Does Roon really need Intel i7 and SSD?

[SAPHANA]

Roon recommends powerful CPU and SSD, especially for large library. However, are they really necessary?

I have a library which contains 175K tracks, including some DSD files. I use Roon with Tidal and listen to MQA a lot as well.

I have 10+ zones for my different systems, and sometimes multiple zones play music at the same time.

My Roon server runs on my Synology DS1515+ NAS, which has a rather weak CPU (Intel Atom) and no SSD at all. But I got no performance issues, whatsoever.

So, what is the benefit of using dedicated powerful Roon server (say an i7 NUC)?

[Soundserge]

As far as I understand, the extra CPU power is mainly needed when applying advanced DSP filters or converting from PCM to DSD (e.g. through HQPlayer). The SSD comes into the picture during lookups and rendering of the UI. If you don’t notice any sluggishness or hiccups, I can’t see why you’d need more grunt.

I run an i5 based roon core myself with internal SSD for storage, only because I’m paranoid about dealing with networking issues during listening sessions. I plan to apply room correction filters and I considered an i7 for that reason but I was told the i5 is perfectly capable of handling this.

[SAPHANA]

Originally Posted by Soundserge

As far as I understand, the extra CPU power is mainly needed when applying advanced DSP filters or converting from PCM to DSD (e.g. through HQPlayer). The SSD comes into the picture during lookups and rendering of the UI. If you don’t notice any sluggishness or hiccups, I can’t see why you’d need more grunt.

I run an i5 based roon core myself with internal SSD for storage, only because I’m paranoid about dealing with networking issues during listening sessions. I plan to apply room correction filters and I considered an i7 for that reason but I was told the i5 is perfectly capable of handling this.

This makes sense, and it also explains why I don't need them: because I use zero features of Roon DSP.

It's interesting that you mentioned room correction. Do I understand it correctly that as long as you find the *correct* parameters, the Roon room correction should have the same results as a dedicated audio gear, say Mcintosh MEN220? If so, how do you know what parameters to use? A dedicated gear, such as MEN220, comes with a microphone and built-in software.

[nicoff]

Originally Posted by SAPHANA

This makes sense, and it also explains why I don't need them: because I use zero features of Roon DSP.

It's interesting that you mentioned room correction. Do I understand it correctly that as long as you find the *correct* parameters, the Roon room correction should have the same results as a dedicated audio gear, say Mcintosh MEN220? If so, how do you know what parameters to use? A dedicated gear, such as MEN220, comes with a microphone and built-in software.

Many folks use REW (Room Equalization Wizard) to develop the DSP curves with great success. There are lengthy discussions about this topic at Roon Labs forums.

[PHC1]

DSP in Roon was and still is a feature that is I use quite a bit when listening to headphones. The Audeze presets are spot on to get the best sound out of their line of headphones and for the other headphones I developed some of my own profiles. Have not tried the DSP for the main system but certainly will experiment.

So yes, IMHO, if you are going to spend money, get the best processing power you can to be feature and future ready.

[Still-One]

When speaking with Small Green Computers the i5 is sufficient unless you are heavy into DSP then a i7 might be preferred. I have tried fiddling with the DSP settings a bit and never have I taxed my i5.

[SAPHANA]

Thank you all for the information about Roon and DSP. That's something I did not pay attention in the past. I am going to do some research, so that I can take full advantage of Roon.

[markbodiford]

SSD for sure! Mechanical hard drives can go to sleep and they already have a high seek time and low read speed. You do not want your mechanical hard drive to be asleep when you attempt to play media. Roon may prevent an internal/external mechanical drive from sleeping sure, but this will undoubtably cause more wear and tear. Regardless, get an SSD. Learned the hard way with my video library. 2TB for $800 solved the problem.

[SAPHANA]

UPDATE
---------
On Sunday I set up an Intel i7 NUC per Roon's suggestions, and installed ROCK. The Roon library is stored on the SSD inside the NUC, and I connect the NUC with an external WD 8T hard drive for music storage.

The results are very satisfying:

The good:
- Thanks to the SSD, library management is lightning fast. Rescanning of my huge music storage takes no time;
- Thanks to the external hard drive instead of NAS, finally Roon can get correct notifications when new music files are added to the storage. I had to rely on a complete storage scan in the past when using NAS;
- Thanks to the powerful CPU, upsampling to DSD512 works now! After enabling "multiple CPU core" setting in Roon, I can listen to my redbook CD FLAC files in DSD512 format
- The external hard drive is much quieter than my NAS;

The bad:
- The fan of the NUC roars like hell, especially when upsampling to DSD512. I thought I could make it work in "fanless" mode, but apparently that turns out to be mission impossible;
- How do I deal with my NAS now? Its main usage in the past was to run Roon...

BTW, I have to admire Roon's development team one more time. The migration of my Roon core from one server to another server was super easy and without issues.

Now my Roon+ROCK have a lot of potentials. I will dig more into the DSP features, especially room corrections, in order to get more from my investment

[saru]

Originally Posted by SAPHANA

- The fan of the NUC roars like hell, especially when upsampling to DSD512. I thought I could make it work in "fanless" mode, but apparently that turns out to be mission impossible;

The fan-noise problem is why I elected to buy a fanless case to install my i5 NUC into. The Akasa cases are designed such that the entire case functions as a big heatsink for the processor, so the system runs dead silent. Only problem is that the cases designed for the 7th gen Intel NUCs are not rated for the i7 processors -- turns out they run too hot under load for the case to sufficiently draw away the heat. That's why I ended up getting an i5 instead -- I cared more about the ambient noise than the performance of the processor! But then again, I haven't yet gotten into the Roon DSP options, so for the moment, the less-powerful processor meets my needs.