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 truongv0ky

@lalitk If you use a streamer like Lumin, you still need a PC or NUC to run roon core, right?

@sns totally agree with you. But what I meant is the noise from a shared PC can be eliminated by an FMC and buffer of DAC

@sns I think in term of data preservation, there is no loss from music server to DAC. But the problem is that each component will add noise. Do you think the optical isolator and DAC buffer can help to remove most noises from a shared PC.