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My experience with Roon Hardware

I have been a happy customer of Roon software for a few years. Wanting better DSD, DXD performance I decided to to change out my Mac mini to more modern Roon Core server hardware. I know that means just a dedicated computer, but I think a purpose built product will be more robust with better sound quality. After a too brief search I choose a Roon Nucleus Plus. Why not rely on the company whose software I use? What could go wrong? Well, I learned quickly. 3 months in, it has never functioned appropriately. Drop outs, hard reboots, reformats, software reloads. The list is endless. The final straw is that I can no longer copy files to the Nucleus memory. It loops constantly and I must force quit the program. Reformatting does not help. Now a plea to Roon will surely help. Nope going on a week, I have automated acknowledgements and no response. Crickets. There approach may work for software bugs, but is laughably inadequate for hardware failures. I believe there are many happy customers, but I have a $3k candidate for recycling or landfill. Caveat Emptor. 

lafayette2010
erik_squires
16,058 posts
 

I have a stupid suggestion that may be worth trying:  Put a fan on it.

 

A lot of these small computing devices, including routers, don't really get evaluated appropriately for thermal behavior. It is worth doing as an experiment, if your problems go away you at least know what is the root cause.  Still sucks because the device should be rock solid in a home environment, but so many of these little devices I have come across are not

tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,589 posts
 

I have a Nucleus that I've fortunately never had problems with.  Your experience is indeed frustrating, but there have been other posts here like yours but dealing with other brands and types of gear or just communication.  In those other cases the problems have been resolved to the customers satisfaction although more slowly than we would like.

It seems many companies are having problems keeping up their normal pace due to problems I'm sure we've all heard about.  Roon should provide you with a working Nucleus+.  I'd give them a little extra time to do that and notify your credit card company before your recourse time runs out if they don't.

sonic79
80 posts
 

I do not view the Nucleus as good value. It is essentially a NUC in a fancy enclosure booting from Roon ROCK. The same result can be accomplished for far less cost with a DIY approach--although also requiring a bit more technical knowledge.

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