Can my Roon Nucleus be used with a non-Roon-ready DAC?

Here is what a DAC has to be in order to use with Roon. It needs to be driverless plug and play such that the Roon Core recognizes it. You can’t go into the core and tell it to just look for a signal in the USB port. It has to recognize the DAC and invite it to send a signal. When I first went Roon I was using a very old loaner W4S DAC that sounded, and still sounds pretty good, but requires a driver and cannot be made to work with Roon. I’ve used several other neweer DACs with roon. I have no idea if they are roon certified, but they are recognized and work great.

I'd say any DAC less than 5 years old, and most DACs less than 10 years old, will work fine.

a dac doesn't need to be roon ready

but a streamer does... roon feeds streamer (roon endpoint) which in turn feed dac

(bear in mind some units combine the streamer and the dac in one box, but they are two different functions being performed in the same chassis)

JJSS49…..helpful. “A DAC doesn’t need to be Roon ready.”

I also realized that I made a mistake (newby, sorry). I forgot that the Nucleus would connect to a DAC via its USB output, rather than ethernet. So question #2 is moot. Seems like question #1 has been answered.

I’ll see if my friend would be willing to come over again with his DAC, and I’ll just plug my Roon into his DAC via USB. 

Still would be curious if anybody has a guess about the answer to question #3.

thanks.

I’m not sure about that, jjss49. The roon nucleus is a streamer. You connect it to a streamerless DAC that is roon ready and the DAC will play whatever the nucleus streams to it. I do this myself with an Esoteric SACD player that has no streaming capabilities.

I think that there are DACs that are not roon ready that will accept a stream from the nucleus but I can’t swear to it. I’d look around the roon website and forums for an answer to this.

There is no such thing as Roon ready dac. Nucleus has hdmi, usb and ethernet ports. HDMI for use in system with non-usb dac, usb for ANY usb ported dac. Generally speaking, dac is more important than server to final sound quality, not to say Innuous wasn't contributing to sq. Still, Nucleus is pretty nice server, I'd not be thinking it weak link in chain.

“a dac doesn't need to be roon ready”
@jjss49 nailed it. A dedicated streamer or server like Innuos in almost all instances going to sound better than a Nucleus, Raspberry Pi or mac-mini. What you’ve heard was no fluke, in addition to investing into DAC and server like Innuos; look into installing a ethernet filter, ENO or Muon from Network Acoustics for exemplary streaming experience.

while it will work, running a dac directly out of the usb port of the roon nucleus is not advised if sound quality is a priority (if it isn't, one must ask why pursue all this roon stuff anyways, right?)

there is a whole industry segment on upgraded switches, network isolation/filters, usb cleansers, optical conversion modules and so on - purpose of which is to isolate the computing/data management aspect of roon (which produces substantial electrical 'grunge') from the delivery of the streamed audio signal to the dac/renderer

pulling the audio signal straight out of the nucleus (or other core machine) is the noisiest, least desirable way of listening to a system using roon - same reason why non-roon based streaming from an everyday non-dedicated pc is ill advised

if for background, ambient, non critical music, then yes, fine, but it is the worst way to get good sound from a roon-based setup

I'll repeat what I said above in a different way:  You can't tell the roon to just send a signal and you'll have a device there to recieve it.  Roon has to see your device before it will send a signal.  it will see any device that doesn't require a driver to be installed (basicly anyting less than 10 years old).  

but you have to open Roon and "Select audio device" that you want roon to send digital data to.  If roon doesn't see your device, you're out of luck.  

Thanks for the info everybody. I was actually able to get in touch with the DAC manufacturer, and he said that his DAC is Roon Ready. That said, I understand that as long as the DAC is new’ish, the Nucleus will be able to serve music to the DAC. I’m going over to my friend’s house with my Nuc to confirm. 

@jjss49 What you said about running the Nucleus directly into the DAC would be ill advised got me concerned….as that is exactly what I was thinking about doing. 

Also, I tried an experiment: I moved my nucleus over to my equipment area (unplugging the Nucleus from the cable/modem) and plugged it into the ethernet port on my wi-fi extender. It allowed me to stream music for about 30 seconds before stopping as it seems the bandwidth of info from the extender is not enough for the Nucleus (whereas it is more than enough for my current DAC). Any thoughts about how to solve this? I suppose I could just call the cable company and get them to install another cable outlet near my equipment rack so that I can plug the modem in physically close to my audio equipment. Any other thoughts about this?

I’m aware of ethernet switches, but not exactly sure how I might use them in my circumstance. 

Thanks again everybody….this is really helpful.

What are you using for a roon remote? I had a problem for 3 days where I was trying to control roon using a MacBook Pro after installing roon onto it, I never could get it to work and still to this day I can't. But my iPad and iPhone easily downloaded roon remote and can control it. No one on the roon forum could figure out my problem with the MacBook either, they were helpful but hadn't  any answers. Don't overlook the small stuff. 

I have a DAC that is not Roon ready - Aqua La Voce S3.  I have it connected to my Nucleus via USB and it sounds great, definitely better than "background music".  Maybe if I stuck some filters and other doodads in there I'd be an audiophile.

I would try to get the Nucleus and DAC positioned near your system and hard wire the internet connection.

@brunomarcs - I use either an iPhone or iPad as Roon remotes. I occasionally use my iMac, but far less frequently. Very infrequently, I need to restart the Roon app, but basically, it’s been bomb proof.

@big_greg - I brought my Nucleus over to my friends house and plugged it into his DAC. Not only did Roon recognize his DAC immediately, but it sounded fantastic. I too thought this was far better than “background” music. I agree with your suggestion to “get the Nuc and DAC positioned near my system and hard wire the internet connection.” I think that is the simplest way to proceed. Thanks.