Roon Labs

ROON NUCLEUS CORE FUNDAMENTALS

Roon is a connecting, streaming and music management software which brings multi-room smarts to your hi-fi equipment. It is the brains which tells your music what to do and where to do it.

The brain behind the Roon experience is the Roon Core. It centralises the Roon application, which is responsible for all the thinking that your system needs to do.

Developed with Intel, Roon Nucleus is the conductor of your music streaming orchestra. It centralises the Roon application, which is responsible for all the thinking that your system needs to do.

To do that, there are several key parts to Roon's structure - the Roon Core, Roon Software, the Roon apps and the Roon Audio Devices. Let's look at those individually.

Since its introduction in 2015, Roon has made a huge impact in the audio market thanks to its unique combination of great functionality, focus on high-end sound and a metadata library in a class of its own. By transforming how we experience music and taking a hardware-agnostic approach to the market, Roon sets a new standard for how audio lovers engage with their music.

 As a result of its success, more and more people have been building dedicated servers on which to run Roon, but while devout hobbyists and single-source users may get everything they need by building their own system, many DIY solutions fall short of the expected standard to function in a high-performance environment. Roon Labs, the developers behind Roon, therefore decided to introduce two server solutions, Nucleus and Nucleus+. Below we go into greater detail as to why these servers were introduced, what makes them unique and why they truly are the best way to experience Roon.

The Best Way to Experience Roon

Roon software can be used on many platforms, including Mac, Windows, and Linux PCs, as well as NAS devices and a variety of media servers. Each of those platforms has its benefits and shortcomings, but none of them achieves a perfect balance between ease of use, raw performance, audiophile design, and the helping hand of a retailer. Based on feedback from audio dealers and custom installers, Roon designed Nucleus to do just that... provide the best Roon experience in each of these areas.

Roon has enjoyed tremendous success among computer audiophiles and other tech-savvy enthusiasts, but their long-term goal is to reach everyone who loves music. To do that, they created Nucleus, a product which requires nearly no computer knowledge or networking skill. You literally take it home, plug it in, and control it with the Roon Remote app for iPad, iPhone, or Android device (and of course the Roon app for Mac/Windows). Because it's running Roon, Nucleus finds the audio devices on your network and makes it easy to stream to them.

Roon-Class Performance

Unlike simple music player apps, Roon is designed to make use of modern computing power (and the more of it the better). So Roon have worked with Intel to develop Nucleus on their highest-performance NUC platform, which means that using Roon with Nucleus feels incredibly fast, and there's horsepower to spare for handling large music libraries, multi-room streaming, and digital signal processing.

An Operating System from the Ground-Up

Rather than use a desktop or server operating system like Windows, a Linux distribution, or a system-builder tool, Roon realised that a truly bespoke operating system is an area in which they can add real value to their product. Roon OS is an optimised Linux-based operating system developed by Roon Labs to provide the best reliability and performance for what Roon does – networking, storage, and fast database access – and nothing else. The white paper provides loads of detail about how they achieved this, and what's unique about their over-the-air software/firmware update process.

A fundamental benefit of this means that unlike the Roon program you may install onto a laptop, the Roon ROCK OS you may use to build a DIY server or even the Roon CORE server solutions offered by other manufacturers (like 432Hz), Roon have optimised Roon OS specifically for Nucleus. This means Nucleus can work with new and sometimes unique features. Because Roon have a handle on exactly what Nucleus can do, Nucleus users will be the only people in a position to reap the full benefits of Roon OS.

Reliable, Robust and Tamper Resistant

We've seen our share of audio products with network capabilities, and often it's clear that they were designed without network security in mind. Learn what's unique about the way Roon OS powers Nucleus, protects itself from "enterprising hobbyists", and ensures reliable and robust operation even in extraordinary network conditions.

This thoughtfulness toward security means that, in combination with the servers lower power consumption, passive cooling system and compact form, you really can leave Nucleus on and just forget about it.

Designed to Audiophile Standards

Nucleus is for people who love music, so it has to stand up to the scrutiny of the toughest customers out there. Designing Nucleus without fans, spinning disks, or other moving parts – while maintaining the level of computing performance Roon requires – brought some interesting thermal and mechanical challenges. The White Paper tells you why Nucleus is the best way to run Roon whether you have a top-spec listening room, a home theatre, or a dedicated multi-room equipment rack. But don't just take our word for it, as we've had some phenomenal reviews from internationally respected magazines that tell the same story.

Nucleus or Nucleus+?

Both the Nucleus and Nucleus+ servers look and function in exactly the same way. Their difference is primarily down to the Intel® processor used in each model, which shifts their speed and workload capacity. The standard Nucleus is suited to smaller multi-room environments, or for installations where complex DSP processing is not required. It's also suited to smaller library sizes.

Nucleus+ is the more advanced solution, for complex or high-end environments and for lightning-fast handling of larger music libraries.

 See our Technical Data for more information:

• Manages your music stored on USB hard drives, NAS, and streamed content from TIDAL and Qobuz

• Runs Roon OS and is controlled by the Roon apps for iOS, Android, macOS, Windows

• Streams music to Sonos®, AirPlay®, Google®, Roon Ready™, Roon Tested™ and many other audio devices

• Silent design with no fans or moving parts

• Roon now offers a 1 year subscription  included in the Nucleus price

• Roon OS boasts a string of features and enhancements that are only available to Nucleus customers