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Implementing a Roon Core Server--Success & Comments

I installed a Roon Optimized Core Kit or "ROCK" on a new Intel NUC.  Here are my thoughts.

1.  ~$450.  This is substantially cheaper than a Roon Nucleus (~$1300). 

2.  4 Hours Work.  After I got supplies, this took me all of four hours.  Why?  Well, There were all sorts of glitchy things with--interestingly, NOT ROON--the Intel NUC.  All sorts of dumb stuff happened that I had to spend some time on forums researching.  For example, I couldn't get the NUC to recognize a USB fed keyboard or mouse.  I'm not using the ROON ROCK with a monitor or keyboard, but you need one for the initial install.  What a pain!  That was one of 3-4 aggravating things, which once I cleaned up all was good. 

3.  Getting up To Speed.  The Roon ROCK integrated well.  During the initial 2-3 boots it was slow to get up to speed--likely reading everything for the first time. Up and running, it just stays on, 24/7.  Impressive that it's so stable.  Very impressive in today's world. 

4.  Worked OK with Bluesound.  The Roon ROCK did ok with Bluesound. Overall, things worked and sounded fine.  One issue was getting the Roon end to stop seeing players in the house individually; they were stuck in a group pairing from a party we had awhile ago.  No the end of the world, but it means I still have to use the Bluesound app to turn switches off here and there.  

5. Worked Wonders with my DAC.  My tube DAC, while it does do DSD, is not a Roon partner.  Nonetheless, I was able to find it networked through the software and send the Roon signal natively to it with no processing.  This was sonically amazing for me.  Everything got bigger, clearer and punchier.  My DAC has always been fed by my Bluesound Node or Node 2i.  This was a meaningful improvement. 

I love the Bluesound product line.  Yet, I have to agree with those who say Tidal sounds better directly into their DAC via USB or another compatible feed.  Running Tidal into the Bluesound then to my DAC is good, but not as great as this. 

6.  Roon Community.  The Roon Community made this much less a pain in the ass than it could have been or would have been in, say, 2005.  There are great resources at their website:  articles, forums, FAQs, and so on.  Very informative.  While I wish that I didn't need any of this to begin with, when I needed it, it was fairly clear and thoughtfully written with few exceptions.


128x128jbhiller
jbhiller's avatar
jbhiller OP
1,361 posts
 
You got it!  Right down to the USB stick--you have it all.  

I had a devil of a time getting the NUC to boot from the USB drive on which I put the ROCK OS.  I ended up having to go into the bios on startup and play around with the various settings concerning what drives the NUC would boot from.  I can't recall the exact process but I remember I had to putz around to make it boot from USB.  Also, even before that hiccup I had to hold down the delete key on the first bootup to get the NUC to recognize the keyboard.  After those two issues, the ROCK booted seamlessly and I've been stable since.  
djones51
4,947 posts
 
You don’t need 512GB M.2 SSD I used 256 it was the smallest I could find at the time. Get whichever is cheaper, actually I think 128 is big enough. To boot from USB you set it to legacy in the bios. The main thing is make sure the NUC is one recognized by Roon, there is a list in the link but I don't think it's been updated for the new 10 series.
jbhiller's avatar
jbhiller OP
1,361 posts
 
djones51 is likely very right on what you need. But, considering 512MB of M.2 SSD is so cheap ($70), I did just that.  Can't hurt to have more and the price difference was like $30 or something.  
arafiq's avatar
arafiq
1,592 posts
 
Agreed. The price difference is not that much, might as well go with higher specs.

@djones51 -- thanks for the tip regarding usb boot.

Your help is much appreciated.
jaytor's avatar
jaytor
742 posts
 
I built my Roon server using a NUC8i7BEH with 8GB RAM and 128GB PCIe SSD.

After using it for a couple months, I decided to get an Akasa Turing fanless case so that I could move the server close to my equipment in my listening room. At the same time, I increased the RAM to 16GB, and integrated a 1TB Samsung 860 SSD into the case for my music library. Previously, I was using a USB connected hard drive for the library.

It has been working very well since I put it together six months ago. It got fairly warm when I moved the library to the SSD and I had to re-index everything, but since then it has run cool even when running multiple zones and doing some modest DSP work (upsampling and EQ). 

I'm sure my configuration is over-provisioned for what I am using it for, but it sounds great, and still cost me under $1000 with all the bells and whistles. 

I currently have about 4200 albums (37,000 tracks) in my library, but I still have 92% space available on the the 128GB drive.  It's hard for me to imagine a library big enough to need more than the 128GB M2 drive. On the other hand, it's not that expensive to go to a larger drive.

I've recently purchased a linear power supply to use with the NUC, but I haven't had a chance to hook it up yet. I'm going to use it for a DIY amp project to do some transistor matching on a bunch of power FETs. Once that's done (hopefully this weekend), I'll relegate it to Roon Server duty.

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