I was planning in getting a ROON Nucleus Plus, but I was convinced to instead get a RS8 server, w 2 TB of internal memory.The core has an Intel i7; It has 8GB of DDR4; It has a very fast 256GB NVMe SSD drive.
It loaded my music very fast. It was very responsive and I had it hooked: Ethernet from modem to the RS8- ROON server, then USB to Matrix and I2S to the Directstream. The Music coming out was sounding great, wide soundstage. The only huge problem was that it run hotter than my mono blocks. Within 2 hrs it was screaming for a fan. They advertise that these units like the ROON nucleus plus run cool, and this one does not, I will have to return it ASAP.
Anybody has experienced units like these getting very warm?? Does the Nucleus plus gets very warm…??
Thanks, any comments will be greatly appreciated.
I have a Roon N+ and have never seen it get over 95F ever… no matter how much I push the unit (multiple DSPs & DSF files and any streaming). I also have a 4TB EVO internal SSD. I am powering the N+ w/ Farad Super3 (19V/3A) supply that never gets hotter than 95F no matter how much I push the N+.
Forgot - I run the N+ 24hrs a day for the last 1.5years with zero drop outs or issues, never getting hotter than 95F.
Thanks. I’ll be returning this unit and getting myself a Roon N+.
I would look at this:
It has an i9 and will do a lot of the DSP functions that the Nucleus + will not…
Has analysis completed? This will light up all cores and run the proc as hot as nearly anything else.
If you have tons of music, analysis phase takes time- and runs hot
I think you re right after downloading about 2 TB if music, it took almost 22 hours and it got as hot as 113 deg F, now that the download is done, it’s starting to cool down. We ll see what the temp is tomorrow.
113F is not all that hot. Not in my experience.
Roon CAN demand lots of processing power with multiple users and filtering/upsampling etc… Most people don’t use it that way and don’'t need lots of power.
Big processor = heat = noise = BAD
Small processor = cool = quiet = GOOD
For many the Roon Nucleus is better than the Nucleus+. That’s why they make it.
SSD generates less mechanical noise than SATA, but many units damp or isolate the SATA drive from the processor.
Innous told me that they use an Intel 4200 chip because it is the most efficient. It is not even as powerful as an i3 chip. They also told me if I want to run 8 endpoints with DSP, don’t buy their machine, buy a Nucleus+.
So my advice - choose the minimum specification required for your requirements. For most people i3 is sufficient. My Innuos runs barely warm to the touch.
After the loading period of over 22 hours of music and seeing a peak temp. of 113 deg F, the next day, it took several hours and it cooled off to now having a temp. of 79 deg F.
The music coming out of the RS8 thru the matrix and I2S into the Directstream sounded very good and w/wide soundstage. I’ll need to get an Sbooster to power the RS8 and see if it improves a bit more.
I’ll keep you posted.
Agreed - I don’t get folks’ feeling of a need for “horsepower” in this application. If you are recording 24 simultaneous tracks with DSP plugins, yeah. Playing back two tracks? Not so much. And generally, the less going on in the box, the better.
My mind is not made up SATA vs. SSD. I just bought a new QNAP TS-473 4 x 2TB SSD for business. Wow, is it fast. Even the slowest SATA drive is about 6mb/s, which could probably supply 5 or 6 24/192 streams at the same time. Hence I take the view that the issue is more mechanical isolation of the drive unit.
Roon servers are still quite new for some people, it was for me, and it helped me to sit down and think logically what matters, based mostly on speaking to several manufacturers/dealers. In the end I went with the one that made most sense to me.
I purchased the RS8 Roon Music Sever a couple months ago. Many people write they can build music servers DIY for $1k or less, trust me the RS8 is World Class for the serious user & well worth the money. The RS8 is one of the few music servers that allows for setting the speed of the processor. I have the RS8 12 TB SS Array to go with the RS8 Music server and everyone should really read the instructions, you MUST set the in the Roon App, the speed to Throttle rate to maintain a proper processor speed. If you run the processor speed Off Throttle and transfer 2TB of music, 113 degrees is normal. Set it to throttle in the Roon App and no matter what you transfer, the RS8 will run cool during analyzing.
I previously owned the Roon Nucleus+.had too many network issues with the Nucleus disconnecting from the network & drop outs. No issues with the RS8.
When you create a new Roon Server and add a library Roon gets very busy indexing your collection, hence the heat. My server allowed me to set how hard it would work during this process and I started slowly, but soon went full speed after placing cooling fans above and below the server. When the Library work is done you can choose full speed without fear of overheating.
What may surprise you is there are a number of people who believe when using P7 chips at full speed the server is noisier. If your server allows throttling the processor many believe cutting it back to 1/4 its potential speed gives you a lower noise system. Some go so far as to say low power processors sound best as long as you are not doing a lot of HQplayer processing.
There is always someone who knows some new trick.
Congrats on your new server!!!
Thanks, Al !!!