Music Server Build. [Archive] - The Art of Sound Forum

Welder

12-03-2011, 10:49

What I’m aiming for is a silent server capable of handling multiple bit rates and frequencies with more than one OS, multiple music players and a number of DSP apps at a reasonable cost.

Having heard a couple of my friends server based stereo systems now and been a bit surprised to find I can hear a marked difference these and an adapted PC or laptop, I decided some time ago that a server was the way forward for me.
For a while I thought I had escaped the hard work when the Logitech Touch hit the stores but having heard the Touch in direct comparison to a purpose built server the mission is still on.……………well actually, I’ve built a couple of configurations already.

I’m on my third build now, mostly using components I either already have or bits acquired from a friend who upgrades commercial IT installations.
This is going to be an ongoing project so it’s not really a how to.
I hope it may be of interest to anyone else who wants to explore file/server based audio past the usual PC and Dac configuration.

I will point out here; I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’ve relied heavily on one particular friend’s knowledge and what I’ve learned since my music has been file based.
None of what I do is safe, probably, and mains voltages are involved. If you follow any of this and fry yourself; tough. If you’re dead you can’t sue me anyway.
Basically, don’t do it if you value your life. I’ve been riding bikes for 40 years so I obviously don’t.

More to follow…….

smurfbrain

12-03-2011, 19:01

Nothing wrong with riding bikes :bike: . As with everything there is always a learning curve.

Tim

12-03-2011, 19:25

I shall follow this with interest, as it's something I am also experimenting in. Having been in a dealers today listening to a Linn DS (which was very good actually) costing £2,000, but it was doing nothing more than I did the previous week with Stan's Caiman and a Netbook. The only difference really was the Linn came in a nice looking box, which could be controlled remotely by an iPad (another £400). Very convenient, but worth nearly 2,000 more than my setup? Additionally, the Linn DS can only be served by a NAS music server, which by all accounts is tricky to setup and fussy about brands it will work with. Unless you buy a RipNAS (which Linn likes) for a further £900, but only has a 1TB capacity unless you add more storage at nearly £600 for a 3TB box!

Manufacturers are really cashing in on this, as all a Linn DS is, is a DAC and network attached media player in a nice box! Having said all that, it is something I am considering, but I need to work out a much cheaper storage and controller solution.

Stratmangler

12-03-2011, 21:31

Tim

12-03-2011, 21:43

The Linn stuff is over-priced.

You could buy a Squeezebox Touch, Squeezebox controller, Fit PC, Drobo storage to attach to the Fit PC for less than half of the cost of the Linn.

If you have an iPhone, iPod Touch with Bluetooth enabled, iPad or an Android phone you can get an app which will contol the Squeezebox Touch, which will save you the cost of the controller.

I agree the Linn is far too expensive, but it's a very nice package. Not a fan of the Sqeezebox for it's audio..... can you use it with Foobar? Don't have any of the things you mention here at all, just a bog standard Nokia phone. Mind you I don't know much about squeezebox?

Stratmangler

12-03-2011, 22:01

I agree the Linn is far too expensive, but it's a very nice package. Not a fan of the Sqeezebox for it's audio..... can you use it with Foobar? Don't have any of the things you mention here at all, just a bog standard Nokia phone. Mind you I don't know much about squeezebox?

I connect my Squeezebox Touch to my Caiman/Gator DAC.
It completely bypasses the Windoze audio driver issues.
The Slim Server Client (Squeezebox Server) is freely available from the Logitech site, and it's opensource, so there's a community of developers continually working on improving existing functionality and features, and developing new ones too.

Tim

12-03-2011, 22:11

Ali Tait

12-03-2011, 22:16

The Touch comes with a remote.

Tim

12-03-2011, 22:19

What about the reported buffering issues, I couldn't live with that?

Stratmangler

12-03-2011, 22:28

OK, might need some advice here then? If the Touch attaches to the DAC, how do you remotely use it, as I thought it was a touch screen? I thought folk had complained about buffering issues too?

At the moment I remote into my laptop, from a Netbook, which gives me the same screen as the laptop acting as the music player - but it would be nice to have something smaller and handheld to control the music.

There are no buffering issues if you're not using the inbuilt TinySC - I run the PC based server client, so files do not stutter.
I run my setup connected via ethernet, but wireless is nearly as trouble free. Ethernet is obviously more robust (and quicker) in its data transmission.

