In our latest blog, we'd like to tell you more about the new Roon Nucleus Plus music server - it's like the brain of your digital music library, it knows where your digital music is stored on your home network and manages it for you.

Roon is software solution that organises and provides a control system to allow you to stream and play your music on any compatible Hi-Fi connected to you home network. It also provides a very intuitive and feature rich interface, so that you explore your music collection and discover even more music! In essence, Roon provides a single universal controller and user experience for all your music replay devices!

There are two Roon Nucleus products, Roon Nucleus and Roon Nucleus Plus. Nucleus Plus extends the DSP capabilities in terms of up sampling, room correction and more. This is the one that we want to show you.

So what is Roon Nucleus?
Roon is the music management software and Nucleus is the optimised hardware that it runs on. I will explain what it means. I use Roon on my home computer (it also works with Mac's) and it's fantastic. The Roon software has to be downloaded and installed and the computer must be switched on in order to use Roon. It requires the end user to have basic understanding of computers and networks. With Roon Nucleus you get a music server and the software in a single package that doesn't require computer knowledge or networking skills and all you need is a Roon account and a Roon subscription.

What's in the box ?
Nucleus or Nucleus Plus, 4 screws for mounting an optional internal HDD or SSD, a quick start guide and the power supply.

Let's have a look at the compact Nucleus Plus device:

It features 2x USB 3 sockets for either a DAC and/or an external USB-powered hard drive an HDMI socket for stereo or multi-channel output and an ethernet socket to connect to your network via ethernet cable to your router.

The Roon Nucleus Plus can be used as a standalone server to serve and control music network players (more brands are being added all of the time) or it can be connected to a USB DAC and an external hard drive (for music storage) with that used as music streamer. See below.

From the right: Roon Nucleus Plus Server - 500GB WD USB Drive - Chord Qutest USB DAC

Switch on Nucleus once all cables are connected and start your Roon control app on a Mac, Windows PC, or the Roon control app for iPad, iPhone or Android devices.

At the heart of every Roon Nucleus system is a Roon Core. This is the brain, it manages your music collection, streams to your audio devices and stores the Roon database of your music. My PC at home is my Roon Core, here in the shop it is the Roon Nucleus Plus server.

The first step is to tell Nucleus where the music library is, this is either music on a NAS drive, USB drive or/and your Tidal music subscription.

We then enabled all Roon-ready audio devices in our shop for music playback, including Apple AirPlay compatible devices, Sonos, KEF, Naim Audio, Bluesound, and there are many more (have a look on the Roon website).

Now we are ready to listen to some music!

It is incredibly fast, the way it handles our large music library. Skip to the next song or change to another song from another album while listening. There are no delays, not even when we fast forward or rewind!

Now we transfer the music playing in our main room to one of the Roon-ready devices in the shop front and again - It transfers the music seamlessly to another player. (You rename all of the your zones within the app).

The same when we group music players to the main listening room (multi-room). These are call end points, so you can even listen to music from your collection through headphone on an Ipad if you want to.

Roon provides you with a lot of information about the music you listen to such as view the artwork, album name, sampling rate, bit depth, the lyrics (if available) and so much more. You can tag categories, bookmark pages, browse by genre, sub genre etc etc.

Another great feature about Roon is the data and information it provides about the artists. In some way it's a bit like Wikipedia. Click on the name of an artist you are interested in and you can read all about it with links to gigs, related artists, external websites and more. Roon will take you deep into the music and artists you love.

The Roon Nucleus Plus offers a simple and intuitive way to control and discover your digital music collection and the convenience of where you play it in your home. It is very fast and and works with a lot of manufacturers Hi-Fi systems.

We are extremely impressed with its capability and would be please to show you how it works and answer any questions you may have.

Stefan & Andy - Audio T Swindon