Article: The Definitive Guide To Roon Optimized Core Kit (ROCK)

[moos]

Thanks a lot for the detailed guide. Easy to follow.

Have you ever experienced problems in connecting ROCK (mine is on a NUC7i7) with Yggdrasil through USB?

I can't really set up Yggy in Ron: in the device list it doesn't appear at all or, quite weird, it appears for a flash only. 

I tested different usb cables, with or without Intona but nothing works.

When I connected another DAc through USB (ifi iDAC2) all went really well.

Any recommendation?

Thanks

Ciao

Andrea

 

[moos]

2 hours ago, moos said:

Thanks a lot for the detailed guide. Easy to follow.

Have you ever experienced problems in connecting ROCK (mine is on a NUC7i7) with Yggdrasil through USB?

I can't really set up Yggy in Ron: in the device list it doesn't appear at all or, quite weird, it appears for a flash only. 

I tested different usb cables, with or without Intona but nothing works.

When I connected another DAc through USB (ifi iDAC2) all went really well.

Any recommendation?

Thanks

Ciao

Andrea

 

 

Additional info: I've Yggdrasil with Gen 3 USB; I've also tested an Intona between Rock and Yggy and no improvements

Thanks for any support

[Serge Libotte]

Hello, I’ve multiple questions. Let number them for ease:

 

1.

The NUC we speak about are the i3 and the i7. I’m a bit surprised the i5 is never mentioned however benchmarks seems to place it closer to the i7 than the i3.

The i5 consumption is lower and so is the heat. Akasa, among other companies, proposes fanless enclosure for it (i7 fan is quite noisy apparently).

Would the i5 be powerful enough?

2.

I’ve a Devialet D200 which can be used as a Roon Network End Point since version 1.3. This is a blessing for all Devialet owner. I’d like to improve Ethernet. Any sounding recommendation is welcome.

3.

Did someone compared the SQ of this appliance to other solutions?

 

Thanks,

 

Serge.

[Lloyd Borrett]

G'day,

 

How do you backup the ROCK? External USB drive, to a NAS or whatever? Is the process automated and if so, how?

 

Best regards, Lloyd Borrett.

[The Computer Audiophile]

You don’t backup the OS or Roon server app. Just backup the database. I do it to a NAS. All automated through the Roon app. 

[Ben-M]

On 02/06/2017 at 6:46 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Note: ROCK isn't for those looking to filter or resample audio by routing it through HQPlayer. Only the Roon OS can be installed on a ROCK, not the required HQPlayer app. Fortunately, Roon now features many DSP options natively and these will run on the core i7 NUC.

 

I don't exactly understand what you mean here. I haven't implemented Roon + HQPlayer yet, but from my understanding to use them together we have 2.5 options:

 

1. Roon Core + HQPlayer are on the same, powerful computer. 

 

2. Roon Core is on one computer, then HQPlayer is on another computer, configured as a playable zone in Roon and is connected to the DAC.

- This follows this Roon kb:

https://kb.roonlabs.com/HQPlayer

- This fits this Roon HQPlayer setup kb.

https://kb.roonlabs.com/HQPlayer_Setup
 

2.5 Follows #2, but the HQPlayer output is over the network and to an HQPlayer NAA device (essentially an endpoint/renderer), which connects to the DAC.

 

I believe your statement matches case #1, as the ROCK OS won't allow you to install HQPlayer Desktop on it. 

 

However, in case #2 and #2.5, I believe you can install Roon Core on the dedicated computer with ROCK OS and then follow the Roon + HQPlayer setup; point the Roon Core at the HQPlayer computer on the network and configure it as a zone within Roon.

 

I haven't followed through with this yet, but that's my understanding and I hope that it's true. I'd love to install Roon Core on a dedicated NUC running ROCK OS, as this would be the most stable and supported method, but I also need HQPlayer support. 

 

I'd appreciate your help in clarifying the above, as your original article casts a dark shadow on my hopes :-P

[Ben-M]

@The Computer Audiophile

Any chance you could reply to the above? Or if anyone else has any direct experience yet?