The Touch comes with a IR remote.
If you run the SBS client on a PC elsewhere at home you can also control it via the web browser on a laptop/an app on a handheld smart device - you do not need to touch the Touch in order to operate it.

I have an Android phone with an app called Squeeze Commander on it, and it works just fine.
I have 2 Squeezeboxes on my network (the other one is the older SB3, which runs in my son's bedroom), and both can be accessed and controlled from the SmartPhone.
I can even synchronise the 2 players using the phone, so both will play the same music in sync for when I'm moving around the house.

Tim

12-03-2011, 22:32

That sounds pretty good and easy Chris... I have my music on a NAS, I take it that would work too?

Ali Tait

12-03-2011, 22:33

What about the reported buffering issues, I couldn't live with that?

It will work fine up to a certain size of music collection, though it is actually the artwork that causes the problem. As Chris says, it's only an issue if you use the inbuilt server.

Tim

12-03-2011, 22:35

It will work fine up to a certain size of music collection, though it is actually the artwork that causes the problem. As Chris says, it's only an issue if you use the inbuilt server.

Hmmm, I have nearly 1TB on the NAS, no artwork mind you, just FLAC files.

Ali Tait

12-03-2011, 22:37

If you don't have any album covers then it should work fine, and you can plug the NAS directly into the Touch via USB.

Stratmangler

12-03-2011, 22:41

That sounds pretty good and easy Chris... I have my music on a NAS, I take it that would work too?

You should be able to point the network addressing for your serving machine so that it addresses the NAS.
SBS looks for the location of your "My Music" folder. I have played with the folder being set elswhere on network, and it works. The only issue I've found is getting the exact network address correct - once that's properly sorted then it's done.

PC World have the Touch in atm for £200, which is an outright bargain.
I mention PC World, as there stuff is always sealed box unless otherwise stated.

Tim

12-03-2011, 22:56

Thanks guys, learnt more here than ages on the Logitech website! I may have to give it a go. I take it you are both happy with the audio quality?

Stratmangler

12-03-2011, 23:10

I take it you are both happy with the audio quality?

It's a given;)

Tim

12-03-2011, 23:16

It's a given;)
:lolsign: silly question I suppose on an audiophile forum.... doh! :doh:

Stratmangler

12-03-2011, 23:31

:lolsign: silly question I suppose on an audiophile forum.... doh! :doh:

Put it this way - I only buy CDs to rip them, or make copies for the car.
I do not play CDs at home - everything is streamed.

I also listen to streamed radio off t'interweb - the iPlayer, which works brilliantly on Squeezebox Server, is invaluable here, as I frequently find out about programmes after they've been broadcast.:doh:

It's fair to say that my Squeezebox Touch gets the lion's share of music playing duties, although I do have a rather nice vintage TT which gets occasional use too;)

Tim

12-03-2011, 23:37

Stratmangler

12-03-2011, 23:43

Just found a review, with this picture :(

http://images.trustedreviews.com/images/article/inline/13244-img5320s.jpg

It's not going to work for me, as I need something I can see in my hand. The Touch will be too far away for me to see what I am streaming.... oh well, I thought it would be a good alternative, but I will have to stick to remoting with a netbook.

You can still remote it with your netbook - I use my laptop to access the Touch often too.

IP address in my case is http://192.168.1.75:9000 - you use yer bog standard web browser.:)

Tim

12-03-2011, 23:53

You can still remote it with your netbook - I use my laptop to access the Touch often too.

That's a very good option, but I would still be doing what I am now, as I have an old DELL D600 which is the server and I remote it with my Netbook using Radmin. I like the idea of the Touch, but it still won't give me what I want and used today, a very slick interface in my hand that 40+12 eyes can see easily in the dark ;)

What I need is a small receiver to go into the DAC and a nice device in my hand with all the audio files and information visible to remote it. Maybe a tablet PC would get me round this, when Microsoft sort out their touch-screen technology. :scratch:

Tim

12-03-2011, 23:58

Maybe a Sonus attached to the DAC and then I can run the Sonus software from an iPad :) That should work nicely and cost a fraction of the Linn system.

