Pondering high-end server for Roon over ethernet?

Bart001

Bart001

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My current set-up has my Roon server (a Roon Nucleus with 2tb ssd) in the 'mechanical room' in my basement where my furnace and hot water is, where my Verizon fibre enters the home, and where all the home ethernet converges for connection to a switch.

I read a lot of reviews (in the press and on the forums) and get the impression that people find that servers REALLY matter when connected to dacs directly via usb.

I'm trying to figure out (short of a home listening test) what I might really expect from spending so much more than my Roon Nucleus, over home ethernet. And whether it'll be "worth it."

My streamer/player is the Naim ND555. And I have an Ansuz Power Switch (their hi fi switch) on my hi fi rack, between my wall RJ-45 jack and the Naim player. And we do really like Roon; I'd like to keep it, especially as it integrates Qobuz nicely with my own library of ~1900 albums on the server.

I don't HAVE to site the server in the mechanical room; it could be anywhere in the home on the network.
 
Bart001 said:
My current set-up has my Roon server (a Roon Nucleus with 2tb ssd) in the 'mechanical room' in my basement where my furnace and hot water is, where my Verizon fibre enters the home, and where all the home ethernet converges for connection to a switch.

I read a lot of reviews (in the press and on the forums) and get the impression that people find that servers REALLY matter when connected to dacs directly via usb.

I'm trying to figure out (short of a home listening test) what I might really expect from spending so much more than my Roon Nucleus, over home ethernet. And whether it'll be "worth it."

My streamer/player is the Naim ND555. And I have an Ansuz Power Switch (their hi fi switch) on my hi fi rack, between my wall RJ-45 jack and the Naim player. And we do really like Roon; I'd like to keep it, especially as it integrates Qobuz nicely with my own library of ~1900 albums on the server.

I don't HAVE to site the server in the mechanical room; it could be anywhere in the home on the network.
Click to expand...

Seems like you're pretty well set-up now. There's always the Taiko Audio Extreme server but that's like $24K, IIRC.
 
i just ordered the singxer audio su-6. It is a reclocker, puts all the ones and zero's back in time resulting in no jitter. The statement is that poor computer sources sound the same as great sources, with this USB reclocker connected. so in this setup I can remove the streamer out of my setup. Very curious about the result.

To be arrived beginning of March, cannot wait :audiophile:

 
Alkyogre said:
i just ordered the singxer audio su-6. It is a reclocker, puts all the ones and zero's back in time resulting in no jitter. The statement is that poor computer sources sound the same as great sources, with this USB reclocker connected. so in this setup I can remove the streamer out of my setup.

Click to expand...



I use ethernet, and have no intention of abandoning my Naim streamer/player.
 
If you are looking to run Roon core, in my experience, the quality of the server matters, may not be as much as streamer but it does. The Taiko Extreme is a waste of money if you are using Naim ND555 as a streamer in between. I have not tried commercial offerings as my stuff is all DIY but two things that you should consider in a good quality server are a) quality of power supply and b) network optimization. Both are critical. No direct experience but from friends I have heard Antipodes are good.
 
You may want to consider Antipodes Audio music servers. They can be used as a Roon core and as a server only and your Naim as the network player. Their S40 fits your requirements.
 
Alkyogre said:
i just ordered the singxer audio su-6. It is a reclocker, puts all the ones and zero's back in time resulting in no jitter.
Click to expand...

There are no 1s and 0s. There's either zero volts or a voltage, e.g. 2 volts. What the "re-clocker" does is reduce...phase noise
 
Devg said:
if you are NOT into DIY, another one to consider for Roon core would be the sonic transporter i9. It has optical ethernet input if you are into optical networking...

sonicTransporter i9 optical (gen 2) – Small Green Computer
Click to expand...

Dev, yep, I forgot about the sonicTransporter. That's an excellent recommendation.

Lumin makes a server, also, the L1. Judging by how good the P1 is, I would guess the L1 would be excellent as well.

Lumin-L1.jpg


I'll let ya guys know how good it is, as I'm being sent one here for review fairly soon.
 
I run a system like yours. My Bricasti M12 is my Roon endpoint via Ethernet. I use an etherRegen to isolate, and reclock right before the streamer. I have tried various schemes:

NAS based Roon server (was a bit slow with my library)
Desk PC ( still use for control, but, have used it as server from time to time.)
NUC6 as Windows based Roon Server (ran a bit hot on this fanless NUC)
ROCK on the NUC6 (the NUC always required an external library, NAS/usb HD)
DIY custom build i5 fanless server (motherboard with second m.2 for music library)

I’m sure I have tin ears, but I have a pretty good system, but could not hear any differences in these different experiments.

