Roon Nucleus

[AnotherJohnson]

More of the same BS yesterday, in two different forms.

1. Roon was no longer playing Qobuz gapless. I looked at their (Roon) community. This appears to be a recurring random problem between Qobuz and Qobuz players. Lots of finger pointing. “Your network provider” is a favorite for all of the parties. “Company X is aware of the problem and working on it” is also a favorite. Guys who use Qobuz and just bought lifetime Roon subscriptions are always angry.

It looks to me like Qobuz may be problematic. They seem to have recurring issues … maybe this is why HEOS won’t fool with them. Why partner with a known unreliable player?

2. I’ve been working a 3 vehicles for 2 vehicles trade and 2 for 1 of this finished up yesterday with the delivery of one of the new ones. There is, of course, an app that goes with the new 2023, and the dealer tries to guide you through the app set up.

My 45 year old salesman friend and a tattood 25 year old IT lackey made 7 attempts. Each one ended with the truck recognizing that set up was complete, but the phone app not recognizing that it was complete. The phone app was in an infinite loop of setup followed by more setup.

Their solution? “Sometimes it takes 24 to 48 hours for setup to be recognized, so try again tomorrow.

My solution? Turn the d*mn app off and go with the resident computing power on the truck.

None of this IT cr*p is transparent. None of it is consistently reliable. NONE OF IT IS NECESSARY.

It permeates every aspect of modern life.

[AnotherJohnson]

So just so I'm clear. You can't have a nucleus and a computer with roon on the same network to use as a player?

I may not have answered this. You cannot be logged into two cores simultaneously on one subscription.

You may ask “ What if my wife and four children are using Roon in our house?”

The answer is that one core will handle them all. They can each have a profile with their own preferences and library.

One subscription = one Core at a time.

[admin]

I think these kinds of technology is going to permeate more aspects of our everyday life. My brother is in the process of buying a new car, and of course there seems to be an app for all them. Unlock the doors, start up the engine, and god knows what else. Needed? Surely not, but it's the future. I don't think it's going to be going away and these "features" are offered on the lowest cost base models.

As for the Roon issue. Thanks for clarifying the Core requirement. I guess it makes sense. So the question is do you want the nucleus or the Mac to be the Core. Probably the Nucleus would be the best choice as it's an always on device.

As for configuring it. I would try the direct web interface connection which I eluded to above in the directions. If you could at least get the latest firmware running, that would be the first step.

[AnotherJohnson]

The plan was to use the Nucleus and abandon the MacBook after migration.

That may still be the plan. We’ll see how it goes next week. As for the ubiquitous nature of IT and networks, it looks like you will not be able to get off the grid by living in a van down by the river.

[AnotherJohnson]

Tonight Roon/Qobuz is back to gapless.

No changes on my end. So it was an offsite problem, meaning that it is likely to occur again without notice.

One guy who was troubleshooting his own system swore it was fixed when he added 32 GB of storage to his Nucleus. I think it was random. He added the storage and while he was at it, his external problem got sorted. When he went back to play music, he attributed the fix to what he’d done.

This phenom is far too regular and far too random to be a storage issue. Could be fixed with a big enough buffer I suppose. But that’s not what he’d done.

I don’t think the files are delivered perfectly every time … sometimes it’s spot on and wonderful. Other times it’s ho hum and mediocrity.

I think this may be the true bane of a high resolution system. Expectations are always high, but sources vary and disappoint.

[admin]

Glad qobuz is working again. I'm guessing that the nucleus connection issue is still present?

[AnotherJohnson]

Glad qobuz is working again. I'm guessing that the nucleus connection issue is still present?

I have not hung it back on the network. So I don’t have any data.

I’m sure it needs the updates, so I’m going to just plug it into the router when I’m ready to fool with it again.

[Joe Appierto]

These kinds of problems are particularly vexing for the user where s/he feels they're in a kind of Catch-22 scenario. In order to fix the problem, they have to be able to do something which is the problem and if they were able to then s/he wouldn't have the problem to begin with.

[AnotherJohnson]

Tonight Roon and Qobuz are in synch again, just like last night.

Still haven’t gotten around to troubleshooting the Nucleus install.

I did give the truck app another whirl. No joy there. Lucky I don’t need it. Truck thinks it’s activated phone app doesn’t realize it.

[AnotherJohnson]

My (mis)adventures with the Nucleus.

I’ve discovered that once you have a Roon core running on your account, it is very difficult to get Roon to ignore it.

1. You can only be logged into one core at a time, but the only way I’ve found to keep the first core from interfering with the second is to logout, deauthorize, take it off the network, and literally remove it from the premises.

Seems like logging out and deauthorizing it would be enough … but not here.

2. Some other things I’ve learned are that the iOS version of Roon remote is not full featured. And there is no OS version of Roon remote. So … the best option in the Apple world is to use an iPad. The iPadOS version of Roon remote is full featured.