Alex_UK

13-03-2011, 00:02

That's a very good option, but I would still be doing what I am now, as I have an old DELL D600 which is the server and I remote it with my Netbook using Radmin. I like the idea of the Touch, but it still won't give me what I want and used today, a very slick interface in my hand that 40+12 eyes can see easily in the dark ;)

What I need is a small receiver to go into the DAC and a nice device in my hand with all the audio files and information visible to remote it. Maybe a tablet PC would get me round this, when Microsoft sort out their touch-screen technology. :scratch:

ipod Touch - doesn't have to be an iphone; Also works fantastically with Spotify (the main reason I just bought one) - OK - for a remote it is expensive (I went for the 64GB version, but the 8GB version is £160 now. I've made a arther big assumption there - that there is an "app for that" (Logitech Touch - don't know, I don't use one.)

Tim

13-03-2011, 00:07

slate

13-03-2011, 00:10

I would not be able to live with the IR remote from the Touch.
Personally I use what is at hand at the time I want to controll my boxes; the webinterface, the Duet Controller or the SlimControl app on my old Windows Mobile (an old doc http://sc.sciatec.de/SlimControl/quickstart_e.pdf )

My dedicated server are hibernating and the Controller and SlimControl can send a WOL package to wake it up.

As Strat mentioned, the open source approach means that there are remote apps for almost anything out there with a screen and wifi.
Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, Android phones, iphone/ipad/touch, WebOS, BlackBerry/RIM, some Nokia phones, etc .....

eg. when the O2 Joggler came out it took weeks before someone had the
SqueezePlay client running on it http://openjoggler.org/guides/turn-your-joggler-squeezebox.

One thing that people often dont get the first time is that the Controller/webinterface/apps are talking to the server which then controls the players. The players used to be rather simple and stupid. This also means that owners of older Squeezeboxes have gotten upgrades over the years as new features have been introduced in the server. One example is the Controller which doesn't care about what generation of Squeezebox you have; it just talks to the server.

Of cause there are features that the older boxes can't support, but the server knows the rules e.g. if I play a 24/192 track on my Duet Receiver the server will automatically transcode it "down" to a format/quality that the Receiver can handle.

Alex_UK

13-03-2011, 00:13

Actually, yes this I quite like, cheaper than the iPad and they all work with Sonus and as I'm Spotify Premium I can use the iTouch for that too :)

Congrats on being made a Mod too Alex, I look forward to the Spotify project, cos' as you know I am a big fan and user

Cheers Tim - you'll love some of the other apps that you can get on the ipod touch too, I reckon. I've used it for far more that I expected too.

("Watch this space" re. the AoS Spotify project - doing some testing to make sure it all works for folks before rolling it out.)

slate

13-03-2011, 00:19

Congrats on being made a Mod too Alex

Since we now are of topic I might as well join in with a congrats here... can't comment in the official thread...:scratch:
I guess that I better start behaving then.... first thing must be to reconsider my previous comments about Tina Dico; with the rave reviews on the concert thread I might have to give her a second chance:smoking:

Tim

13-03-2011, 00:21

Since we now are of topic I might as well join in with a congrats here... can't comment in the official thread...:scratch:
I guess that I better start behaving then.... first thing must be to reconsider my previous comments about Tina Dico; with the rave reviews on the concert thread I might have to give her a second chance:smoking:
A very special lady IMHO - start with Welcome Back Colour :)

Welder

13-03-2011, 00:32

Tim

13-03-2011, 00:35

Erm, don’t you lot have legs or are you all too pissed to stand up and walk to your computers to make a selection? :scratch:

:lolsign: yep I do, but it's rather nice to be able to browse your music collection in comfort.... and my bones are creaking now! ;) but at the end of the day you are right, I'm just being lazy :(

Alex_UK

13-03-2011, 00:39

Erm, don’t you lot have legs or are you all too pissed to stand up and walk to your computers to make a selection? :scratch:

(doesn’t really get this “I” remote fiddle gadget wireless music in the bog stuff)

Yes, and no - I work from home a lot, and when the 'phone goes I need to be able to pause the music pretty much instantly, which I can't do without a remote. But I must admit, I do find it amusing changing tracks whilst taking a dump! :lolsign:

Stratmangler

13-03-2011, 00:41

I must admit, I do find it amusing changing tracks whilst taking a dump! :lolsign:

:rolleyes: small minds, eh ?

