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Innous Zenith MKII and Roon DSP

I purchased an Innous Zenith MKII about 6 months and configured it to use Logitech Media Server.  I had used LMS for whole house stereo for many, many years.  I finally decided to use Roon instead, and while Roon doesn't meet all of my whole house stereo needs, the interface and music management capabilities are far superior to LMS, IMHO. 

Before enabling Roon, I reached out to Innuos tech support about the fact that Roon does not list the MKII as a recommend device.  From Innous tech support, " The MkII can run Roon very well, the only reason they suggest such a high system spec is for performing DSD upsampling which is by far the most intensive process Roon has. For normal usage and bitperfect playback, the MkII can easily run Roon, no problems there."

I'm not doing any DSD upsampling.  I am trying to use Roon's DSP capabilities, but I've experienced dropouts when I do.  Other than this problem, I'm quite OK using Room with the MKII when playing DSD, FLAC, and WAV files through a MyTek Liberty DAC, as well as, streaming Tidal MQA directly to my NAD M12 BluOS module.

I want to take advantage of Roon DSP capabilities and keep the MKII.  I leaning towards buying an Intel i7 NUC to run Roon Core and strictly use the MKII as my network media player/NAS.  Thoughts anyone?
128x128oldschool1948
david_ten
5,480 posts
 
Consider the Small Green Computer SonicTransporter i7 for Roon DSP.

https://www.smallgreencomputer.com/collections/audio-server/products/sonictransporter-i7-for-roon-ds...

This is what I use. It has the horsepower to run Roon DSP and is optimized for Roon. It also offers an internal Ethernet Bridge, which in my case eliminates the network switch.

This way you can utilize your Innuos Zenith II for Roon Rendering/Endpoint (Player) duties and remove the Roon Core load.

Since you have two LAN inputs on the Innuos you can use the other input as needed.

All the best.
oldschool1948's avatar
oldschool1948 OP
502 posts
 
I’m trying to decide between selling my MKII and buying a MKIII, or keeping the MKII and buying a NUC to host Roon Core.  I’m looking at this NUC that I found on Amazon:

Intel NUC NUC7i7BNH Mini PC/HTPC, Intel Dual-Core i7-7567U Upto 4.0GHz, 16GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, WiFi, Bluetooth, Thunderbolt 3, 4k Support, Dual Monitor Capable, Windows 10 Pro (16GB RAM + 256GB SSD)

This is more of a does it make sense question than a money concern.  I’m trying to avoid going through the trouble of selling the MKII and moving my music library to a new device.  And the MKIII’s processor is no where near the NUC’s in terms of processing power.  So that’s a concern.

Does anyone see a downside of adding a NUC to the signal path to only host Roon Core? 
oldschool1948's avatar
oldschool1948 OP
502 posts
 
@david_ten. I’ll take look.  Thanks.
david_ten
5,480 posts
 
@oldschool1948  You are welcome.

I chose not to add memory to my SGC unit. You do not need to as well, since you have memory capability/capacity on the Innuos. 

For superior results, as an example, Antipodes separates Roon Core from Roon Rendering/Endpoint (Player) functionality. You will get much better results by separating the Core and Player functionality, whichever product you choose to go with.
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