[beetlemania]

Set up a ROCK last weekend. NUC7i3BNH, 128 GB M.2, 4 GB DDR4.

Roon is fantastic. I finally get what all the fuss is about. The networking thing is far easier than I thought - my previous experience setting up a network (typing in IP addresses etc) gave me the entirely wrong impression. It wasn't immediately evident how to find my music files but I have that worked out now other than my external HDD in a Oyen case doesn't show up. I'm still learning the Roon features - is there a way to display album credits?

 

As for SQ, it is excellent. Compared to my PC/JRMC it overall sounds more intelligible, detailed, and liquid. Some vocals, however, sound more congested for some reason. I may do some direct A-B'ing to get a handle on these impressions. At any rate, this is a great way to control my digital collection (including TIDAL) and get fantastic SQ.

[ssh]

Click on the album and you should get this display, then click the credits.

[beetlemania]

27 minutes ago, ssh said:

Click on the album and you should get this display, then click the credits.

 

Oh, you mean the "Credits" link? lol, good thing it wasn't a snake.

 

Thanks!

[LaurentS]

I am trying to set up ROCK, but I am stuck at the "Connect to ROCK the same way you would connect to any other folder on your network (not with a web browser)" phase.

 

ROCK does not appear as a network device in W10. How should I connect to it ?

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Laurent

[beetlemania]

11 minutes ago, LaurentS said:

I am trying to set up ROCK, but I am stuck at the "Connect to ROCK the same way you would connect to any other folder on your network (not with a web browser)" phase.

 

I followed the instructions on the Roon site: https://kb.roonlabs.com/ROCK_Install_Guide

 

My main hangup was I had the compressed *.gz file on the same flash drive as where I was trying to uncompress. Took me a few minutes to figure out why Etcher was not happy. Then it took a few minutes to figure out how to direct Roon to my music files.

[LaurentS]

On 16/04/2018 at 6:57 PM, beetlemania said:

 

I followed the instructions on the Roon site: https://kb.roonlabs.com/ROCK_Install_Guide

 

My main hangup was I had the compressed *.gz file on the same flash drive as where I was trying to uncompress. Took me a few minutes to figure out why Etcher was not happy. Then it took a few minutes to figure out how to direct Roon to my music files.

 

Thank you Beetlemania. Works fine now !

[sahmen]

I am running Roon core on a mostly dedicated Mac mini, and it works beautifully in that role, servicing all the endpoints spread through my house. My NAS is the storage for all my audio files.

 

Is there any advantage at all in getting the NUC/Rock installation instead, especially, any SQ-related advantage?  If not, then I would like to go the "if it ain't broke..." road, but I would like to know.

 

The main advantage of the Rock that I am seeing from the reviews is ease of use, and simplicity, but I think my mac mini option is also very simple and easy to use already, apart its availability to work readily like a normal mac if I should ever want it to...

 

I wouldn't want to change that unless there are some SQ advantages that I shall miss without the NUC/ROCK setup.

 

Any helpful thoughts would be welcome.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, sahmen said:

I am running Roon core on a mostly dedicated Mac mini, and it works beautifully in that role, servicing all the endpoints spread through my house. My NAS is the storage for all my audio files.

 

Is there any advantage at all in getting the NUC/Rock installation instead, especially, any SQ-related advantage?  If not, then I would like to go the "if it ain't broke..." road, but I would like to know.

 

The main advantage of the Rock that I am seeing from the reviews is ease of use, and simplicity, but I think my mac mini option is also very simple and easy to use already, apart its availability to work readily like a normal mac if I should ever want it to...

 

I wouldn't want to change that unless there are some SQ advantages that I shall miss without the NUC/ROCK setup.

 

Any helpful thoughts would be welcome.

 

Ifyou are happy you shouldn’t fix what’s not broken. There is no sound quality advantage moving to a NUC. 

[hltf]

I’m thinking about replacing my aging MacMini with a Roon Nucleus. It appears that most people find the SQ of Nucleus to be better than from the NUC i3 or i5, correct?

