I have been asked by a bunch of people to try modding a NUC like crazy to adapt it to audio use. Apply everything I know from building the AppleTV X and Switch X.
I have handy a number of music servers and a lot of experience doing super high end setups. Taiko is my current reference. I have some very high end systems I can use in development of this modded NUC.
SO... I don't know NUCs for audio use. There are so many and I need to pick a unit to base my work on. I also have some general ideas and design topology I want to go towards.
Size matters. In this case, smaller is better. The reason is technical. The longer each trace is on a PCB the more it acts like a antenna both transmitting and receiving noise. Nice short well managed traces with a good backplane. This will lead to less noise on the traces and on the buss signals between chips. All the chips close together also makes for better power supply delivery and management. Long power supply traces induce issues. Of course too small and things can bleed into each other. But one thing for sure, I do not want a big PC style Mother Board.
That said.. I do need some room inside. I would like to land some biggerish caps. So I need some open space.
I would like to be able to run off 12V, better yet 14v. The 19V thing is kinda annoyingly high. I will use a 4 pin noise canceling r-core based linear.
I don't want hardware I dont need. I dont need any kind of serious graphic chip. Well. Unless I also want to make it more of a universal box that could also do video streaming like a AppleTV.
I need a good USB for use with a external DAC.
I DO NOT need a lot of CPU power. More power = more noise. Its physics. So a lower power CPU that will run roon or various other UPnP applications would be good. Again, I don't need much in GPU power, just CPU power.
I will need a LOT of SSD. RAID 1.
I dont think I will need a lot of RAM ?
I would like a SFP+ port. It needs to be 10Gbps ready.
For a OS I think I prefer Linux, my fav is FreeBSD but that is not practical. I suppose the NUC should also be capable of Windows. But Windows just has too much going on and so I would rather use a *nix based solution. My goals are very low processing jitter, buss jitter and ram/SSD jitter. *Nix is a better way to go then windows because windows has so much chatter thru the CPU.
So my thoughts are that you guys could help suggest some hardware. You have a LOT more experience then I I will then go thru a R&D process and some of you could be beta testers. We could develop a product that should be pretty killer and also not break the bank. My direct A/B during R&D will be a Taiko.
There are just so many NUCs its hard to know which and you guys might have some great suggestions.
