I used to run Roon on a laptop with variable success. I am not particularly technical, nor did I want to spend several thousand dollars. The Nucleus + seemed a bit more than I needed in terms of specs, while the basic Nucleus would not meet my needs as I have a large music library. I was a bit concerned that the basic Nucleus might not have enough grunt.
My solution was to buy a desktop Windows 10 PC with i5 8Gb of RAM with 250 Gb SSD and connected directly to the router. I use this only for Roon and it is in a room away from my main listening room. My music is stored on an external hard drive connected to the PC. This computer is networked with my other PCs so that I can upload or amend music files without having to directly access this PC. Every so often, I directly access this PC, to ensure that Windows is up to date etc.
This is not the most elegant solution and might be a bit more difficult in a small apartment. Performance wise it has proven to be rock solid. I am not convinced that the computer side of things makes much difference to SQ (as long as the computer itself has got enough grunt to do what needs to be done - which multi-use computers may not have) - but some people will argue differently. The recommendation is also to connect the Devialet to your network using Ethernet. I use Ethernet connection through the power line, which has proven to be extremely stable.
Using Roon has been the only way that I have been able to achieve a stable listening environment with my Devialet, and on that basis alone it was worth the price of the Roon lifetime subscription - apart from the many merits of Roon itself. Quite frankly, I now consider Roon indispensable - especially since version 1.6 and Qobuz integration.
I should add, that the PC cost less than $1,000 and did not require any special knowledge on my part to implement. Including time to purchase the computer at a nearby store, it took me no more than about three hours to get up and running and including moving my Roon Core from my laptop to the new PC.
My solution was to buy a desktop Windows 10 PC with i5 8Gb of RAM with 250 Gb SSD and connected directly to the router. I use this only for Roon and it is in a room away from my main listening room. My music is stored on an external hard drive connected to the PC. This computer is networked with my other PCs so that I can upload or amend music files without having to directly access this PC. Every so often, I directly access this PC, to ensure that Windows is up to date etc.
This is not the most elegant solution and might be a bit more difficult in a small apartment. Performance wise it has proven to be rock solid. I am not convinced that the computer side of things makes much difference to SQ (as long as the computer itself has got enough grunt to do what needs to be done - which multi-use computers may not have) - but some people will argue differently. The recommendation is also to connect the Devialet to your network using Ethernet. I use Ethernet connection through the power line, which has proven to be extremely stable.
Using Roon has been the only way that I have been able to achieve a stable listening environment with my Devialet, and on that basis alone it was worth the price of the Roon lifetime subscription - apart from the many merits of Roon itself. Quite frankly, I now consider Roon indispensable - especially since version 1.6 and Qobuz integration.
I should add, that the PC cost less than $1,000 and did not require any special knowledge on my part to implement. Including time to purchase the computer at a nearby store, it took me no more than about three hours to get up and running and including moving my Roon Core from my laptop to the new PC.
