I was one of the first around here to buy a Roon Nucleus+ when they popped up around 6 years ago. I liked the way Roon worked compared to the Naim app at the time and found it sounded better than my fanless QNap NAS, which had in turn sounded better than the Naim Core in my system.
The motherboard in my Rev A Nucleus+ needed replacing around 3 years ago and I opted to PX it for a new Rev B Nucleus+ which has in its turn now stopped working due to a motherboard failure.
In the meantime, I’ve bought an Innuos Statement which I use for my day-to-day streaming requirements and sounds vastly superior. However, occasionally it encounters little problems and I use the Nucleus+ as an instant standby.
If I want to continue with this extravagant setup, I now have 3 options: get the motherboard on the old Nucleus+ replaced for around £1k, trade in the dead Nucleus+ for a new Nucleus Titan for around £3k (will the motherboard on this one last any longer?), or simply buy a Nucleus One for £500.
Which brings me to my question> Is there anyone on the forum who has compared a Nucleus One to a Nucleus Titan for sound quality? If so, what were your impressions?
Many thanks in advance!
Alternatively, I suppose, I could just buy an Innuos Pulse Mini if and when needed….
Having started with a N+ RevA, which I then thoroughly studied and modified/upgraded….then traded-in on a Titan. The issues that the first 2 generations of Nucleus had were thermally related. There were simply no provisions to address the thermal output of the rest of the internal boards/devices aside from the CPU. So the RAM, VRM’s, M.2/SATA SSD’s all ran hotter than was beneficial. I stuck a thermocouple inside and the idling temperatures inside mine when on, but not playing music, were…..disappointing. There are gaming PC’s with massive GPU’s that run significantly cooler. SO I stuck a trio of 75mm diameter x 50mm height circular german pin-based heat sinks on the front face and that showed a significant improvement in internal chassis temps. I then added heat sinks to the interior of the front face (increasing surface area inside and out to reduce thermal impedance) and this further dropper internal temps. I repeated that again with the sides (where the case heat sinks fins were cast-in) and temps dropped further…finally approaching what I thought were acceptable temps (sub 48C).
When the Titan trade-in offer came, I jumped on it. It brought both an observable SQ improvement in stock from (despite my N+ RevA using upgraded Apacer RAM, and upgraded Samsung 980 Pro M.2, and 3M EMI/RFI mitigations inside), using the stock power supply. It also ran significantly cooler.
The Titan’s CPU is both thermally and electrically more efficient. So is the thermal design of its case; using a much more modern design with multiple heat pipes that directly-couple to the much more efficient truncated-fan-geometry heat sinks that occupy the side of the case. A large portion of the bottom panel is vented with circular holes (that are also designed with EMC in mind). It took a single measurement with a thermocouple to see that this was a whole different ballgame.
For SQ purposes (and with some secondary thermal benefit), I use the IsoAcoustics ISO**-PUCK** mini under the Titan which dropped internal temps another 3-4C.
I’ve made various other upgrades using 3M EMI/RFI Materials, Apacer industrial wide-temp SATA SSD (music storage), and WD SN8100 Black M.2 OS/Boot drive upgrade. I then applied the 3M EMI/RFI material directly to: the RAM (both sides), various chips on the motherboard, the SATA SSD, the upgraded M.2 OS/Boot drive, and the inside of the case in various places. This brought significant additional SQ benefits for all endpoints (I’m all network-connected). The I added my Plixir Elite BDC 4A/19V LPS and another jump forward in SQ was seen.
All in, I’m glad I upgraded. BUT, the Titan is my primary music server and I’m 100% Roon.
Despite all the above, I think grabbing an Innuos Pulse Mini is a better fit for your ecosystem.
The Titan is faster with more capacity, and also supports more connectivity and DSP options. It should sound better as it is air cooled which keeps a lot of electrical noise out. The Nucleus One is well priced but fan cooled, meaning noise and dirt.