Alex_UK

13-03-2011, 00:41

Since we now are of topic I might as well join in with a congrats here... can't comment in the official thread...:scratch:
I guess that I better start behaving then.... first thing must be to reconsider my previous comments about Tina Dico; with the rave reviews on the concert thread I might have to give her a second chance:smoking:

I have a long and photographic memory - "vanilla" was the word you used - I've still not forgiven you! :D ;)

(Thanks, by the way!)

Stratmangler

13-03-2011, 00:52

Erm, don’t you lot have legs or are you all too pissed to stand up and walk to your computers to make a selection? :scratch:

(doesn’t really get this “I” remote fiddle gadget wireless music in the bog stuff)

Just over 2 years ago I was in a fairly serious car accident.
I ended up having to have an op to put a plate in to stabilise a broken vertebra.
If it weren't for the widgets I'd have been pretty f**ked for playing much music, as it was a major effort to move for more essential matters.

Since then I've thankfully recovered to a fair extent.
Technology has moved on, and my phone has become a computer with added telephony.
I've become used to having RC, so why not have it incorporated into my PDA ?

OK, I admit that most folks want to have gizmos 'coz it's the latest toy to have, but there is a seriously useful side to some items kicking around today.

Stratmangler

13-03-2011, 01:00

On another note - WHO KEEPS MOVING THIS THREAD ?

Leave it where it is will ya ?
I'm getting dizzy keeping up - it's 3 moves so far:doh::doh::doh:

Alex_UK

13-03-2011, 01:09

On another note - WHO KEEPS MOVING THIS THREAD ?

Leave it where it is will ya ?
I'm getting dizzy keeping up - it's 3 moves so far:doh::doh::doh:

Dunno about moving it, but we probably need to apologise to John for crapping all over it before he hardly got started! :doh:

slate

13-03-2011, 01:12

I have a long and photographic memory - "vanilla" was the word you used - I've still not forgiven you! :D ;)

My spine kept telling me that I am on a hitlist somewhere

Welder

13-03-2011, 01:14

"Dunno about moving it, but we probably need to apologise to John for crapping all over it before he hardly got started!"

Not at all.I'm nice like that ;)

Stratmangler

13-03-2011, 01:16

C'mon John.
I did mention Fit PC - probably do a grand job for you with a few select peripherals ;)

Welder

13-03-2011, 01:31

You did indeed and very nice they are too :)

I’m sort of testing bits out and making notes so progress is a bit slow anyway.

Ali Tait

13-03-2011, 11:17

Tim, may have already been mentioned, but you could buy the Squeezebox Controller, which has an inbuilt screen allowing you to browse your files.

Ali Tait

13-03-2011, 11:18

You did indeed and very nice they are too :)

I’m sort of testing bits out and making notes so progress is a bit slow anyway.

Will be following your progress John, as I will probably do something similar in the future.

Tim

13-03-2011, 11:25

Tim, may have already been mentioned, but you could buy the Squeezebox Controller, which has an inbuilt screen allowing you to browse your files.
Thanks Ali, didn't know that bit, so will do some more research. I'm leaning toward the Sonos at the moment, to be controlled by an iPad - these are down to £329 now. Just such a good bit of kit for old eyes and useful for other stuff too ;)
I reckon I will replace my ageing A3 CDP instead of getting rid of the format completely too, I think I would miss spinning discs!

Ali Tait

13-03-2011, 11:47

I've not heard the Sonos kit and to be honest pretty much discounted it because of the price, but if you go ahead I'd be interested in how it sounds.

Tim

13-03-2011, 11:54

I've not heard the Sonos kit and to be honest pretty much discounted it because of the price, but if you go ahead I'd be interested in how it sounds.
That's the bit I have reservations about, so don't want to ditch the CDP too soon. But for convenience and controllability, it ticks all my boxes. So for serious listening a new CDP will be needed and for messing about on Spotify and other stuff, I reckon the Sonos will fit the bill. One Zoneplayer is all I will need at 279 and I have a load of John Lewis vouchers at the moment, so jobs a good un'

Stratmangler

13-03-2011, 11:56

Just bear in mind that the Sonos won't handle hi-res files.
https://sonos.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/sonos.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=80

Generally it won't be a problem, but you're stuck if you have any 24 bit files, or any 16 bit files at higher sample rates.
Most DVD-Video music is 16/48, some is 24/48 , and very occasionally you get 24/96 .

If you're looking at DVD-Audio music then you're looking at 24/48, 24/96 and occasionally 24/192.

