AudioLinux NUC

[Axel]

No Roon Rock. It’s two NUC7i7DN’s both running AudioLinux Headless. One has Roon Server installed (core & output only, no GUI, most often called the ‘server’) and the other is indeed running Roon Bridge (output only often called the ‘end-point’) and outputs to USB. See: https://roonlabs.com/howroonworks.html and https://kb.roonlabs.com/Architecture for more details about this distributed architecture.

Dan has not specified where his music is stored and only mentioned the 32GB Optane storage which most likely only holds the AudioLinux OS and Roon database. It could be he’s using a NAS or an external USB drive.

I myself am using the exact same (though self-built) Akasa fanless NUC running AudioLinux Headless Roon Bridge, a fanless i7 6700T DIY machine running AudioLinux Headless+Roon Server. In my situation both run 100% from RAM including the Roon database on the server. Both boot from a SSD thumb drive which are removed after booting. I store my music on a DIY NAS PC elsewhere in my home but am looking at the best solution, there’s not much consensus though about the best place to store one’s music. My ‘control’ point is an iPad Pro 12.9”.

Currently I’m waiting for the etherREGEN to come to market before I change my server hardware. The etherREGEN switch -may- lessen the importance of the server. Also there’s not much consensus yet on what’s the best type of hardware to use for the Server part. Contrary to earlier beliefs it seems to be going in the direction of powerful multi-core CPU, big CPU cache hardware, think desktop i7 or server Xeon territory.

High quality power is extremely important in this solution. The better the PSU’s the better the solution will sound. The good thing is that the NUC’s are low power so with a Paul Hynes SR4 for example you have a sufficiently powerful and high quality PSU. The Celeron and Pentium NUC’s I mentioned earlier can even run on a Uptone LPS-1/1.2. But there’s also people who are using the (lesser quality) SOtm SPS500 or HDPlex PSU’s.

Most recently the SOtM TX-USBultra’s have been re-introduced into the systems of the people who (jointly) found/developped this solution. These are now (after internal upgrades and modifications done by SOtM) reclocking the USB output of the NUC end-point -and- replacing the on-board clocks in that NUC.

I haven’t commented much on the SQ yet because of multiple reasons detailed elsewhere but I can say it’s now better sounding than anything I have heard in my system by a large margin.

Do build this if you like a DIY solution, experimenting and don’t mind that the solution as deployed by others will change often. What’s new today will be old tomorrow, it’s a moving target!

Is there a reason why you prefer Audiolinux over Roon Rock? As I think I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’m considering building the server side of the two box solution and am trying to glean as much information as possible.