To get the Nucleus to work as advertised, I implemented 1 above. The MacBook Air is sitting in my truck, logged out, deauthorized, WiFi off, and physically not present.

Roon remote is running on an iPad which is connected via its WiFi to the network. The Rossini and the Nucleus are hard wire plugged into the same network.

Even after all this, I had to deauthorize the MacBook Air’s core again. And when I was done updating the Nucleus, I had to deauthorize the unupdated Nucleus (same machine).

It’s all working perfectly (for now).

Roon support genuinely S*CKs. They outsource their help to their “community”. No phone I can see. No direct customer service contact.

If I were giving advice, I’d say that if you subscribe to Roon, think about the machine you plan to run on. If you’re like me, and want to try it on a machine you already own, you might just stick with that rather than “ upgrade” to the Nucleus.

I don’t deny that a more savvy IT guy might not have had as much aggravation as I’ve had.

I will say that Roon is a powerful music subscription interface. It plays more nicely with Qobuz than dCS Mosaic Control in my experience. The quality of the music files is very high, at least those files retrieved from Qobuz.

I am in love with the Rossini. When Roon and Qobuz are doing their best, the Rossini is definitely as good as reviewers have said.

The MacBook Air core installation was excellent. It performed flawlessly before the arrival of the Nucleus. And after I’d aborted the first attempts at installing the Nucleus, it reverted to flawless performance. I have nothing negative to suggest about using a MacBook Air as the residence for the core.

At the same time, the Nucleus, once finally installed, has also performed flawlessly.

It is too early for me to be sure, but my ears suggest that the Nucleus core actually sounds even better than the MacBook Air. Functionally, both are perfectly fine. But the Nucleus is doing an even better job of distinguishing the musical threads. Clearer separation of vocals and instruments, more meat on the bones of the music … we’re talking about two great approaches here, but my ears are voting in favor of the Nucleus.

It strikes me that this might be due to the fact that the Nucleus core is hardwired to the network. Whereas the MacBook Air core was getting Qobuz from WiFi, processing it, and sending it back to the network by WiFi to finally be delivered to the Rossini by its hard wire connection.

I dunno … the functionality of a working Roon core is a joy and a true logistical upgrade compared to Qobuz by itself, or BluOS. But the high fidelity/quality of the music seems to be even better with the Nucleus core compared to the MacBook Air as core.

YMMV

[admin]

I'm glad you were able to get it working. It seems like it is always comes with some hardships but in the end the outcomes seem to be worth it.

Can't explain why the mac can't be on the network at the same time. You can try uninstall the Roon nucleus on the mac and see if that resolves the issue. They can't just expect people to throw out their computers because they had roon installed on them at some point.

[AnotherJohnson]

I still am hopeful that I can migrate my “home” data from one core to the other, so I am not yet ready to uninstall the first core … but that is the long term goal.

Also, since I was not positive that the Nucleus was here to stay, I have not wanted to get ahead of myself.

I am probably exaggerating a bit on the level of isolation required to get a second core going. I’m sure Roon’s highest level of cleverness has been applied to keep people from ripping them off by running one subscription on more than one core.

If you leave the Nucleus on continuously, you could install Roon ARC on your phone and take Roon along with you.

They’re happy to sell you access to add more cores. But they’re not taking any chances that you’ll have one core at one house and another at another house, both accessed by one subscription.

Regarding the notion that the Nucleus is giving a better presentation of the music than the MacBook Air, this idea is being reinforced. There just seems to be even more depth and clarity.

If I had the full benefit of future sight, I’d have just sucked it up and bought the Nucleus at the start. I think a lot of the problems I ran into were caused by the coexistence of two cores on the same network, one by WiFi and one by Ethernet.

It just took a long time to climb this learning curve … I’d say it took nearly five months and several false starts.

[AnotherJohnson]

I mentioned above that there is no specific program called Roon Remote for the MacBook Air. You install the core and Remote comes along, and is your interface to the core.

As light and compact as a MacBook Air is, it was unwieldy as a “remote control.” And if you had it on a side table next to your listening chair and it was open so that you could see the screen, then it was a difractor to interfere with the sound field arriving in your listening space.

Using the Nucleus for the core and running Roon Remote on an iPad as the remote control, this problem goes away.

Since it’s just for control and not for music file processing, the iPad does not have to be anything super powerful.

[Joe Appierto]

Reading your trials and tribulations with Roon gives one pause. I realize that I spent a lot of time (a lot) ripping over 1,000 CDs to external hard drives and that I'm cutting myself off from new music with what is basically a static music library except for the occasional purchase now and then, but...what I listen to is basically care-free using both Foobar2000 and JRiver. Sound quality up to and including DSD64 is as much as I need.

Granted I'm listening to it on a system not even in the same ballpark as yours and I don't know what I'm missing but it suits my means.

