Roon Nucleus vs Innuos

I haven't compared the units you are referring to.  My response is based on similar components. 

Separating Roon Core from Roon Endpoint/Renderer is important and delivers clear performance upsides.

They can be combined but to do so well (as in high performance well) is costly and not easy.

If you are going to try Innuos (I'm not sure which model level), I'd keep the Nucleus to see if using the Nucleus as Roon Core feeding the Innuos as Roon Endpoint is superior to Innuos on it's own. If the Innuos better suits you it will be easy to resell the Nucleus.

In any case, would love to hear your findings whichever path you choose.

David Ten there is really no empirical evidence that separating a Roon Core and Endpoint are actually better on the contrary, you are now sending the data from the Core to the Endpoint which adds the variable of the sending data over the network.
We looked at the Roon Nucleus when it came out and we were not impressed by what Roon was offering for the price vs the Innous.

The Nucleus is an inexpensive Intel Nuc based device, the Intel Nuc is a powerful computer chip based mini computer, which Roon loads an optimized version of their software, the two models differ in having an external power supply.
Compare that with an Innous and you will see a very large difference.
The Innous products all use a custom built motherboard, use a custom operating system, the Zen model uses a two rail power supply which was designed by Dr Sean Jacobs an expert in digital power supply design, the Zenith use a three rail design with Mundorf caps, ethernet noise filters are used to eliminate line noise coming into the the servers as well as leaving the server in the case of an ethernet connected streaming dac, both devices use well shielded cases, and have been built to minimize noise and vibration.
Innous takes a very focused approach to their designs they are working to eliminate noise which can muck up the digital output of the sever.
For all of these reasons people have been raving over the sound quality of the Innous servers.
We have many happy Innous clients who report that the servers made a very noticeable sonic improvement

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Innous dealers

Thanks for the information. Can the innuoud server be used in conjunction with the Roon ?

The innous servers are designed as Roon Cores.

Out of the box to setup to music 5 mins.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Innous dealers

Innuos can be used as Roon Core, Roon Endpoint (Player), or Roon Core + Roon Endpoint (Player).

there is really no empirical evidence that separating a Roon Core and Endpoint are actually better

There is a ton of user feedback on separation of the two functions yielding better overall performance. One can head over to Audiophile Style (formerly Computer Audiophile) to learn about this.

I have taken and tested this approach. Isolating and separating the functionality clearly has been superior in my applications. N of 1.

NOTE: I’m not saying this is or isn’t the case with Innuos. Nor did I say so in my above post.

For example, Antipodes (a Server/Player company) has found this to be true (for them) and has taken the approach of optimizing Server/Core and Renderer/Endpoint/Player capacities SEPARATELY as their BEST OPTION.

As always, there are many approaches to achieving performance, with different companies taking different paths.

adds the variable of the sending data over the network.

I agree. However there are solutions to allow for the elimination of a Network Switch (if this is what is being referred to). The data has to be delivered over the network, no matter what.