Those of you who read my last post in my systems topic know I’ve been away for a while from the audio ‘scene’ but recently started checking up on the latest developments again. I believe I had to catch up on 250+ pages of posts on CA in my favorite topic on CA (the one Confused linked to) but over this past week I did. 
As I trust Romaz, Austinpop and several others posting in that topic (I’ve tried more of the stuff discussed in that topic last year) I’ve joined the latest NUC craze and today ordered:
Ballistix DDR4 SODIMM Sport LT 1x4GB 2400
Intel Mini-PC Barebone NUC7PJYH (this is the Pentium one which is supposedly even better than the Celeron one from a SQ perspective)
Akasa Newton JC fanless case
And a simple&cheap USB stick: Kingston DataTraveler 50 32GB to boot Audiolinux from.
These specific NUC’s and case are pretty much sold out everywhere. Perhaps Intel has cancelled the product, don’t know. I found the NUC in one shop in NL. The Akasa I found on Amazon UK. The Brits here could order both from scan.co.uk which I almost did as well. They even have the Celeron NUC in stock.
My D250 is still in France but I will build the system in the mean time while waiting for it to return. No hurries.
The NUC will replace my SoTM SMS-200 which I fortunately did not upgrade yet to Ultra (Neo) specs yet. I will keep my current DIY music server and try out AudioLinux on it as well. It’ll be the Roon Server and the NUC will become the Roon endpoint. Both will be powered by my Hynes SR7 PSU.
Will look into DC power cables next. Could order some from Ghentaudio but these’ll take weeks to arrive so I’ll probably cook something up in the mean time.
The upcoming Uptone ‘ethernet regen’ as an isolating ethernet switch in between those systems seems to be an ideal setup but unfortunately it won’t be available until 02-2019 (at earliest). Perhaps this switch will negate the need for an optimized server in a 2 PC setup.
To be continued.
As I trust Romaz, Austinpop and several others posting in that topic (I’ve tried more of the stuff discussed in that topic last year) I’ve joined the latest NUC craze and today ordered:
Ballistix DDR4 SODIMM Sport LT 1x4GB 2400
Intel Mini-PC Barebone NUC7PJYH (this is the Pentium one which is supposedly even better than the Celeron one from a SQ perspective)
Akasa Newton JC fanless case
And a simple&cheap USB stick: Kingston DataTraveler 50 32GB to boot Audiolinux from.
These specific NUC’s and case are pretty much sold out everywhere. Perhaps Intel has cancelled the product, don’t know. I found the NUC in one shop in NL. The Akasa I found on Amazon UK. The Brits here could order both from scan.co.uk which I almost did as well. They even have the Celeron NUC in stock.
My D250 is still in France but I will build the system in the mean time while waiting for it to return. No hurries.
The NUC will replace my SoTM SMS-200 which I fortunately did not upgrade yet to Ultra (Neo) specs yet. I will keep my current DIY music server and try out AudioLinux on it as well. It’ll be the Roon Server and the NUC will become the Roon endpoint. Both will be powered by my Hynes SR7 PSU.
Will look into DC power cables next. Could order some from Ghentaudio but these’ll take weeks to arrive so I’ll probably cook something up in the mean time.
The upcoming Uptone ‘ethernet regen’ as an isolating ethernet switch in between those systems seems to be an ideal setup but unfortunately it won’t be available until 02-2019 (at earliest). Perhaps this switch will negate the need for an optimized server in a 2 PC setup.
To be continued.
PS Audio P3, Shunyata ΞTRON Alpha Digital and HC/Furutech power cables, Paul Hynes SR7EHD-MR4, DIY Roon Server & Roon Endpoint running AudioLinux Headless, Phasure Lush^2 USB cable, Audioquest Diamond RJ/E ethernet, Uptone Audio etherREGEN, Mutec MC-3+ USB, Shunyata ΞTRON Anaconda Digital XLR AES/EBU, Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI, Nordost Tyr Reference LS cables, Von Schweikert VR-5 SE Anniversary Edition, Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0, JL Audio Fathom F112. More detail here.
The Netherlands
The Netherlands
