Best Server To Run Roon Core

Lucas Audio LMDS - A computer genius!!!!

Well, like all things audio, this escalated quickly. I'm no expert on all things audio or PC and while the Taiko is certainly a beautiful piece of engineering, despite using an off-the-shelf workstation/server motherboard, and no mention of any special consideration given to the network or USB interface. I wasn't aware of any bottleneck presented by SATA based SSDs(certainly not by any HiRes music files), other than file transfers I've seen very little real world improvement using a PCIe M.2 drive, even when I was using it for the OS(which this doesn't) Is there truly any audible difference between SATA and PCIe based solid state storage? I guess the price difference isn't too great and it is a space saver, but they do get extremely hot. Finally, can anyone explain why the Taiko needs such a large bank of capacitors? It's not as though transients draw a bunch of power when expressed digitally, I would think the Taiko server would have a fairly consistent power draw when in use that would never require such a large capacitor bank, unless it is acting as some sort of UPS. Looks nice though.

For the best I guess the Wadax Reference Server could give the Taiko some competition. Their dac was the best the TAS reviewer had heard.

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/wadax-reference-server.31859/

Spotify seems to move into hq streaming, this may change the market somewhat.

Whatever you buy, make sure it is software upgradable and from a somewhat stable company. A NUC and an external re-clocker might be a good start that can be switched later.

@jmarshak 

I'm no engineer so take what I write with a grain of salt.  It has been a while since I moved the roon core off the statement and I cant say I remember what was different except that it was easily better.  

I think maybe reducing the processor demands on the Statement lowered noise and further improved its performance.  Innuos seems to have chosen a lower power processor for the noise benefits.  They say it can run roon core and it can but I think at the expense of a noise trade off.  I think I may have also been trying to upsample to DSD in roon- which I don't do any more because it sounds worse in my system now.

Since moving the core off the Statement I have spend the time working on the network; switches, cables, reclocking, fiber, re arranging dedicated lines, power conditioning and power supplies.  When I started I had a hard time listening to Tidal or Qobuz vs the Statement because there was such a drop in sound quality.  Now while the Statement is superior the gap is relatively small and Tidal and Qobuz Hi-Rez are amazing and occasionally better than the redbook files on the Statement.

The Antipodes Core is a purpose build Roon Core server and I think better than the Roon Nucleus's in terms of sound, not power.  I also think its a shame Antipodes unleashed a new product line shortly after releasing the CX/EX line making the CX/EX dated and devalued shortly after release.  I am watching the price of the CX tumble and plan to pick one up next year to replace the Antipodes Core to run roon core unless Innuos finally releases their OS update and it outperforms roon and has a reasonable search function to browse.