rodders3 Posted January 17, 2020 Posted January 17, 2020 Unfortunately cannot play my vinyl for some weeks due to bilateral hip replacement last week so decided to dip my toes in digital to keep me sane whist sitting at home doing nothing. Have not used Roon before but seems the gold standard from what I have read online. Have tidal but very limited digital music of my own. I have 100's of cds. Decided to get a Roon Nucleus+ from the guys at Tivoli during their sale, 20% off. Dealt with some really great people. During my research I found Roon have updated both Nucleus models. I found this in one article only from the UK and strangely, nothing on Roon's own website. I asked Tivoli to secure a new model and they did. Here are some pics in case people are interested. Only took internal pics at this stage and wife is out so cant take outside pic until she home! In essence, Roon have ditched the lightening connection and added another HDMI. It is also a different dimension and has a new power switch. Internally also looks very different from what I see other models look like online. Hope to get up and running this weekend and fitting a SSD. Have external CDP drive that I hope to rip my CD's onto SSD over the coming weeks. Guess I will also need a subscription! Cheers, Rod 2
pond44 Posted January 17, 2020 Posted January 17, 2020 Think I'd feel ripped off if that's all there is inside, where is the rest of it. what was the cost and can you give an update (sound). 1
maximus Posted January 17, 2020 Posted January 17, 2020 @rodders3Hey Rod, little off topic, but great to hear you had the op, wishing you a speedy recovery mate so you can enjoy all those wonderful new toys. cheers Frank 2
jt301 Posted January 18, 2020 Posted January 18, 2020 I purchased nucleus+ last April with a life time Roon subscription along with a tidal subscription. It feeds my devialet amplifier via an Ethernet connection. It integrates music I have stored on a USB hard drive plugged into the back plus a NAS drive seemlessly with albums I decide I like from Tidal. The recent Roon upgrade has improved both the functionality of Roon radio and the usability of internet radio. The only issues I have are network related which are hard assign blame for, but more likely related to my internal network set up. Personally I love it. It’s the hub of my digital world. I think the sound is primarily that of my amplifier, speakers and room, 2
Steam Posted January 18, 2020 Posted January 18, 2020 (edited) @rodders3 thanks for the internal pics. Over Christmas I bought an intel NUC and installed roon. I was wondering what was different about the Nucleus internals. Now I see it’s pretty much the same thing but in a better box. Also interesting that they upgraded it on the quiet. The tech would inevitably move on so I was waiting for there to be a sale on the older models. Now seems like that won’t be happening - smart on roon’s part. Just incrementally upgrade over time and don’t end up with “old product” you have to fire sale. It’s a known fact that buying yourself new toys makes you recover faster and better than before. Get well and happy ripping. Edited January 18, 2020 by Steam 1
rodders3 Posted January 18, 2020 Author Posted January 18, 2020 1 hour ago, maximus said: @rodders3Hey Rod, little off topic, but great to hear you had the op, wishing you a speedy recovery mate so you can enjoy all those wonderful new toys. cheers Frank Hey Frank - thanks mate. All went well, now the rehab. Cheers, mate.
rodders3 Posted January 18, 2020 Author Posted January 18, 2020 Installed the hard drive and some more pics. Units are now made is the USA, not sure where previously. 2
Frank Prowse Hi-Fi Posted January 18, 2020 Posted January 18, 2020 3 hours ago, Steam said: @rodders3 thanks for the internal pics. Over Christmas I bought an intel NUC and installed roon. I was wondering what was different about the Nucleus internals. Now I see it’s pretty much the same thing but in a better box. On Roons website there is a great white paper (its lengthy) you can download to read about how this differs from the average NUC. They did spend a lot of R&D in conjuction with Intel on the Nucleus products (and I'm not saying a dedicated NUC for Roon is a bad thing!) 1
MaMoneypit Posted January 18, 2020 Posted January 18, 2020 Roon only supports a very limited range of NUCs and they provide the ROCK software free. I have read on the Roon forum that the reason they don't support fanless NUCs is because the software has not been optimised for fanless operation as is the case with the Nucleus and Nucleus+. They say that operation of a NUC in a fanless case will lead to shortening of the life of the components if the device is run under higher loads like various filters/convolution/HQP etc. It makes some sense but I bought a NUC on which I will run ROCK in another room connected via ethernet to an endpoint and controlled by iPad which is the recommended setup by Roon. All of this gear will cost less than the Nucleus on it's own but does require some knowledge and research. Roon doesn't support fanless NUCs also obviously for business reasons as sales of Nucleus and Nucleus+ is an important revenue stream for them. 3
Pim Posted January 19, 2020 Posted January 19, 2020 (edited) Wonder what are those heat sinks are doing. Is the print connected to the bottom of the case at all? Edit: I had another look and it looks like the print sits on legs so I really wonder how well this case dissipates heat. Sure it will get rid of (some of) the heated air inside but then you might as well have an open case. Edited January 19, 2020 by Pim
jt301 Posted January 20, 2020 Posted January 20, 2020 20 hours ago, Pim said: Wonder what are those heat sinks are doing. Is the print connected to the bottom of the case at all? Edit: I had another look and it looks like the print sits on legs so I really wonder how well this case dissipates heat. Sure it will get rid of (some of) the heated air inside but then you might as well have an open case. I can’t tell you how effective they are but they do get warm.
