The Roon 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.
Free Fitted 1TB SSD + 1 Year Free Roon Subscription with every Nucleus Purchase!
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 wide variety of audio devices, including AirPlay, Sonos, Roon Ready, Devialet, KEF, Meridian, Squeezebox, and a huge variety of USB DACs.
What is Roon? - Video Series
Roon OS
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 optimised 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.
What is Roon? - Video 2
Nucleus or Nucleus+?
Both the Nucleus and Nucleus+ servers look and function in exactly the same way. Their difference is primarily down to the Intel® processor used in each model, which shifts their speed and workload capacity.
The standard Nucleus is suited to smaller multi-room environments, or for installations where complex DSP processing is not required. It's also suited to smaller library sizes.
Nucleus+ is the more advanced solution, for complex or high-end environments and for lightning-fast handling of larger music libraries.
Roon Nucleus Key Features:
- Manages your music stored on USB hard drives, NAS, and streamed content from TIDAL and Qobuz
- Runs Roon OS and is controlled by the Roon apps for iOS, Android, macOS, Windows
- Streams music to Sonos®, AirPlay®, Google®, Roon Ready™, Roon Tested™ and many other audio devices
- Silent design with no fans or moving parts
- Requires a Roon subscription (available here)
- Roon OS boasts a string of features and enhancements that are only available to Nucleus customers
Technical Specifications
Nucleus
Library Capacity: | Up to 10,000 albums (100,000 tracks) |
Multi-Room Streaming | Up to 6 Simultaneous Zones |
DSP Capability: | All DSP functions available in the PCM domain. Certain combinations of functions using DSD source or destination formats, upsampling, or multichannel processing may not be possible. |
Nucleus +
Library Capacity: | Over 10,000 albums (100,000 tracks) |
Multi-Room Streaming | Over 6 Simultaneous Zones |
DSP Capability: | All DSP functions available |
Common Features
Input Voltage: | 12-19V DC |
I/O Ports: |
2 x USB 3.0 (can be used for hard drive and/or DAC) 2 x HDMI (stereo and multi-channel audio output) |
Internal Drive: | 2.5” SATA SSD or HDD up to 15mm drive height |
Dimensions: | 267mm (W) x 267mm (D) x 61mm (H) |
Home Automation Features: | Control4 and Crestron Drivers |
Weight: | 3.2kg (excluding power supply) |
Accessories: | Power Supply / Quick-Start Guide |