Roon - the next step?

[Pim]

If you're happy with the Melco sound and it's going to become a Roon endpoint then I suggest getting an i7 NUC. I put one together with a mate of mine and it really is a piece of cake. It's lightening fast too. You can put is somewhere else in the house so it won't look like another piece of hardware in the living room. The mayor advantage here is that you can replace your endpoint (the Melco) at any time in the future if something better comes along and you don't have to worry about setting up a server again. Just plug in the new endpoint and start listening.

Of course it's tempting to get a one box solution but if you think long term, a proper Roon setup has a Core (server), a control point (laptop, phone or iPad) and an endpoint. It might look more complicated having the extra box but if you think about it, you'll actually be simplifying things because the server never needs to be updated. Don't underestimate the power of a solid base. A Nucleus as a server does exactly the same as a NUC but costs considerably more. That's money you could put towards a better endpoint.

Great post thank you . You make some very good points and I have never really looked at it from that angle . Also I do really like the sound of the Melco so it might be a consideration to wait until it is roon ready and see how I feel.  I have two lap tops and I have been running roon core on my work lap top. But this was by Ethernet and I got sick of carrying it through to the living room for serious listening . As like I say usb sounds better in my system / room.
So I got a new lap top and switched roon core to that . One week in and I really don’t like the lap top sitting in my living room at all so I am not happy with that .
The NUC is an interesting option for sure but I think the new lap top would suffice for that.
I think after sleeping on it the Melco may stay until I see what it’s like with roon. Problem is they are rather like Devialet in that they are slow to deliver this type of thing

You should be able to close the laptop and use an iPad to control it so you could just put the laptop somewhere you can't see it. With two laptops you could even have one as core and one as endpoint. Or one as core/endpoint and one as control. Just more to contemplate, sorry.