I wouldn’t buy either TBH, the Titan is ridiculously priced, and to add insult to injury it even comes with a cheap SMPS. You can put together a fan-less ROCK of similar performance for about 1/4 of the price, and that’s including an LPSU. I’ve had my ROCK/Akasa running for about 5 years without issues of any kind, and still going strong and sounding beautiful.
I used to own a Rev B Nucleus+ for about 2 years and sold it eventually, because I could not find any justification of owing it, I did not find it sounded any better than my Mac Mini 2012.
I’ve used the Akasa cases on a few priojects and they are, IMO, the best quality for the DIY options. BUT, the design, industrial design, and overall aesthetic quality of the Titan is really superb. It’s a fitting piece of HiFi next to me NDX 2 and SN3. The trade-in credit I was given for my N+ RevA was significant so it was not a major outlay of cash for me to obtain the Titan. I’m glad I did, though as you point out, one can do just as well sonically, for a lot less.
^^^ this
I wouldn’t buy hardware from Roon either. It’s easy enough to DIY, and the Roon website has very good step-by-step instructions for it, and tells you exactly what to get to make it 100% compatible with ROCK.
I run Roon ROCK on an Intel NUC i7 I built up in 2019 and it still runs just fine. I think my total cost, including a 1 TB SSD for storage was about $650 at the time, about 1/4 the cost of a less capable Nucleus at the time (which included no SSD storage).
That would be my choice if my Mac Mini 2012 dies, my Mac Mini is optimized, purposely configured for playing music, first for Audirvana, and then Roon.
I personally think it is not a good choice to go for a Roon Nucleus, given its cheap hardware profile, it is just a good-looking metal enclosure.
Yeah, I don’t get the part about it looking good. I don’t care. My ugly-ass Intel NUC sits hidden behind the 65” TV downstairs on the first floor, nowhere near my hifi system. It does the job. No one here cares how it looks, because no one here ever sees what it looks like.
I use a Samsung portable usb SSD Evo drive which plugs into the nuc for storage and is easy to unplugged and moved to pc for adding tunes.
I. Very close to seven years now it’s only been turned off when we go on the annual holiday for two weeks.
There have been the odd occasion when I’ve had internet connection outages when I’ve needed to power it on and off to re-establish a connection but essentially it’s run faultless for the last six years it’s tucked away out of sight behind the TV. No issues with running three roon endpoints simultaneously in the house plus some lite up sampling.
Likewise, I’ve been quite pleased with an i5 NUC in a fanless Akasa case for running Roon ROCK. It’s been rock-solid and trouble-free for over 7 years and counting.
Here it is in my sub-basement, along with some of my other hidden-away audio gear including a RPi running the rooUPnP bridge to my NDS, and my Cisco 2960 “audio switch”.
One of the purple Blue Jeans certified ethernet cables runs up through the floor to my NDS.
My Synology DS720+ NAS (which provides storage for Roon) and a HDPlex linear power supply are there too, just out of sight.
I can recommend the Small Green Computer i5 for around 700£. Linux based and specifically designed to work with roon but also supports audirvana for Linux.
I compared it Nucleus One and I think SGC sounds better. There difference is small. I prefer the SGC because it is more flexible and powerful, does not have a fan, and the hard drive extension works much better than in the Nucleus One
Not quite! Considering it’s all going to just be a backup I may simply run the Roon core on my Mac….. Small Green interesting, but more expensive than the N One to which I can just transfer my old SSD from the dead Nucleus. With the Mac I’d just have find a case to put the SSD in… Another Innuos as a backup would be more expensive, even second hand…
My Nucleus One is a few months old now; I have a USB DAC connected directly and a modded SimpleAudio Room player working as a Squeezebox. Very pleased with the sound; the USB DAC is resampled to produce a DSD512 stream via Roon, and the SA device is sampled to 48/24 and connected via an ethernet wireless bridge. Although I am very happy with the result, I might regret not getting a Titan if I need to add another zone or perform some DSP; however, that is unlikely to happen at this stage.
My current system is a NAC282/unNaimed power supplies/Stageline//NAP250DR, Kudos X3’s/KS-1, Pink Triangle Anniversary/modded RB300/Dynavector 10x5
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