Hydrology Posted January 21, 2020 Posted January 21, 2020 I've got the previous (generation) Nucleus, never switch it off, at best it gets lukewarm only (and that's in a sealed box/shelf with no airflow)
Tony B Posted January 21, 2020 Posted January 21, 2020 That board looks like a Intel Nuc 7th gen. I use a gen 8 i7 Nuc with Rock and it works perfectly. 2
Anybody Posted January 21, 2020 Posted January 21, 2020 On 18/01/2020 at 5:39 AM, Frank Prowse Hi-Fi said: On Roons website there is a great white paper (its lengthy) you can download to read about how this differs from the average NUC. They did spend a lot of R&D in conjuction with Intel I looked at the whitepaper and it really does not say anything like that. It's basically a NUC board bolted to a huge heatsink. Admittedly this is a huge and beautifully made heatsink. But it still is just a NUC mainboard screwed to a heatsink. Akasa passively cooled NUC cases are very good as well for a significantly lower cost (~80-150 USD). I recently put a 6th gen Skylake i5 NUC in a Akasa passive case and the CPU temperature under full load DECREASED compared to the original case with fan. I do love the attention to detail though, especially the Transcend MTE110S SSD, which literally costs close to nothing and with only 50TBW is one of the least long-life-capably SSDs that you can get on the market. That's how they keep these things affordable, a Samsung PRO SSD would have put it out of financial reach for most of us! Other impressive design decisions in the white paper: "Well, we don't support WiFi due to the metal case, so let's claim its for reliability instead" are as amazing as "Well, Intel ships the NUC board to us with a 19V wall wart, so let's include this and claim after a long preamble "Taking all these variables into account, we took the pragmatic decision to include a simple external wall wart". 1 2
Hydrology Posted January 23, 2020 Posted January 23, 2020 On 21/01/2020 at 5:57 PM, Anybody said: I looked at the whitepaper and it really does not say anything like that. It's basically a NUC board bolted to a huge heatsink. Admittedly this is a huge and beautifully made heatsink. But it still is just a NUC mainboard screwed to a heatsink. Akasa passively cooled NUC cases are very good as well for a significantly lower cost (~80-150 USD). I recently put a 6th gen Skylake i5 NUC in a Akasa passive case and the CPU temperature under full load DECREASED compared to the original case with fan. I do love the attention to detail though, especially the Transcend MTE110S SSD, which literally costs close to nothing and with only 50TBW is one of the least long-life-capably SSDs that you can get on the market. That's how they keep these things affordable, a Samsung PRO SSD would have put it out of financial reach for most of us! Other impressive design decisions in the white paper: "Well, we don't support WiFi due to the metal case, so let's claim its for reliability instead" are as amazing as "Well, Intel ships the NUC board to us with a 19V wall wart, so let's include this and claim after a long preamble "Taking all these variables into account, we took the pragmatic decision to include a simple external wall wart". Looking forward to your opinions on Harbeth speakers.
