlabs needs funds for developing the drivers typically needed for custom install.
They recently announced drivers for Control4 and Crestron remote control systems and these
will only run on the Nucleus servers, not on the normal NUC's.
The Nucleus works the same as the Intel NUC running ROCK so for a comprehensive description
see 'Intel NUC Roon Rock Part 3: how to use it'.
But in short it works like this: The Nucleus needs to be connected to the grid and the
web.
You then need a storage device for your music.
This can be an internal hard disk or SSD, an external hard disk connected over USB to
the Nucleus or a share on the network, like on a computer or NAS.
There your store your music files.
The storage in or connected to the Nucleus is accessible over the network.
You also need to connect an 'endpoint', which can be a DAC connected to the Nucleus
or a Roon Ready DAC, network renderer or other Roon Ready device over the network.
Then you install a second version of Roon on a computer, tablet or smartphone.
This will only install the control surface and not the server and will ask for your Roon
account information.
The Nucleus is automatically detected and will start indexing and updating the metadata.
Depending on the number of tracks and the speed of your internet connection this can
take days but you can already start playing music.
So the Nucleus isn't a rip-off as has been shouted by some on the web.
It is aimed at the top end of the market where other rules and other margins apply.
It's like the hydraulic suspension parts Rolls Royce used in their seventies models
(or was it eighties?).
If you bought them from Rolls Royce you payed a lot more than when you bought the same parts
from Citroen I am told.
But the service level was different too.
You can buy the same Mondeo under the Vignale luxury label and again then you pay the premium
price but get better service.
By the way, several specialist streaming retailers also offer audio servers exceeding even the
price of the Nucleus Plus and are far less open on what's inside.
There might be all kinds of reasons for the higher - I have not researched this - but
nevertheless.
I think you are quite a bit better off when you buy either a NUC7i3 - seventh generation
NUC running a Core i3 - or NUC7i7, running the Core i7 processor, depending on your needs.
Put it elsewhere in the house so the fan won't bother you and use a networked audio interface,
a networked DAC that is ROON Ready or a Raspberry Pi with audio board running Roon Ready software,
all depending on your need for quality.
And if you have money to burn, you could also buy a Roon Nucleus for it works just as good
and looks a lot better.
If you want to know how to prepare a NUC for Roon Rock - the Roon server software for the
NUC - see the link in the top right corner, at the end of this video or in the show notes.
Oh, and just to make sure: the prices I mention are for the hardware only.
The Roon Rock software is free - and is already installed on the Nucleus - but you do also
need the 100 Euro 120 US dollar per month subscription or the lifetime subscription
that comes at 425 euros or 500 US dollars.
Got interested in Roon, a link to a complete playlist lets you learn anything I know now.
For future developments you could subscribe to this channel or follow me on Twitter, Facebook
or Google+.
If you liked this video, please consider supporting the channel through Patreon or Paypal.
Any financial support is much appreciated and helps me to do my job even better.
The links are in the show notes, just as the link to a description of my three setups.
Help me to help even more people enjoy music at home by telling your friends on the web
about this channel.
I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com.
And whatever you do, enjoy the music.
Intel NUC Roon Rock Part 3: how to use it: https://youtu.be/ycIQ4kvVmAQ
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