Nucleus +. With SSD installed. Works very well.
Innuos Zen Mini here and it suits my Uniti Atom.
Works great and is simple to use and get running, itâs effectively plug and play.
Peter
Just curious as to why you guys running Roon on Nucleus/Nucleus+? Is it because Roon say it improves the SQ?
A lot of Roon users just run the Roon Server on PC, iMac, Mac Mini, NAS, etc. and they are dong OK?
I myself run the Roon Server on a MM (2012), and it works fine with very low CPU/Energy usages.
Mostly convenience.
A Nucleus is no more no less than an Intel NUC in a fanless case with a customized BIOS and a slightly different Roon Rock (thermal management).
Itâs a nice plug and play device targeting non DIY customers.
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OK, I got it. 
Roon are cautious to make no claims about sound quality but a home demo satisfied me that it sounded better (to my ears in my system) than a high-specced QNAP fanless NAS.
I put this down to everything HW and SW being pared down to the minimum, so no superfluous components or processes are running.
Itâs also got a very good case and Roon are careful to opt for low noise solutions in their choice of components, including processors.
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Hi Mickeal,
Roon Labs uses stock NUC motherboards for their Nucleus and Nucleus+
One based on an i3 architecture and the Plus version around the i7 architecture.
So no real difference with the boards you may buy from Intel:
â> https://www.intel.fr/content/www/fr/fr/products/boards-kits/nuc/boards.html
I chose to have a dedicated, appliance for Roon, rather than integrating it all with a computer used for other purposes. I just didnât want to pay the high premium of a Nucleus. My NUC is equivalent to a Nucleus+ at 1/4 the cost. With ROCK, I donât have to manage anything. Updates, patches, etc all happen via the Roon controller on my iPad. Itâs essentially an appliance. Set it and forget it.
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Sure, theyâre Intel boards. Thereâs info on the Roon forum on how theyâre customised/set up for enabling/disabling functions, on processor selection and on cooling solutions, mostly posted by Danny Dulai.
Cool, that may be what I would like to do if my MM dies, or some day I feel like doing something.
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Absolutely, Roon Labs chose 2 specific motherboards from those available.
But these motherboards are not built for Roon.
The Nucleus Plus hostes the NUC7i7DN motherboard which includes a nice low power i7 processor. (It is the one I use in my own little Roon server).
Most of the tweaks Roon Labs made are software, and target power management. The goal is to ensure the motherboardâs reliability and longevity.
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Exactly as Thomas and Josquin said. The Nucleus contains stock Intel NUC7 boards. Anything else is Roon (Danny) tweaking the software for thermal cooling etc. They can also handle Crestron which I believe ROCK cannot.
And to keep noise down - as above. Overall a good NUC offers all the benefits of a stand-alone solution, bit not all the benefits of the Nucleus package. Whether you think thatâs worth the difference in price is another matter.
As far as I know, Roon Labs never stated that the Nucleusâ Roon Rock version included software optimisations that lead to SQ improvements. What appears in the white paper is a strict management of the processor behavior in order to keep it cool, while ensuring performance.
The price is not excessive. My own little roon server costed significantly more than the Nucleus+ (excluding the LPS, of course).
Iâm not sure that Roon makes money wit the Nucleus, btw. Itâs far from being their core business. I guess they simply had to offer a hardware solution for their software. And they did pretty well.
The Nucleus is a nice and reliable little server, and is the perfect way to get Roon running.
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Thatâs correct to my knowledge, too. Theyâre very cautious about that. Danny only ever talks about optimisations to reduce electronic noise, including processing noise (through processor choice).
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As the original starter of this thread let me somewhat thread drift.
When considering the specifications of ANY Roon capable appliance (NUC, Nucleus, 3rd party turnkey etc.) hardware is specified according to the size of ones library.
How large are peopleâs libraries? Roon defines a library as the number of ripped CDâs residing on your hard drive PLUS the number of saved cdâs or tracks in your Tidal or Qobuz app.
If the total number is less than 100,000 tracks (I will arbitrarily define one CD as equal to 10 tracks) i.e. 10,000 CDâs then a base Nucleus should be more than enough. Anything larger than 10,000 CDâs would require a Nucleus +.
In my case I have 3000 ripped CDâs. I would need to have saved 7000 CDâs in Tidal or Qobuz (on top of my 3000 ripped ones) to equal the 10,000 CD limit of a base Nucleus. I just do not see that happening.
So - what are the sizes of some peoples libraries using the above definition?
Best
Gregg
Well - duh - the lightbulb finally went off 
I just had a look at the summary tab in ROON. It says I have 28,369 tracks!
Now we are getting somewhere. It also says that those tracks are the equivalent of 2024 albums - or 14 tracks per album on average.
If I have another 1500 CDâs waiting to be ripped that would yield an additional 21,000 tracks for a total of just under 50,000 tracks.
Me thinks a basic Nucleus should be more than enough. At least enough to carry me through to when Roon releases new versions of the appliance with current spec NUC boards.
Maybe the title of a new thread should be âHow many tracks are in your Roon libraryâ.
I think I may have just answered my original question and the purpose of this thread 
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Do you use DSP?
Per Roon specs - For the Nucleus, all DSP functions available in the PCM domain. Certain combinations of functions using DSD source or destination formats, upsampling, or multichannel processing may not be possible.
As I understand, Nucleus has an Intel Core i3 CPU, while the Nucleus+ has a Core i7, which are really low specâed machines.
I for one do not use the DSP features. I keep my Roon settings rather simple and straightforward. The NDX2/XPS provides an excellent listening experience and I donât feel like Iâm missing anything.
I have ~27,000 tracks; ~1900 albums. I donât use any of the dsp functions. My music is on a qnap nas thatâs not really fast enough to run Roon well (its from about 2013). Some day when ssdâs get cheap enough Iâll probably put an SSD in my Nucleus and use that for my main library, and the nas just for backup. (Although as I recall, Roon will backup your index, but not your actual music library.)