Then there's DSD to PCM transfers - these are usually 24 bit, but with sample rates that are multiples of the CD sample rate of 44.1 kHz, so you get 24/88.2 or 24/176.4 .

Tim

13-03-2011, 12:11

Does the Touch do 24bit then?

Welder

13-03-2011, 12:12

Good grief…………I think I’ll have to put some Sugar Babes on coz this is getting depressing. Build! don’t buy and learn to walk while you’re at it. Oh arr, a visit to the opticians might be good.

(ffs, remote this, stream that, gadgets and pads, hardly the cutting edge of sound quality is it :doh:)

Stratmangler

13-03-2011, 12:14

Does the Touch do 24bit then?

Up to 24/96 natively.
If you use a serving computer (as opposed to the internal TinySC) downsampling on the fly from 24/192 to 24/96 just works with no fuss.
Same goes for 24/176.4 .

Tim

13-03-2011, 12:24

(ffs, remote this, stream that, gadgets and pads, hardly the cutting edge of sound quality is it :doh:)
:lolsign: no, but most of this for me is the discovery of music, I will never discount musical quality (within my budget), this just goes alongside it ;)
And spending all day stripping, building and working on computers, kind of makes me want to use them for pleasure when I get home. I gave up building them awhile ago, but I think I will butt out now, as there is no intention to upset people - horses for courses?

Ali Tait

13-03-2011, 12:55

That's the bit I have reservations about, so don't want to ditch the CDP too soon. But for convenience and controllability, it ticks all my boxes. So for serious listening a new CDP will be needed and for messing about on Spotify and other stuff, I reckon the Sonos will fit the bill. One Zoneplayer is all I will need at 279 and I have a load of John Lewis vouchers at the moment, so jobs a good un'

Well I can say that the Touch played through my Audionote dac is better than any cd player I've had in my system. It even sounds very good from it's analogue outs.

I think you have to look at it as an easy solution to get into computer audio. I think it's a great sounding bit of kit, and of course will play up to 24/96. I daresay going the route of building a dedicated setup the way John is would yield yet greater benefits.

The reason I waited for the Touch to go down this route was that I wanted the convenience of having all my music at my fingertips, but I didn't want to use a pc to control it all, as I find it distracting when I just want to listen to music, and the Touch allows direct connection of an external hard drive via USB. Ironically I'm now getting to the point where rebuffering is becoming an issue, so I'm being forced down the dedicated server route. :doh:

Welder

13-03-2011, 13:04

“And spending all day stripping, building and working on computers, kind of makes me want to use them for pleasure when I get home. I gave up building them awhile ago, but I think I will butt out now, as there is no intention to upset people - horses for courses?”

I really don’t understand this. I read and hear this type of comment a lot.
I have a couple of friends who having heard a decent file based set up and readily admit they sound better than their current CD based systems yet are unable to make the transition because they are unable to associate computers with quality audio. To them computers are some ghastly bits of electronics they have to learn to at least operate to keep their jobs and join in with modern communications. It’s all in the mind, seriously.

If I worked with computers for a living I would have a serious f**k off server by now, far better than anything I could afford buy in the shops; much like the rest of my Hi Fi.
I’ve struggled with computers much like I struggled with record decks years ago. The difference is that to me at least record decks were easier because I believed I understood what was going on because the physical evidence of my tinkering was obvious. With computers it’s a bit different, I can’t often see the “results” of my tinkering and often don’t understand why they have or haven’t worked. But, the truth is, most don’t understand why mechanical tinkering yields the results it does, they are just more comfortable with it because its more tangible.

You don’t hear many Hi Fi sales reps or pro Hi Fi builders say “all I want to do when I get home is listen to mp3 on my “I” thingy coz I work with stereo systems all day” do you?

This is just one of the reasons I carefully differentiate between file audio and computers; file audio, yep, I know that’s important to me, computers, I hate the bloody things.

Tim

13-03-2011, 15:51

I really don’t understand this. I read and hear this type of comment a lot.
Well that's what happens . . . . before working with them I used to build them for myself and friends. I used to fix them, overclock them, even tried water cooling them and had bits all over the place, looked like a garage sale...........
Now I just want to listen to music at home and use a computer as a tool to help me further my hobby, which is discovering new music, researching artists and booking live gigs - but not a lot else. These days a laptop is taking over from my main system and it's likely to get stripped down and sold on eBay soon.

computers, I hate the bloody things. :lolsign: so do I!

