Melco has left the building, but now I have a white elephant on my rack

Audio Systems
21

Hi Matt

I was told by Melco’s ‘main guy’, that servers don’t actually require too much of a powerful processor serve the music, and that Mac minis and NUCs introduce noise. Probably why he ended up flogging the one of their Servers!:rofl:

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22

I totally agree Pete. I actually have four back up SSDs with all my music on. If Qobuz goes bust I’ll pop out and get a dedicated server, possibly an Innuos.:wink:

I have a very small music library indeed. I can’t see Qobuz not having Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Bowie, Eagles, Supertramp etc…:wink:

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23

That is exactly what I have Pete…The last album I downloaded was 60% off what HDTracks and others charge.

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24

I would love to learn more about the nature of this noise and how it is transmitted to the DAC over a network connection.

25

After several decades working in the recording industry I certainly can. Not only can repertoire move owners which can result in periods of unavailability but familiar recordings can be withdrawn and reissued as remasterings which you may not like. I recall corresponding with someone who was spending his time visiting second hand stores to find original CDs as he hated the “loudness war” copies that had replaced them. Qobuz do sometimes have to remove albums though they are good at keeping old ones if they can.

Yes, all of those acts will have long lives as available repertoire. However one day they too will be unavailable as younger people call the shots. It only needs a bean counter to decide that the space on their server for Supertramp would be more profitable storing Beyoncé!

26

What I say is, if you are worried about the music disappearing then buy it. But the reality I have found over my years of streaming is, very little disappears and then it can pop back up again. Or be found on a different streaming provider.

I had qobuz subline for one year, and in that year I purchased all that I wanted to own, After that I just get the normal subscription, and with streaming being so dam good these days, I haven’t bothered even thinking about downloading any music for well over a year. Plus I hardly even use my melco these days as well. But that’s just me.

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27

Yes - this makes absolute sense actually. Memory for Database Performance (mahooosive in my case) Chip for processing the calculations required for DSP (not my bag)

28

64GB of RAM for Roon only usage is overkill IMHO.
Best is to build a Roon ROCK on a relatively recent i3 processor that barely heats and is already very capable at browsing library and at doing even advanced DSP operations without taking more than 10% of CPU performance.
There’s absolutely no need for i5/i7/i9 processors for Roon, especially if no need to dispatch different audio streams at a time, and if no DSP usage to OverSample to DSD (and Roon clearly isn’t the best at DSD conversion, so I wouldn’t recommend to take that route).
In brief a 13th or 14th i3 NUC with 16 to 32GB should already allow to have a quite decent Roon ROCK server for many years.

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29

BTW, recent Roon Titan servers are only i3 with 8GB RAM if I recall well…
Unless you’re really fond of their design, Titans pricing looks like total ripoff: more than 3 grounds!!!

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30

Good points Erwan, so please let me clarify the rationale behind my recommendations:

  • I agree that a Core Ultra 5 or 7 processor is overkill today. However my previous Roon Server, just replaced (based on a Gen 6 (Skylake) i5) was 10 years’ old and trust me it was slow. I wanted my new server to last just as long and since NUCs are so cheap the marginal cost of “buying ahead” on capacity was minimal.
  • Ditto the memory.
  • My rationale for recommending NUC 15 over NUC 13 or 14 has nothing to do with the extra power and everything to do with improved thermal efficiency. My Core Ultra 7 has a TDP of 28W(!), a significant improvement over previous generations (and I believe Gen 16 should bring another step change improvement).
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31

@AndrewS, fully agreed on the previous decade processors where the i3/i5 were anemic.
But at least since the 12th and 13th gen, that’s another story and basic i3s totally outperform previous i7 of 6, 7, 8, 9th… generation.

Regarding the NUC version, I’m afraid 14th and 15th gen are still NOT officially supported by Roon ROCK… (even though we know it should work)

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32

I use streaming, such as Qobuz, to discover music. If I really like an album, I buy it either on CD, on vinyl, or sometimes both. When I just have music playing in the background, streaming is more than sufficient, but for dedicated listening sessions I switch the SIA-030 to Class A and use the albums.

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33

I agree Pete…It will be a world of gang related types of music (Rap etc…) I have a sneaky feeling that I won’t be around then, and my dCS will join me through those pearly gates!:smiley:

34

Good morning Ivo

Did you compare other Vitus amps before your lovely SIA-0300? I’m looking at the SIA-025, but also the R-101 MK2. Any thoughts?

Thanks

David

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That’s my plan too.

36

Don’t put it on Ebay until I’ve sold mine!:rofl:

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I’ve see yours on there I think David - it’s a handsome unit, and a good discount. Not sure where the market is at - fingers crossed you get what you want for it :crossed_fingers:t2:

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38

is there a SQ difference btw. different CPU generation one may use in roon core?

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I use DietPi so I can run MinimServer. But as you say ROCK apparently works fine as well.

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None.
What matters here is that both the ROCK and the DAC are hardwired to your network via Ethernet.
The music file server can be deported and even running on an other node connected to the network via wifi (on wifi mesh system for example), the sound quality will remain the same.

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