"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.