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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 ????

truongv0ky

Showing 2 responses by lalitk

lalitk's avatar
lalitk
5,056 posts
 

“But is there a big difference of sound quality if we have optical isolation between the shared PC and an endpoint ?”

This would squarely depends on your rest of the system. You may hear the difference by upgrading to NUC or you may not. I doubt you would get any consensus to your dilemma. For me, both NUC or PC is a non-starter. A dedicated streamer like Innuos or Lumin along with a decent DAC is a must if you’re serious about getting the best out of cloud based streaming services like Qobuz or Tidal.

Once you accomplish above, then you can tweak your way into optimizing the Ethernet signal before it reaches your streamer. 

lalitk's avatar
lalitk
5,056 posts
 

@truongv0ky

If you’re running Roon, I believe with Lumin you need a headless NUC for Core. Alternatively, Lumin is perfectly capable of streaming music natively with Qobuz or Tidal through its proprietary app. Innuos is capable of both Roon core and rendering duties. But then you are faced with the ‘myth’ spread by Roon geniuses that both Core and Rendering should be on separate devices for optimal performance. IME that’s not the case, if both Core and Rendering are implemented properly, they can coexist in one box.

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