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I’ve been running their ‘Core’ software on a dedicated MacBook Air 11-inch with a USB 2.0 two-terabyte HD and their ‘Remote’ software on an iPad Mini 2 for a few years now without a glitch and love the experience – using it as my reference digital-audio player. It’s become my defacto bar to measure other digital-audio players/software packages to.

But…

But, over the past year since I’ve taken the helm here at AudioStream I’ve been exposed to some incredibly impressive streaming hardware running manufacturer-specific software players. Hardware that is optimized for music playback. Hardware that is so much more noticeably transparent and revealing of detail in comparison to my MacBook Air that I’ve had to rethink its status as a reference.

While I’ve been overwhelmed with what the hardware capabilities of these solutions are bringing to the sonic picture, I’ve been a little underwhelmed by the music-playback experience offered by the UI of them. They do everything I need without fuss and a minimal learning curve to master digital-file library management and playback (be it local or cloud-based), it’s just that they don’t really do everything I want or wish of them.

And if I’m being honest, what I want from them is to be more Roon-like.

So, now armed with the aural knowledge of what updated and dedicated digital-audio playback hardware is sonically cable of delivering, I really started pining for Roon’s in-house, Intel-partnered, bespoke hardware – the Nucleus and the Nucleus+ – to see how it stacked up against some of the other hardware/software combos I’d entertained in my sound system, and of particular comparative interest; how it stacked up against my little MacBook Air.

Dipin Sedev and Rob Darling of Roon soon facilitated me receiving the $2,498 USD Nucleus+ for a review. The short and skinny is this; it uses an Intel dual-core i7 processor (compared to the i3 of the standard Nucleus) loaded with eight Gigabytes of RAM, a dedicated 64-Gigabyte solid-state hard drive for the Roon Core and file-system management, two USB 3.0 connections for either an external hard drive coupling or output to a DAC, an HDMI output and a gigabit Ethernet input with space inside its one-piece, die-cast aluminum chassis for a 2.5-inch SSD or conventional HD up to 9.5 millimetres in height. No analog outs because there is no DAC.

Initial impressions are that it presents an immediate and noticeable drop in the noise floor compared to my MacBook Air and a more propulsive, dynamic drive to music. Once again telling my ears there is more to bits-are-bits than meets the eye.

I plan on installing a dedicated internal SSD for all my local high-res PCM, Redbook and DSD files next week and start head-to-head comparisons against other streamer/server heavyweights I have in-house. Look for a full review on the Roon Nucleus+ in the coming months.