I just use my Mac which is upstairs. This means that I did not have to buy anything else and could spend the money on streaming subscriptions.
If you have an iMac Iād would use thatā¦ it can run in the backgroundā¦ itās plug and playā¦ it just worksā¦ and you have plenty of reserve power so you can do DSP on DSD media if you want ā¦ which otherwise can be quite demanding.
The iMac also supports IPV6 and Roon seems to work more responsively with ipv6 (like most apps) compared to IPv4ā¦ I like to cut down the clutter and the number of boxesā¦ and the iMac does it for me.
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Simon, does your iMac have an SSD (which the Roon Core allegedly needs in order to run properly) or does it run on a spinning hard drive?
Chris my iMac has a hybrid drive
Hi Kevin - iād echo the others here. I wanted a plug and play (and a nice looking, silent box as it originally was in the lounge) solution rather than putting it together myself. No issue doing a DIY approach but was happy to spend a bit more and get it all done for me (apart from putting in an additional SSD drive to store the music). My Nucleus sits in the study with the 2960, uses the standard supplied SMPS brick and is just fit and forget. Iād certainly trial Roon first on another machine and then if you like it, then decide the best solution to host Roon on - ready built, DIY, ripper built in etc.
James
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Thanks, mineās a few years old and HDD only, I was thinking of moving Roon to it, but maybe not. I have a feeling the specs Roon recommend are a bit more than you really need, but if the SSD is essential, I might have to think again.
If you stream mainly Qobuz or Tidal then I think SSD is not really essential because no HD access here, only the Roon Server process accessing the ram.
SSD is pretty essential for holding the Roon database, it makes a big difference to the performance of database searches.
The music can reside on conventional hard disks though.
I built a Rock using an 8th generation i3 NUC. Itās really fast and quiet and wasnāt too expensive to put together.
Search performance is not a big deal to me, I can live with some delay. SQ is all that matters.
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How old is the iMac and which version of macOS are you using?
Iāve successfully used Roon on a 2012 Mac Mini with an internal hard drive in the past - Iād be tempted to give it a shot, especially if you have a reasonable amount of RAM.
I do like the general system boost SSDs give however and have successfully run various macOS versions for a few years now booting the 2012 Mini from an external Samsung T3 or T5 SSD connected via USB 3.0. This would be another option to consider if youāre concerned about the iMac being a bit slow.
Interesting observation regarding the database. Iām a little surprised the SSD makes a big difference for that as Iād assumed the database itself would not be huge and potentially a searchable copy held in RAM during when running, but perhaps not.
Iām using Roon on an early 2009 MacMini with 8GB of RAM and an SSD fitted. The library isnāt
that large (about 900 CDs ripped, stored locally) and Iām happy with its performance. Itās all I use
it for, it just sits on my network being access remotely by other devices. I donāt use any streaming services with it.
Iāve been wondering how an older 2010 Mini might fare for Roon duties running headless.
I think having my current Mini on wifi is probably the most rate limiting aspect for audio, but Roon will still play audio from the NAS accessed over wifi. Our old microwave can kill the signal though!
Itās from 2011, so getting on a bit. I could replace it or maybe upgrade the RAM etc. I was thinking of getting a NUC for Roon, but thatās an extra box. The iMac is used mostly by my wife, but I was thinking of using my own login to run Roon in the hope that it would run in the background and remain discoverable.
The 2011 iMacs had i5 quad core processors as standard according to that - I suspect it would be up to the job. I think from an earlier post you say you alreday have Roon, I think itās pretty simple to shift the licence authorisation from one machine to another. If it worked on the internal drive, I suspect it would be even better booted from an external SSD, though if itās your wifeās machine youād have to migrate her account over if leaving it on in the background so it might not be that practical.
Iām running it well enough on a dual core 2GHz machine.
At least with a small library (800 albums) it doesnāt seem to struggle. It can play, I can search amongst the related information in Roon while the machine is also ripping without any problems.
Launching/loading is a little slow (10-15sā¦) but a price worth paying or more to the point not paying!
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