Next up will be trying Euphonia on the NUC.
 
Puma Cat said:
Lumin makes a server, also, the L1. Judging by how good the P1 is, I would guess the L1 would be excellent as well.

Lumin-L1.jpg


I'll let ya guys know how good it is, as I'm being sent one here for review fairly soon.
Click to expand...

Love the L1 - it's well built, sort of ingenious, good looking, easy to use and integrates fantastic with Lumin streamers - but as far as I'm aware that is just basically a NAS, and will only work with/be seen by a Lumin streamer. No?
 
Bones13 said:
I run a system like yours. My Bricasti M12 is my Roon endpoint via Ethernet. I use an etherRegen to isolate, and reclock right before the streamer. I have tried various schemes:

NAS based Roon server (was a bit slow with my library)
Desk PC ( still use for control, but, have used it as server from time to time.)
NUC6 as Windows based Roon Server (ran a bit hot on this fanless NUC)
ROCK on the NUC6 (the NUC always required an external library, NAS/usb HD)
DIY custom build i5 fanless server (motherboard with second m.2 for music library)

I’m sure I have tin ears, but I have a pretty good system, but could not hear any differences in these different experiments.

Next up will be trying Euphonia on the NUC.
Click to expand...

I had a Sonic Transporter and when switching to the Roon Nucleus I too heard nothing different. They are both based on the NUC architecture and maybe proves that small hardware differences in my setup arent very relevant.
 
Bart001 said:
I had a Sonic Transporter and when switching to the Roon Nucleus I too heard nothing different. They are both based on the NUC architecture and maybe proves that small hardware differences in my setup arent very relevant.
Click to expand...

I detected no difference between running ROCK on a NUC vs Roon Core on my laptop.
 
jmusica said:
I detected no difference between running ROCK on a NUC vs Roon Core on my laptop.
Click to expand...

I think because you use Roon as server with a streamer in between. The way Roon advises.

The way high end computer builders use is the way to hook directly a dac to the pc, the way Roon does not advise. But if the pc is at very high quality, what Taiko does, then it makes sense to connect a dac directly to a computer. In that case a lot of preconditions need to be made

The right drivers,
optimized Windows,
every compartment separated powered by LPS,
bios settings optimized, no additional unneeded other things activated:
plenty of cooling
right clocks inbuild
right USB output card
and a few more other things
 
Bart001 said:
I had a Sonic Transporter and when switching to the Roon Nucleus I too heard nothing different. They are both based on the NUC architecture and maybe proves that small hardware differences in my setup arent very relevant.
Click to expand...


The ST i9 is not based on NUC architecture. Since you already have Nucleus, I didn't want to recommend the basic ST. Moreover, the differences in Linux optimizations between ST and Nucleus might also contribute to better SQ. In my experiments, Roon is compute hungry and the high compute machine helps (a lot). At least in my case (and I have done a lot of experiments over the yrs), an i9 based machine sounded a lot better than a NUC but I didn't have a streamer in between.
 
Alkyogre said:
I think because you use Roon as server with a streamer in between. The way Roon advises.

The way high end computer builders use is the way to hook directly a dac to the pc, the way Roon does not advise. But if the pc is at very high quality, what Taiko does, then it makes sense to connect a dac directly to a computer. In that case a lot of preconditions need to be made
Click to expand...

IIRC at the time I was going USB out from the ROCK/NUC to a PS Audio DAC, with a USB regen thing and Curious Cable Regen Link USB cable in between. From the laptop of course was over the network, then as well as current.
 
I love my Roon Nucleus Plus and think it sounds terrific with my MSB Select II DAC and Renderer V2 digital input module. My only issue is my Synology NAS, which performs flawlessly but is noisy due to its clunking and fan noise.

Can anyone recommend a SSD NAS that doesn’t have a fan or at least a silent one? I have a little over 8TB of music. If I had less than 4TB of music, I would just purchase the latest Roon Nucleus Plus, which offers 4TB of SSD storage and call it a day. Does anyone know if the latest Roon Nucleus Plus’ storage can be increased above 4TB? Any help on these issues would be greatly appreciated.

Ken
 
You can buy an 8 tb ssd SATA drive. Ask on the Roon forums if there is any issue using that in your Nuc +
 
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