I would have agreed with you more a few years ago about using a computer, but with the green computer isolation and the fact that my wife’s laptop doesn’t have a fan in it, really takes two of the main problems out of the equation. I’m still not crazy about using an off the shelf computer, but it would certainly be worth a try.
Dedicated NUC/Nucleaus vs shared PC (w Fiber Media Converter connected to Endpoint)
A Roon system of 2 devices includes:
- Music Server (NUC/Nucleaus/PC, etc...)
- Endpoint (SOtM, Sonore, etc..)
with Fiber Media Converter in between.
I think we all agree that a dedicated machine of NUC/Nucleaus will be better than a shared PC as a music server. But is there a big difference of sound quality if we have optical isolation between the shared PC and an endpoint ?
Here is the idea:
A shared PC creates 2 problems:
- Analog noises (from power, fan..). But most of them can be eliminated by optical isolation like Fiber Media Converter (according to Small Green Computer).
- Latency, jitter (because PC run many other tasks). But the endpoint and DAC have buffers. So all jitters before DAC can be ignored. Besides, if we don’t listen to too fast music, the issue (if happen) will not impact much.
So does a NUC really brings a difference, compared with a shared Pc connected with endpoint through FIber media converter ????