Bricasti M3/M1SE

I had a Dell Tower dedicated just to running Roon core and nothing else hard wired to my network.  A Roon Nucleus was a big and noticeable step forward.  The CX will blow your PC out out the water.  Not what you want to hear I am sure but PCs just have too much going on, have noisy power supplies, etc....

I have not tried tvad's suggestions.  They might work.  Not sure.  Certainly can't hurt.  

@verdantaudio, a question for you (and @sksos) about Roon Nucleus...

If one stops using Roon (ends a Roon subscription), is a Roon Nucleus device still usable as a server?

I don’t believe so.  There may be a way to override and load different software but I don’t know what it is.  Nucleus is a Roon device.

The Antipodes S30 (pricier I know) does have the flexibility to use a bunch of different software packages.  

While reading through another thread, and doing some research as a result, I discovered the SonicTransporter I5 music server, sold by Small Green Computer.

A nice feature of the SonicTransporter I5 ($999 including 1TB SSD) over a Roon Nucleus is that if you decide to cancel Roon, the SonicTransporter I5 doesn’t become a brick like the Nucleus, since the SonicTransporter I5 is pre-loaded with HQPlayer (embedded), Squeezebox Server, Plex Media Server and MinimServer (DLNA server) in addition to Roon Core Server.

https://www.smallgreencomputer.com/collections/audio-server/products/sonictransporter-i5?variant=208...

Since the Roon Nucleus and SonicTransporter I5 are both Intel i5 computers, I see no reason why they wouldn’t sound identical on a network.