Welder

13-03-2011, 17:35

Can’t really argue with that.
What I would say is if you have that level of skill with computers you could build something that will outperform the stuff you’re thinking of buying :doh:
In fact, you can help me out when I get stuck :)

Reid Malenfant

13-03-2011, 18:47

Hi John, have you thought about the PSU chap? I guess if i was going to do similar i'd probably design & build a linear PSU for this job as we all know they are superior, i somehow doubt you'll be going along these lines though :scratch:

There are some what look like SMPS based PSUs available with no fans though :) This would obviously be advantageous due to less noise, just thought i'd mention it as these things get overlooked :eyebrows:

Welder

13-03-2011, 19:16

I intend to use a linear power supply Mark. I just don’t know how much power I’m going to need yet :scratch:
I had hoped to get a bit about the processor sorted and typed up today but while tinkering last night a couple of pork chops decided to have a bit of a party in the oven and you know how messy pigs are :(

Reid Malenfant

13-03-2011, 19:20

:lolsign:

Good to hear you are going in the right direction with a linear PSU John :)

Tim

14-03-2011, 18:27

(ffs, remote this, stream that, gadgets and pads, hardly the cutting edge of sound quality is it :doh:)
You will be pleased to know, I have shelved my gadgets and pads idea :)
Resurrected my old XP Dell, put Foobar with ASIO4all on there and all at a total cost to me of £0.00 pounds.....

(however, I have put Radmin on there, so I can access it remotely if needed ;))

PaulBarnett

16-03-2011, 21:40

Hi

I'm a new squeezebox touch user, and this thread seems a good place to explain why.

My system is first and formost analogue, with an LP12 frontend that, after a recent service
by John Plank, now sounds better that it ever has before - into active nytech/arc101 amp &
speakers. I also have an old Rotel CD965 player, for the growing collection of music I could
only get on CD.... I always considered the CD source as a 2nd-class source.

I like portable hifi - some years ago I bought a cownon D2 and so I've been gradually creating
flac copies of my CDs for it - they live on my server PC, and get copied to an SD card for the D2.

So one day it occured to me that I have an always-on server, with lots of flac files - what
would it take to play them thru the hifi?

I looked at usb out from the server into a usb dac, but would also need: some fancy usb audio
drivers on the server (its a linux server) and some music player software (eg mpd/gmpc) and
i'd not have a convenient remote GUI, unless I tied up my netbook for that (or bought another
one)

Or get another small & quiet PC (eg a fit + usb dish drive ) just for music

While thinking about this, I chanced upon the sqeezebox scheme, (and the touch in particular)
and it ticked all the boxes - so I bought one last Saturday::

Cheaper solution than the alternatives I was looking at.

uses my existing server as home for the music files. I just had to download the free &
open source SqueezeBox Server applcation and run it (it's written in Perl, so no OS problems)

talks to the touch by wireless or ethernet (so bypassing any usb problems) - I'm using
wireless initially, it gets a good signal, so no problems yet

contains its own dac which by all accountrs is not bad, but leaves open the obvious
upgrade to an external dac.

has a screen I can read from the listening position (you get a choice of text sizes),
and an IR remote to control it.

Internet radio !!!!! - I didnt realise just how much free music was out there....

Could handle 24/96 files in the future (I dont have any today)

expandable: I've installed free software on my laptop that acts like a 2nd squeezebox
player. I can control either player (touch or laptop) from laptop or any othet PC on the
network via a browser interface

(if I had an i<something> or android something , there is an app to make it act as
another remote, with pictures)

And it sounds - very good indeed - better than the Rotel, but not as good as the Linn. It is
early days yet, but each CD image I've played so far has sounded better than the source CD ..
and its way too early to decide if I need an external dac, and how much I'd need to spend
to better the touch's dac (Does anyone know if, for example, a Beresford dac is a worthwhile
upgrade? or an MF M1?, or a Rega?)

bottom line is:

my CD collection sounds better that ever before - not as good as vinyl, and so very very
convenient.

mervinb

16-03-2011, 23:04

...And it sounds - very good indeed - better than the Rotel, but not as good as the Linn. It is
early days yet, but each CD image I've played so far has sounded better than the source CD ..
and its way too early to decide if I need an external dac, and how much I'd need to spend
to better the touch's dac (Does anyone know if, for example, a Beresford dac is a worthwhile
upgrade? or an MF M1?, or a Rega?)
I've had a Squeezebox Touch replace my cd player in my main system for a few months, and recently a second Touch has found a home in my bedroom system. In both cases they drive dacs.

