ROON ROCK now available

[Wdw]

any ROON ROCKers up and running...if, so, your comments on any sound quality changes or possible improvements if audible, would be welcome.
Mine is on the Amazon truck and due in a couple of days if all goes well.
Cheers,
WDW

[Chris Marshall]

I think the theory says you're unlikely to have any sound improvement if you're streaming to a remote endpoint already (dcs bridge, very nice by the way). Of course, some people hear things with networked audio that theory doesn't back up so that may or may not be the case.

ROCK does seem to provide a solid, fast and nearly foolproof Roon install so well worth it in my opinion, quite happy with mine, just waiting for AIR ?

[Wdw]

I think the theory says you're unlikely to have any sound improvement if you're streaming to a remote endpoint already (dcs bridge, very nice by the way).  Of course, some people hear things with networked audio that theory doesn't back up so that may or may not be the case.

ROCK does seem to provide a solid, fast and nearly foolproof Roon install so well worth it in my opinion, quite happy with mine, just waiting for AIR ?

seems we're always pushing against what theory generally allows and what our ears may tell us.  I recently put my music library on a Samsung T3 SSD (USB 3) in lieu of the NAS drive current in use and am certain there was a sonic improvement that I hadn't thought possible nor expected to occur.  
In that light, a nice little NUC with a super hot little SSD boot drive, dual channel memory and a dedicated OS with this T3 drive tethered to it should, I suspect, have some interesting influence on the sound.
To your comment on the bridge...it is the best digital we've had in house by a long mile.  Still just burning in but improving all the time.  Was only intending to review it in house as the "eventual" Expert streamer board will offer a similar role but the sonics of the bridge were just so spectacular that we rationalized that Devialet, as good as they are, will never reach that plateau.

[mdconnelly]

I love the idea of ROCK and RoonOS on a NUC ... BUT... I'm currently running Roon Server on an i7 Win 10 PC using Devialet AIR and, well, it rocks!   Sounds great and works perfectly.   I truly hope Roon eventually announces how it can support Devialet AIR from ROCK, but until then, I'm in a holding pattern.   So no NUC ordered just yet.  Hey, maybe that's a good thing.

My hope is that we will learn soon.

[baddog]

My NUC is bi-lingual. I have two M.2 cards, one boots into Windows 10 Pro with Roonserver, the other into ROCK. The internal SSD is ROCK formatted and has music files, I can use that for ROCK and my NAS for Windows 10 Pro.

Obviously only the Windows 10 Pro machine can use Devialet AIR, hopefully that will be redressed at some point.

[Wdw]

Love the D440 but losing all respect for the marketing group at Head Office. Why no communication?

No need to answer that, just blowing off steam.

[sven911]

I love the idea of ROCK and RoonOS on a NUC ... BUT... I'm currently running Roon Server on an i7 Win 10 PC using Devialet AIR and, well, it rocks!   Sounds great and works perfectly.   I truly hope Roon eventually announces how it can support Devialet AIR from ROCK, but until then, I'm in a holding pattern.   So no NUC ordered just yet.  Hey, maybe that's a good thing.

My hope is that we will learn soon.

Same for me.

[Hifi_swlon]

My NUC is bi-lingual. I have two M.2 cards, one boots into Windows 10 Pro with Roonserver, the other into ROCK. The internal SSD is ROCK formatted and has music files, I can use that for ROCK and my NAS for Windows 10 Pro.

Obviously only the Windows 10 Pro machine can use Devialet AIR, hopefully that will be redressed at some point.

AIR aside, do you find ROCK any faster or other way beneficial?

I don't think I'd do it until there was a mechanism to add third party programs of some description - specifically CD ripping in my case - otherwise I'd need two computers where I currently have one. And there's a good chance this may never happen. That said my AIR on OS X has gone a bit flakey again recently - not dropouts but just going silent and needing a VNC into the host to disable and re-enable it which seems to get it going again but is annoying - so am keeping an eye on the announcements/developments.

[baddog]

Immediate benefits of ROCK vs Windows 10 Pro on my NUC.

No need to VNC into the NUC to shutdown.

No need to run optimization scripts, disable features or other housekeeping to disable Windows updates/etc.

It does appear to be faster in terms of new music import scans, audio analysis, etc.. though this is not scientifically quantified.

Cons - no Devialet AIR support, which I need.

FWIW I use my Mac Mini or MacBook Pro for ripping.

[yabaVR]

How does Rock sound compared to Win10? What are your impressions?

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