Darren69 Posted March 16, 2020 Posted March 16, 2020 On 18/01/2020 at 11:00 AM, jt301 said: I purchased nucleus+ last April with a life time Roon subscription along with a tidal subscription. It feeds my devialet amplifier via an Ethernet connection. It integrates music I have stored on a USB hard drive plugged into the back plus a NAS drive seemlessly with albums I decide I like from Tidal. The recent Roon upgrade has improved both the functionality of Roon radio and the usability of internet radio. The only issues I have are network related which are hard assign blame for, but more likely related to my internal network set up. Personally I love it. It’s the hub of my digital world. I think the sound is primarily that of my amplifier, speakers and room, I am bloody loving my Nucleus and using ROON, will go lifetime when my annual sub runs out. It auto-selects the best settings for the Ayon dac, am running it through HQ Player, all sounds gorgeous (though nothing to do with ROON, as they will tell you). Tidal Hi Fi sub through a respectable system- love! Am listening to a zillion more different bands than I used to etc. Strange as I had ROON & Tidal set up some years ago and didn't use it much, was also still spinning CD's...maybe my head wasn't there yet. Anyhow, one of the best things I have purchased, music wise. You can do it cheaper if you have some pooter knowledge, I couldn't be bothered and have no regrets, the device works flawlessly. 3
awayward Posted March 16, 2020 Posted March 16, 2020 6 minutes ago, Darren69 said: I am bloody loving my Nucleus and using ROON, will go lifetime when my annual sub runs out. It auto-selects the best settings for the Ayon dac, am running it through HQ Player, all sounds gorgeous (though nothing to do with ROON, as they will tell you). Tidal Hi Fi sub through a respectable system- love! Am listening to a zillion more different bands than I used to etc. Strange as I had ROON & Tidal set up some years ago and didn't use it much, was also still spinning CD's...maybe my head wasn't there yet. Anyhow, one of the best things I have purchased, music wise. You can do it cheaper if you have some pooter knowledge, I couldn't be bothered and have no regrets, the device works flawlessly. Glad to see you are finally reaping the rewards of streaming with a quality setup, are you upscaling in HQ player?
Darren69 Posted March 16, 2020 Posted March 16, 2020 4 minutes ago, awayward said: Glad to see you are finally reaping the rewards of streaming with a quality setup, are you upscaling in HQ player? I set the parameters through ROON, MQA is enabled, 'decoder and renderer' but that's about all the settings I have touched. I haven't read the HQ Player manual yet etc. 1
Hydrology Posted March 16, 2020 Posted March 16, 2020 1 hour ago, Darren69 said: You can do it cheaper if you have some pooter knowledge, I couldn't be bothered and have no regrets, the device works flawlessly. And THIS is the reason why the Nucleus exists. Ive been down the computer road and spent far too much time tweaking/driver updates etc than actually listening to music. The Nucleus pays back this time with excellent quality music and plug n play ease of use. A game changer in digital audio. 1 1
Birdy1062 Posted April 15, 2021 Posted April 15, 2021 Hi guys, Read on the Roon community forum that a guy pretends there’s an USB 2.0 inside the nucleus that, when connected to his DAC gives way better results that the external USB 3.0. On the pics above I don’t see any internal USB port. Don’t know if the guy was referring to a rev A or B. Anybody is aware of this or even tried this?
Bunno77 Posted April 15, 2021 Posted April 15, 2021 4 minutes ago, Birdy1062 said: Hi guys, Read on the Roon community forum that a guy pretends there’s an USB 2.0 inside the nucleus that, when connected to his DAC gives way better results that the external USB 3.0. On the pics above I don’t see any internal USB port. Don’t know if the guy was referring to a rev A or B. Anybody is aware of this or even tried this? 3
Upgrayed Posted April 16, 2021 Posted April 16, 2021 2 hours ago, Birdy1062 said: Hi guys, Read on the Roon community forum that a guy pretends there’s an USB 2.0 inside the nucleus that, when connected to his DAC gives way better results that the external USB 3.0. On the pics above I don’t see any internal USB port. Don’t know if the guy was referring to a rev A or B. Anybody is aware of this or even tried this? I can see 2 USB ports facing the hard drive. I have a Nuc and heard a difference between USB 2 and 3. Mine are external. Roon were considering offering a linear power supply when they launched. Guess that would have increased the cost significantly. I found a substantial improvement with a linear power supply, but cost more than the Nuc. YMMV Still cheaper than a Roon box.
Recommended Posts