The Touch is reported to have very good quality digital outputs (not just good for the price range, but good, period). Some users have raved about the direct analogue outputs, esp. when the "soundcheck" toolbox is used (see slimdevices forum). However, compared to any of the dacs I use, the sound is far superior. The dacs are not super high end, but very competent:

Channel Islands VDA-1 (almost modded to death -- highly optimised power supply, even WM8716 replacing the original PCM1716 which I damaged)
Zhaolu 2.0 (highly modded, but clicks on some track transitions, a problem that came with the unit)
Audio-GD NFB-12 (new, minor mods in power supply)
Caiman Gator (new, minor mods in power supply)

The two newer dacs, out of the box without mods, sounded distinctly better (more body, less reedy) than the SB Touch (just a few weeks older). I have heard dacs and other electronics gear change character over the first few weeks, but I was surprised how much the Audio-GD especially changed (opened up, less congested) over weeks. Psychological? Hard to agree, since the other older dacs playing side by side have not changed over the same time.

Anyway, to cut the story short - a top $200-300 dac will probably outperform the analogue section of the Touch. The very highly modded dacs I use have played alongside Accuphase and other megabuck dacs, and the digital output of the SB Touch doesn't appear to be a limiting factor.

Enjoy!

Welder

18-03-2011, 11:11

Processors.

Currently the trend is to use low powered single or dual core processors. The thinking behind this as I understand it is streaming audio data is an un-intensive task for even the most basic processor and low power generally means easy cooling.
There are a couple of Dac manufacturers, Gordon Rankin for example, who advocate the use of more powerful processors
The argument goes something like this; is it better to push data through a few pipes at high speeds or to use lots of pipes and let the data sort of trickle through for want of a better explanation. Multi core CPUs with hyper threading allow for the second case. While they tend to run hotter at stock speeds than single or twin cores many CPUs are both over and under clockable and undervoltable so in theory you can turn the clock speeds way down with an application or through BIOS helping to keep the heat down and still take advantage of the hyper threading.
It is quite surprising what can be achieved with passive cooling at stock speeds.
The optimum underclock would be to match side bus speed if I’ve understood this correctly, the rate at which the processor gets fed.
I can’t find anything that suggests one make of processor sounds better than another or much information about how much power is optimal.
In the end I went for what I could get reasonably cheaply that I know can be both underclocked and core disabled. This way I can experiment once the server is built and be reasonably confident that I will have enough processing power to run the tasks I want.
Rip using an external DVD/CD RW
Manage at least two external hard drives.
Run DSP programs
Manage a large display
Run any music player
Play music files of any format and bit rate/frequency currently availible.

While playing an audio track may not take much processing power, unpacking Flac files, managing a large music library, feeding a display screen that doesn’t require a magnifying glass to read, ripping CDs and bells and whistle music players all add their bit of load. Should you want to add DSP to this, a room correction system for example or even a computer based crossover, processing power becomes an issue.
Best results so far have come from an AMD triple core. They are reasonably user friendly to underclock and undervolt and for the power on tap, cheap compared to quad cores.

I have tried out a single core, but then I found I was left with compatible motherboard problems that allowed for the connectivity I want. There are better MB option for say Windsor dual cores but they seem to run hotter than the triples at stock (?)
I’m looking to keep the temperature at around 25 deg C and with the passive cooling I have availible I’m having problems.

Welder

18-03-2011, 11:51

RAM

I want as much as possible. I want to have the option of using a memory player such as Cplay or some of the more complex innovative players such as XXhigh end. While most pop tracks are less than 100 MB in size a full WAV CD side or an unbroken side with no cue sheet can. Move to higher res tracks and the file size starts to get rather large! 4 GB of RAM would seem a starting point, preferably more. Of course, the more RAM, the more power you need and of course this generates heat. It also restricts MB options.

Welder

18-03-2011, 15:41

Operating Systems.

