Lifetime Roon is a go - alternative to Roon Nucleus

Why is a ROON Nucleus better than a generic ROON headless server? ROON themselves have stated that you do not need a perfect machine for the headless server.

In the last 3 weeks I installed the ROON server on a 24 Core + 96GB RAM server. Another server with 12 Cores + 24GB RAM. Plus another with 4 Cores and 16GB RAM. I used a Sonore microRendu as the convertor to the DAC. In all 3 cases the ROON server seemed to work with the same level of quality. I had the same excellent sound in all 3 cases.

The big server was in my garage and the bits had to travel on a Powerline copper network to my microRendu. Still sounded the same as the other 2 machines which were closer to the DAC.

so including the so including the roon core inside a streamer box, eg. innuos zenith is not a problem.  Value of a stand-alone headless roon core device Is not a concern.

i would like to avoid having a separate box like a roon nucleus, when it could be integrated inside a quality streamer device. A nuc looks kinda cheap vs a nucleus, but avoiding need for it is worth pursuing.

you can get a 2012 Mac Mini on eBay with a solid state drive for < $300 that will work just fine as a Roon server. Yes, it has a fan, but you will never hear it

Buy an Innous Zen mini. Storage, Roon core and DAC in one box.

Every NUC I have taken apart has a fan. Such as...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwqrfIdyvGwhttp://

http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkimvAK1g0c