Anyone have a Roon Nucleus One? Your experience positive or negative?

Yes!!!  I've owned my Nucleus one for over three years now and I'm still thrilled with it and will be for the foreseeable future.  It's a brilliant piece of gear.  Happy listening.

I found the nucleous to be a great roon end piont, just an ok streamer. much better out there for the hardware but your not buying a nucleous for the hardware, but for the software.

open one up and you may not like what you see inside. big empty box....I have a hard time paying what they want for one considering there is next to nothing inside the box.  hardware wize not imprssive. 

Thanks for sharing everyone. I have a streamer that is Roon ready but really does not have good user software of its own. I was thinking about trying Roon, since some have reported Roon app plays well with a Nucleus rather that the Roon app on a computer.

@2psyop I love Roon’s interface.

I had a spare, 10+ year old mac mini (I had upgraded the hard drives to SSD, but the CPU was the original), on which I installed Linux and Roon. Good enough to run Roon without any problems. And since I was going to donate it anyway, it didn’t cost anything.

I think pretty much any old Intel hardware will be fast enough, provided you’re not running a lot of Roon’s DSP or something like HQPlayer... The Roon website states "Intel Core i3 with 8GB" as the minimum requirement, whereas my old mac mini has an 8 core i7. These requirements could change in the future, of course.

your not buying a nucleous for the hardware, but for the software.

Indeed. The software is downloadable for free on the Roon website. Spend your money elsewhere in your system.

Of any product or service offered in the entire world, Roon has the #1 worst customer service. I could say they have "no" customer service but they are worse than that.

Update on older topic.

I bought the Nucleus specifically to run a HiFi Rose RS 130 and it works flawlessly. I am disappointed in the UI on the Rose. The Roon application is far and away better and user friendly.

Since the RS 130 has no DAC, isn't it just something stuck in between that has no use. I am new to the thought of Roon, but wouldn't the Nucleus One simply connect to a DAC? what does the RS 130 do for your setup? Is the Nucleus One just a cheap streamer that requires another high quality streamer after it to improve the sound?

Yes you are correct the Roon does everything the Rose does. I bought the Nucleus to try Roon and consolidate my music from different sources and because I like the sound of the Rose just really not the user software as much. 

Would you say that having the Rose 130 after the Nucleus One improves the sound, or is that just the way it all worked out? I really like that Rose 130, but if the Nucleus One can sound similar going to my DAC, I may have to get over the beautiful looks. Thank you 2psyop.

@2psyop 

To your original question: I have had both a Nucleus Rev A and now a Nucleus One.  I purchased the Rev A in 2018 and was amazed at the sonic improvement over running Roon on a MBP I was using at the time (see other AG posts of mine for more details).  In 2024, it become flaky, shutting off by itself, not booting up unless it sat for a couple of days.  I took it apart and eventually installed a new CMOS battery, but that did solve the problem.  Roon thought it might need a new motherboard, weren’t even sure they had anymore, and replacing it would cost a couple hundred more dollars than a new Nucleus One . So I waited and bought a Nucleus One.  

In the meantime, my big system had been down due to needing new tubes for the ARC REF150SE, so I have not directly compared the sound of the two, but functionally the One is identical to the Rev A.  I laugh when I see Rev A, and Rev B’s priced more used, than a One, with a warranty, is new.  I would only buy a One at this point.  One trade-off the Rev’s have nice metal cases and the One’s case is plastic.  But it does not get hot.

-docknow

"Would you say that having the Rose 130 after the Nucleus One improves the sound, or is that just the way it all worked out? I really like that Rose 130, but if the Nucleus One can sound similar going to my DAC, I may have to get over the beautiful looks. Thank you 2psyop"

"To your original question: I have had both a Nucleus Rev A and now a Nucleus One.  I purchased the Rev A in 2018 and was amazed at the sonic improvement over running Roon on a MBP I was using at the time (see other AG posts of mine for more details).  In 2024, it become flaky, shutting off by itself, not booting up unless it sat for a couple of days.  I took it apart and eventually installed a new CMOS battery, but that did solve the problem.  Roon thought it might need a new motherboard, weren’t even sure they had anymore, and replacing it would cost a couple hundred more dollars than a new Nucleus One . So I waited and bought a Nucleus One.  

In the meantime, my big system had been down due to needing new tubes for the ARC REF150SE, so I have not directly compared the sound of the two, but functionally the One is identical to the Rev A.  I laugh when I see Rev A, and Rev B’s priced more used, than a One, with a warranty, is new.  I would only buy a One at this point.  One trade-off the Rev’s have nice metal cases and the One’s case is plastic.  But it does not get hot.

-docknow"

I have known other audiophiles who have built their own servers. That was not my desire at all. I bought the Rose to replace a Bluesound Node X and see if I could take up my source a couple notches. It did sound much better but the user software on the Rose was not great. I though it would be a good chance to try Roon, since the Rose was compatable. So yes it worked just fine but I didn’t try Roon on it’s own. Therefore I have not compared them. The Nucleus one has been very capable but I have not played with it much for various reasons... I think it can do much more than I am using it for. I have not really used it "by itself" to test sound quality.

@2psyop my Linux computer is back with the Euphony software installed. It will be interesting to see how well the app works. 
You and Milind will hear it before the summer is out. 

@2psyop Sounds like you have two options

1. You can remove the Rose and connect the Nucleus directly to your DAC.  This might sound better, it could also sound worse, if it is "cleaning" up the bitstream somehow.  You could sell teh Rose and re-invest those $ into something else.  I like the Network Acoustics filters. 

2. You can take out the Nucleus and put it anywhere on the network and push/pull the bits to the Rose (I think).

-docknow