I hope you get this process to work to your satisfaction and I know you will.

[AnotherJohnson]

I am convinced after nearly 50 years as a seeker of good sound, that it is available at every stage … and the most important component you need to find it is a musical spirit.

I’ve thought I’d found near perfection nearly continuously over the last 35 years, each new discovery seeming to be the last needed. It’s pretty humorous when you look back on it.

I once commented that I was a bad audiophile because I was too easy to please. This may be true.

In any event, in a variation on Roberto’s theme … your ears, your music, your pleasure.

[admin]

@Joe,

If you are simply listening to those 1000 CDs I don't think there is too much point in investing in Roon as you don't need the recommendation engine and the functions that roon offers in that case. Even if you want access to that catalog away from home it is relatively easy to stick all that music on an external USB drive and just connect that to your home router and have remote access on any computer/phone.

The true advantage of roon is the integration with qobuz and local library and then the massive amount of meta-data roon has accumulated for the catalog of millions of songs. The powerful recommendation engine allows one to find music that you may have not heard or considered before.


@AJ,

Once you settle on the nucleus and decide to keep that in the system permanently as your digital source, I would probably pull all the songs off the mac onto an external drive that you connect to you network via your router. This will allow the nucleus to have permanent access so you can play it on the nucleus as well as any other device (be it your mac or phone).

[AnotherJohnson]

It appears that I may not have been clear.

The Ethernet connected Nucleus was a good choice with what I perceive to be sonic benefits, although from a user interface pov, it’s not significantly different from the Roon Core stored on a device connected by WiFi.

I have finished the migration, which actually occurred without glitches or obstacles. Roon will be off the MacBook today.

If I had the gift of foresight, when it was so clear to me last November that I’d finally heard first class audiophiles streaming at Paragon’s demo in Ann Arbor, I’d have immediately bought the Rossini, the Nucleus, the iPad, signed up for Qobuz, and called Comcast to come and sort out my internet service.

Instead I diddled around with trying to improve the ND8006 and HEOS, messing with the Node and BluOS, etc … money and time wasted in an attempt to save money.

The Rossini, as projected through the ARC REF electronics, AQ Thunderbirds, the Sasha DAWs, and served up with Qobuz via the Nucleus exceeds my very imagined possible best.

I’ve been using choral music, complex instrumentals, and tracks with difficult diction or subtle layered vocals to do my comparisons.

Although over and over again it has been proven that there is no end to the possible improvements, this setup now qualifies as the best I’ve ever heard …

Does it matter to anyone but me? No … my system, my ears. Your system, your ears.

I think this adventure had a steep learning curve and it cost more tuition than I would have liked.

But the end point seems solid. The only uncertainties are: 1. How well will Roon support the Nucleus.
2. Will I eventually regret not choosing the Nucleus +.
3. What would the Rossini Apex and Rossini Master Clock sound like.
4. And the usual list unrelated to the source, like how would Alexx level sound here, how about those new REF 320M amps, etc.

There is no end … you just have to eventually get to the point where you stop looking. And be happy there.

I kept my first LP12, PV5, Electron Kinetics Eagle 2A, Thiel CS2.0, Nakamichi three head deck system as a first system for 20 years. It can be done if you’re busy enough and satisfied.

[admin]

I know it may feel like wasted time with the "adventures" with the ND8006, Node and internet, but it's a learning experience. I would know a lot less about audio equipment, electronics, etc... if I never had anything break or if I would not have done any mods on my equipment. Yes, it's time consuming and often frustrating. But you come out of the experience more knowledgeable and more appreciative of what you have now. Let us say you jumped right to the Rossini and nucleus. Would you really know if the cost was worth it compared to running the previous setup? Even the semi-unrelated internet issues. In the future if there are similar problems, you will know what to investigate first.

I also wouldn't worry too much about the nucleus upgrade path. The truth of the matter is that the nucleus is a very minor investment in your total system now. If in a few years you want to upgrade (or even sooner), you can sell the nucleus and be out a few hundred dollars. You've got cables in there that are worth way more than that!

As for the current status. You've got a top of the line system that you yourself admit sounds better than anything you have ever heard. I would argue that the frustrations of the last few months was a small price to pay for the outcome.

[AnotherJohnson]

I was motivated to summarize by the idea that it might help someone else as they try to “get there from here.”

I have missed conversational tone … perhaps it sounds like a rant, but it is intended to be a helpful summary.

I would have found it useful.

Regarding the “small price to pay,” that was intended to be encapsulated in my “tuition” comment.

The help I got here is appreciated. Everyone gives their best, colored by where they are. To use what’s shared, the first step is to correctly decode it.

[AnotherJohnson]

It is done now. The Core is off the MacBook. The Nucleus is uneventfully doing its job. Interestingly, perhaps due to all the heat sinks or possibly due to the efficiency of the processor, the Nucleus stays much cooler to the touch than the MacBook Air did.