 

And does anyone know if Roon is any closer to an upgraded model as Danny Dulai of Roon has mentioned on a Roon blog somewhere? I can perhaps postpone for a few months or even a year so long as my MacMini holds up which it should hopefully do.

 

Another question. If implementing a copper case for the Nucleus is too expensive as Danny Dulai has said in the same blog, do you think that my using 3M conductive copper on the inside (and perhaps outside also to the extent possible) of the casing would help with keeping out RFI/EMI, or anything else?  Also, any risks to this?

 

Finally, what are the advantages of the Sonic Green Computer sonically or in terms of set-up simplicity or reliability?

 

Many thanks for any insights.

 

[Peng]

Hi, can someone explain/send link how to copy music to the internal hard disc?

I have installed Roon Core on a 128G M.2 SSD drive, and want to store music on an internal 1TB 2.5” mechanical drive, but I don’t see the drive, only the remaining space of my M.2 drive under “storage”. Can I only run one internal drive with Roon core?

 

Thank you in advance. Otherwise Installation was a breeze, and I love using Roon with Tidal on NUC. This system works great with my Violectric DAT and DAC.

 

Cheers

 

Peng

[sahmen]

On 6/9/2018 at 6:55 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Ifyou are happy you shouldn’t fix what’s not broken. There is no sound quality advantage moving to a NUC. 

Thanks very much... Now I have a similar question about any possible advantages of moving to a Sonic Transporter i5 from the same mac mini.  If there are no sound quality advantages, then I will consider staying put, and not pulling any triggers.

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, sahmen said:

Thanks very much... Now I have a similar question about any possible advantages of moving to a Sonic Transporter i5 from the same mac mini.  If there are no sound quality advantages, then I will consider staying put, and not pulling any triggers.

Others may have a different experience but I wouldn’t switch if looking for a sonic improvement only. 

[sahmen]

34 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Others may have a different experience but I wouldn’t switch if looking for a sonic improvement only. 

Thanks again for this wise piece of counseling. ?  My wallet is especially grateful.

[drjimwillie]

@The Computer Audiophile

Hi   

I have  have a CAPS Pipeline  with my music stored  internally.  I run Roon  and HQ player.  I have the SOTM card and run USB to my Holo Spring DAC. 

 I just bought the new Qnap HS453DX NAS. (It is fanless) It has an Intel Cleron J4105 quad core processor.   Part of the Qnap advertising shows the NAS as a Roon core. 

 I am planning on moving Roon off the pipeline and on to the new Qnap NAS.  I am wondering if Roon ROCK is a good fit? 

 I am planning to run the pipeline as a audio Linux Lxqt with HQembeded, loaded into RAM. SSD Drive removed, replaced with an Optane boot drive. As a Roon zone (or Roon endpoint or HQ NAA???  )Music on the NAS. 

Does this sound like a good plan?

 

The NAS has 4GB RAM. (2) 6 TB 3.5 drives.  It has the ability for additional (2) M.2 SATA NVME drives,  but for now I am not installing them because I understand they could be noisy. 

 

 My plan is that eventually I will stream from the Pipeline, over Ethernet to a NUC endpoint. 

 

 

 

[drjimwillie]

On 2/10/2019 at 1:12 PM, drjimwillie said:

@The Computer Audiophile

Hi   

I have  have a CAPS Pipeline  with my music stored  internally.  I run Roon  and HQ player.  I have the SOTM card and run USB to my Holo Spring DAC. 

 I just bought the new Qnap HS453DX NAS. (It is fanless) It has an Intel Cleron J4105 quad core processor.   Part of the Qnap advertising shows the NAS as a Roon core. 

 I am planning on moving Roon off the pipeline and on to the new Qnap NAS.  I am wondering if Roon ROCK is a good fit? 

 I am planning to run the pipeline as a audio Linux Lxqt with HQembeded, loaded into RAM. SSD Drive removed, replaced with an Optane boot drive. As a Roon zone (or Roon endpoint or HQ NAA???  )Music on the NAS. 

Does this sound like a good plan?

 

The NAS has 4GB RAM. (2) 6 TB 3.5 drives.  It has the ability for additional (2) M.2 SATA NVME drives,  but for now I am not installing them because I understand they could be noisy. 

 

 My plan is that eventually I will stream from the Pipeline, over Ethernet to a NUC endpoint. 

 

 

 

@The Computer AudiophileWill you please see my question above, thank you

[The Computer Audiophile]

On 2/10/2019 at 12:12 PM, drjimwillie said:

@The Computer Audiophile

Hi   

I have  have a CAPS Pipeline  with my music stored  internally.  I run Roon  and HQ player.  I have the SOTM card and run USB to my Holo Spring DAC. 

 I just bought the new Qnap HS453DX NAS. (It is fanless) It has an Intel Cleron J4105 quad core processor.   Part of the Qnap advertising shows the NAS as a Roon core. 

 I am planning on moving Roon off the pipeline and on to the new Qnap NAS.  I am wondering if Roon ROCK is a good fit? 

 I am planning to run the pipeline as a audio Linux Lxqt with HQembeded, loaded into RAM. SSD Drive removed, replaced with an Optane boot drive. As a Roon zone (or Roon endpoint or HQ NAA???  )Music on the NAS. 

Does this sound like a good plan?

 

The NAS has 4GB RAM. (2) 6 TB 3.5 drives.  It has the ability for additional (2) M.2 SATA NVME drives,  but for now I am not installing them because I understand they could be noisy. 

 

 My plan is that eventually I will stream from the Pipeline, over Ethernet to a NUC endpoint. 

 

 

 

Thanks for asking again, this one slipped down in my inbox. 

 

I have many thoughts surrounding this topic as I'm working with the Roon team and ASUS (separately) on an article about improving the speed of Roon.

 

Anyway, I love that NAS. It has a great design. Yes, you can totally run Roon core on the QNAP NAS, but be forewarned that it can be slow if your library is large. I have 320,000 tracks and on some NAS units the slowness is just too much to handle. If you install Roon core on the NAS, and your satisfied with the speed, then you'll have no need for ROCK. However, if the speed isn't good enough, a ROCK running on a NUC may help you with this.

 

There are some issues with running a ROCK / NUC and using a NAS to store the music. ROCK can't monitor the storage very well for new music and it's slower than locally attached storage such as a ROCK with USB or internal drive. You could always get a ROCK / NUC with local music and use the NAS to backup automatically. 

 

Pipeline as an endpoint could be nice. 

[drjimwillie]

On 2/17/2019 at 11:31 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Thanks for asking again, this one slipped down in my inbox. 

 

I have many thoughts surrounding this topic as I'm working with the Roon team and ASUS (separately) on an article about improving the speed of Roon.

 

Anyway, I love that NAS. It has a great design. Yes, you can totally run Roon core on the QNAP NAS, but be forewarned that it can be slow if your library is large. I have 320,000 tracks and on some NAS units the slowness is just too much to handle. If you install Roon core on the NAS, and your satisfied with the speed, then you'll have no need for ROCK. However, if the speed isn't good enough, a ROCK running on a NUC may help you with this.

 

There are some issues with running a ROCK / NUC and using a NAS to store the music. ROCK can't monitor the storage very well for new music and it's slower than locally attached storage such as a ROCK with USB or internal drive. You could always get a ROCK / NUC with local music and use the NAS to backup automatically. 

 

Pipeline as an endpoint could be nice. 

 Thank you for your reply. 

 I have read this thread from the beginning and wasn’t entirely clear on the value of ROCK over Roon Core.  My understanding is that rock is optimized so it has less overall processes and will be quieter.   I thought possibly faster because there would be less fluff. Is that the value?

