Roon Nucleus+

This is the new version of the Nucleus+, launched in September 2019.

This new version of the Nucleus+ is identical to the outgoing version in terms of software.

From a specification point of view the new Nucleus+ can accomodate a 15mm SSD drive, the original could only house a 9mm drive., so you can fit a much larger capacity drive to it if required. There is also a second HDMI output on the new version.

Visually the new model has had a facelift, it now comes in black (as opposed to a very dark gun metal grey) and has a slightly larger footprint compared to the old version. It is now manufactured at a brand new production facility in California, USA and comes in new eco friendly packaging.

Pricing is the same as the outgoing model.

Nucleus+ is the center of your Roon music system. It’s the housekeeper, the traffic cop, and the brain that takes care of the music in your life. Using Nucleus+, Roon manages all your music – on hard drives, NAS, and streaming content – and allows you to play it on all the audio devices around your home. Nucleus is the best way to run Roon, at any price.

Just plug Nucleus+ into your network, connect your hard drives, download Roon remote apps (iOS, Android, macOS, Windows) and you’ll be ready to play music using a growing list of of audio devices, and a huge variety of USB DACs.

Aside from being a powerful, fanless music server, what sets Nucleus apart is that it’s powered by Roon OS – a fast and lightweight operating system optimized to do just one thing: browse and play music. Roon is a multi-room, multi-user networked audio platform built to the exacting standards of audiophiles, so it offers features like bit-perfect playback, DSD and PCM upsampling, multichannel playback, and signal path display.

As well as distributing music throughout your home, Nucleus+ also offers the very finest performance possible when connected to a USB DAC.

A computer source has never sounded this good before.

• Manages your music stored on USB hard drives, NAS, and streamed content from TIDAL
• Runs Roon OS and is controlled by the Roon apps for iOS, Android, macOS, Windows
• Streams music to Sonos®, AirPlay®, Devialet, KEF, Linn, Naim, Roon Ready, Meridian, USB, and Squeezebox audio devices
• Silent design with no fans or moving parts
• Nucleus+ employs a superior Intel Core i7 processor for the ultimate performance
• Requires a Roon subscription
• Control4 and Crestron drivers available for home automation systems

There are several differences between the entry level Nucleus and the more advanced Nucleus+

The Nucleus+ is a lot more powerful utilising an Intel Core i7 CPU with twice the memory of the standard Nucleus. The + is designed to cope with much larger music libraries (10,000 albums+), it can also cope with more zones of multi-room playback. It also has much more extensive DSP options, upsampling to DSD etc.

For users who have libraries under the size outlined above and have less than 5 zones of audio and do not need DSD or upsampling the standard Nucleus is more than adequate to run Roon.