I’m delighted to hear that you love Roon.
Perhaps the OP will also love Roon and should invest in getting Roon now - perhaps not - that depends on many factors.
I think Roon is ideal for music lovers like yourself who have a very high budget music reproduction system that produces extremely high SQ from more than one source.
You have an array of great music at your fingertips - so adding a very powerful and informative music organizing and exploration technology makes sense to help make the most of your excellent sound system.
I operate at the mid budget level where I have to invest with great care to get the most possible SQ uplift from the small amounts I can invest in my sound system.
That’s why Roon is not for me at this time.
Although, having never heard Roon, I’m not even sure about that because whereas most people say that Roon makes little or no difference to SQ, a few rave about real SQ improvements from various aspects of Roon, especially the DSP functions.
Regardless, you were conflating the Roon Nucleus with the dCS Network Bridge. I’m just setting it straight – to avoid confusing others who might be interested – that they are two different things with different purposes.
I think for anyone with a compatible system for running Roon Core (and one can have that for far less than the cost of a Nucleus), Roon can be a terrific service for organizing one’s digital life, if you don’t mins the subscription ($10/mon). I don’t think it’s limited, or even targeted, to high budget systems.
I can’t speak to Roon’s affect on SQ one way or the other. I don’t make any claims about it, versus streaming from a NAS that I did before (but with my previous device, a ND5-XS).
My post never suggested at all that the dCS Network Bridge had the same functionality as a Nucleus.
I only pointed out that if, as someone else had proposed, anyone was thinking of buying Nucleus to add to a 272, she might be advised to consider whether to spend that same amount of money on an NB instead as it would in my experience have a massive positive transformative effect on SQ.
completely agree. If i had to choose between nice classification of music library vs sound quality upgrade, i would always choose the latest.
If roon nucleus would improve the sound as a melco nas vs a common nas, i would perhaps hesitate between roon nucleus or dcs bridge.
Then I was confused by your prose. My apologies. Everything should be clear now. Roon/Nucleus has little or nothing to add to SQ. It’s not an audio device, it’s a service.
Thanks for all the replies and it’s been interesting reading the various comments.
Since my original post, I have renewed my Tidal subscription so that I can try it out again. Also as it would be useful to have access to a wider source of music if I was to fully benefit from the Roon offering.
As a result I can see and hear that Tidal has improved since I first trialled it in the ‘early days’. I gave up after the initial free trial because it sounded so poor! I also like the way it highlights available music from an artist I may be playing via UPnP (which I assume is a recent development).
As a result I think I am more than happy to continue with just Tidal combined with my own music for the moment. Not sure Roon would give me too much more (from what I have seen from my free trial) and I only have so much time to listen to the music I have!
I’m also happy with my Qnap NAS and have no problems ripping and serving music. However the recent removal of my NAP 250 as I went to active speakers has left a gap on my rack, which is never a good thing as I think mmm… maybe a Uniti Core could go there? I do of course also accept the rational feedback outlined above, as to why I don’t need one!
If you’ve never used Roon, why say forget it?
Not to mention if you’re a little bit handy with a computer you build the equivalent of a Nucleus+ for less than 1/4 the cost of one.
As stated above:
it’s a waste of money if SQ is your main aim.
Roon is the program. Roon Nucleus is hardware. Two different things.
Agreed. It’s the functionality.
I’m very well aware of the difference. My comment about it is in response to the suggestion that one could use the money for a Nucleus+ towards a S/H dCS NB, but the Nucleus+ is the most expensive option for running Roon Core, and only necessary if you want the convenience and form factor of it, at a very high premium.
I’m not conflating Roon and Nucleus, but others seem to be conflating Nucleus and dCS NB. They are two different things.
Agreed, sorry, I mixed up the comments.
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