 I am looking at this NAS with a 4 core clarion processor has a NUC with two big HDDs attached (RAID 1). This NAS/NUC  Will primarily be my Roon core and to store music files and hold any personal back up files. (I only have 112 GB/4,700 files of music).  The idea is that all of the Roon processing and noise will be removed from the pipeline. The pipeline will just have HQPlayer, to do the heavy lifting, only processing/playing what it’s told by the Roon core.  I know that you can specify HQ player in a separate location by Roon. What is the best way to do this?  Is it called a zone?  

In this iteration the pipeline will be an endpoint with AL working with the operating system in RAM. ( this will help me cut my teeth on Linux).   In the next iteration the pipeline well be the server, driving a NUC Endpoint.  I am hoping a Roon bridge will make that easy? Is that correct?

 I Purchased a 32 GB Optane drive for the NAS and will install Roon server/ROCK onto it.  I know you said that rock does not work on an Optane drive,  but I think you meant that it does not take advantage of the speed of the drive,  but be quieter because of the low power consumption and internally the drive will be quicker. The M.2 slot in the Qnap NAS only has an SATA Connection so it does not take full advantage of the Optane speed anyway.  Is this correct?

I am so excited. 

Please enjoy your day,

Bill

 

 

[drjimwillie]

On 2/17/2019 at 11:31 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Thanks for asking again, this one slipped down in my inbox. 

 

I have many thoughts surrounding this topic as I'm working with the Roon team and ASUS (separately) on an article about improving the speed of Roon.

 

Anyway, I love that NAS. It has a great design. Yes, you can totally run Roon core on the QNAP NAS, but be forewarned that it can be slow if your library is large. I have 320,000 tracks and on some NAS units the slowness is just too much to handle. If you install Roon core on the NAS, and your satisfied with the speed, then you'll have no need for ROCK. However, if the speed isn't good enough, a ROCK running on a NUC may help you with this.

 

There are some issues with running a ROCK / NUC and using a NAS to store the music. ROCK can't monitor the storage very well for new music and it's slower than locally attached storage such as a ROCK with USB or internal drive. You could always get a ROCK / NUC with local music and use the NAS to backup automatically. 

 

Pipeline as an endpoint could be nice. 

 Thank you for your reply. 

 I have read this thread from the beginning and wasn’t entirely clear on the value of ROCK over Roon Core.  My understanding is that rock is optimized so it has less overall processes and will be quieter.   I thought possibly faster because there would be less fluff. Is that the value?

 I am looking at this NAS with a 4 core clarion processor has a NUC with two big HDDs attached (RAID 1). This NAS/NUC  Will primarily be my Roon core and to store music files and hold any personal back up files. (I only have 112 GB/4,700 files of music).  The idea is that all of the Roon processing and noise will be removed from the pipeline. The pipeline will just have HQPlayer, to do the heavy lifting, only processing/playing what it’s told by the Roon core.  I know that you can specify HQ player in a separate location by Roon. What is the best way to do this?  Is it called a zone?  

In this iteration the pipeline will be an endpoint with AL working with the operating system in RAM. ( this will help me cut my teeth on Linux).   In the next iteration the pipeline well be the server, driving a NUC Endpoint.  I am hoping a Roon bridge will make that easy? Is that correct?

 I Purchased a 32 GB Optane drive for the NAS and will install Roon server/ROCK onto it.  I know you said that rock does not work on an Optane drive,  but I think you meant that it does not take advantage of the speed of the drive,  but be quieter because of the low power consumption and internally the drive will be quicker. The M.2 slot in the Qnap NAS only has an SATA Connection so it does not take full advantage of the Optane speed anyway.  Is this correct?

I am so excited. 

Please enjoy your day,

Bill

 

Update:  I installed the Optane drive in the Qnap HS 453dx NAS. Now I find that it is not supported by this hardware.

 I understand that there is a noise penalty for using solid-state drive‘s in our audio gear. I was using the Optene because at 32 GB it was said that the noise was not noticeable. Now the question is do I install Roon on the 6TB HDD or try to find another  small quiet SSD to use to load Roon.   Any suggestions?? 

 Also I reread the first post and I see that HQ player is not suported by Roon ROCK.  Does that matter if Roon is loaded on the Nas and HQ player is loaded on the pipeline?