What! They all sound the same so how can that be an issue.
Hmm, bit like saying cables all sound the same isn’t it. Well, they don’t and neither do OS.
Part of what gives Macs the reputation they have for quality audio is the OS, it gets in the way less than Windows and does support the full range of current bit rates and frequencies. The one that gets in the way least from what I can discover is Linux. Not only can you get any bit rate and frequency out of it, it is minute compared to the two other main contenders and if you know what you’re doing (nope, I don’t yet but I’m learning) it has more tweakabiltiy than either Mac or Windows.

I think the OS is the most important aspect to quality audio from file. I want to be able to dual boot Linux and Windows7 on the server so I can experiment between players and OS. In theory I should be able to run any music player with Linux but given my current lack Linux knowledge having Windows seems a sensible fall back option.
Due to its Open Source nature Linux develops faster than Windows and given that Windows hasn’t even managed to develop USB drivers able to output anything above 24/96 and from what I’ve read has no plans to change this for the foreseeable future. Linux on the other hand seems likely to be the audiophile standard OS.

I’m not going to go into all the OS, output methods/drivers/music player combinations because it gets quite complicated. The point to bear in mind is not all OS support from 16/44.1 to 24/192 natively through USB, SPDIF and Ethernet connection and they don’t all sound the same.

Music Players
Just a bloody nightmare tbh!
There are lots and they all have their advantages and disadvantages and believe it or not they can sound different. Some seem to work better with one OS or a particular output, some are easier to use than others but trying to find out exactly how a player retrieves audio and what processes that audio undergoes is virtually impossible.
I’m not talking about night and day differences but for example I can, or at least think I can, hear a difference between Winamp and Foobar. In a blind test I would probably fail miserably to pick one from another but after listening to both over an extended period Foobar is more comfortable to listen to. I can’t be any more specific but others also state they have a preference on sound quality alone between players. Add to this they all look different and are easier or not in some respects with regard to file management, tagging, customization and processor use ………..
What doesn’t seem that well known by file audio users is the availability of memory players that do on the face of it seem to have some advantages. These players load a complete track or amounts of data into RAM before playing. This in theory means you don’t have a hard drive spinning during playback or any potential interference from bus activity collecting data during play. Of course as mentioned in the RAM bit, you need a lot of RAM especially if you’re playing hi res tracks.

Okay, I’m rambling on a bit but you need to consider these things before you go out and buy an Intel atom board say that will only take a small amount of RAM.

slate

18-03-2011, 20:39

While John is rambling along I just want to add a short note for wannabee Squeezebox owners.

As the system is based upon using the IP network you do not have to make a choice on Operating System based on USB devices etc... the server can run on many platforms and most likely you can choose your favorite OS.

The following is from memory so forgive me for any... ;-) Well if it is x86 based that is. Some platforms do have limitations that may limit specific areas of functionality. Some might just be practical issues like having to install libraries yourself to circumvent licensing issues.
But it might be harder than that; the CPU used in some NAS/plugs lacks capabilities and is ie not able to run SoX used for on the fly transcoding; meaning it cant downscale highres tracks when trying to play on a Duet Receiver.

Memory: my dedicated Win7 + Atom based server could run fine with 1 GB.
However I choose to buy 4 GB back then as it was cheap and maybe I would want to use the server for something else one day.

Welder

29-03-2011, 19:47

WAD62

30-03-2011, 13:06

A couple of questions.
Has anybody successfully allocated Southbridge bandwidth to a SATA drive keeping USB bandwidth at 480mbps on Windows XP Professional?
If so what Motherboard was it and how did you go about it?

Most MOB come with Realtek sound drivers.
Using a USB asynchronous Dac and asio4all in theory I bypass both the WMD kmixer and the Realtek sound management.
Most of what I’ve read recommends leaving system default as Realtek, system sounds off and mapping the Dac for audio.
However, it is possible to completely disable Realtek. Why isn’t this recommended?

Only a guess John but perhaps it helps in separating the 'system sounds' & internet streaming audio, from your music player audio out?

For myself I turn system sounds off, and channel everything through to the SPDIF on my M-Audio 2496, as long as I kick up my player first (winamp DirectSound 2.6) it grabs control of the soundcard for the session. :)

It is also the only way I can force all sounds out to my DAC

Welder

31-03-2011, 14:21

Hi Will.

What got me interested is I was investigating the possibility of either allocating one processor core for the audio streaming and another for the dirty jobs such as USB monitor, disc drive etc. