Roon’s music servers are fantastic, but they have been somewhat pricey – until now. The new Nucleus One server has the potential to broaden the audience for the company’s intelligent music technology. The new device is the most affordable Roon server on the market, costing less than one-third of the previous models.
However, just because the price is cheaper does not imply you should lessen your expectations. According to Roon, the Nucleus one is “comparable in performance to the previous Nucleus”, with rock-solid reliability and great performance.
According to Roon founder Enno Vandermeer, the goal has always been to make Roon as widely available as possible. Since launching the Sooloos system about two decades ago, “we’ve been on a mission ever since to develop something we could recommend to our friends and families”. According to Vandermeer, the Nucleus one is “a dedicated Roon server for the price of an off-the-shelf mini PC”.
If you are unfamiliar with Roon, it is part of the Harmann audio family, which also includes AKG, JBL, and Mark Levinson. Roon’s music servers are intended to provide a functional, uniform, and multi-room compatible front end to your music library, resulting in “a surfable, searchable digital magazine covering your entire music collection”. It supports not just locally stored music, but also the greatest music streaming services such as Tidal, Qobuz, and KKBOX, all within the same interface for a consistent experience.
Roon Nucleus One: Pricing and Specifications
The new Roon Nucleus One is made of polycarbonate and is meant to look like the high-end Nucleus Titan server. Its 2.5-inch drive tray allows you to install SATA storage of up to 8TB using SSDs or hard disks.
It also supports USB drives at up to USB 3.0 speeds through its Type A connector, as well as Ethernet for networked devices and HDMI for stereo and multi-channel audio output. The Linux-based Roon OS software can manage up to 10,000 albums or 100,000 tracks in a single library and broadcast audio to up to six separate multi-room audio zones. There’s a silent internal fan to keep things cool, and you can control it all using the Roon app for Android or iOS.
The Roon nucleus One has a US pricing of $499 and will be available on May 15, 2024.
