Found A Roon Core Streamer Only Solution with Top Notch Sound Quality

I was looking at streamer only solutions and some of the pricing was eye popping, yet there are some highly reviewed and/respect items out there too in the $800-$1500 range. 

What pushed me to get this Nucleus Plus clone was the fact that I could take the Roon Core server off my iMac and back to a dedicated device. I had a NUC a few years back that I built. Its performance was stellar but I ultimately wiped the drive and sold it because it just didn't play consistently well on my network.  Xfinity's network app has some deeper features and I'd check them to find out the NUC would fall off the network all the time. I tried to set it up with a fixed network address too--to no avail. 

At any rate, I think the Nucleus + clone sounds even better than the Lumin when using an external dac.

Highly recommended. Plus, the clone has stayed solidly on my network since install.  Next up is a linear power supply upgrade. 

This machine looks awesome! Congrats! I like that it’s fanless, good parts. definitely get LPS power supply and a good USB cable. 
 

I doubt it.

At one time I had the Innuos Zenith MK3 and the onboard core was poor.  I felt like they purposely did a poor implementation of roon so that their Sense app sounded better.  

@jbhiller Easy to see superiority of that build to off the shelf version. I used to build custom streamers based on Mac Mini's, each more sophisticated than previous builds. Now using custom build based on ATX/Windows motherboard running Euphony operating system,  JCAT ATX LPS, .  Based on my experience adding a quality LPS will be well worth it.

I leaned about diy custom builds, research via audiophilestyle.com forum. In face offs custom builds often surpass many of the well known off the shelf streamers, custom builds reach as far as the Taiko clones.

Not surprising another report of Sense app superior to Roon with Innuos. Innuos design philosophy dictates music player app that requires less processor resources than Roon. Roon with all it's features is a relatively heavy user of processor resources, working a processor hard means more self generated noise on motherboards, Roon works best with low latency steamer designs.

@sns, I respect your opinions because you have a good background knowledge in the implementation of this stuff. We consulted on modifying my Chinook. You were a gentleman and very right in your views—based on what my ears heard.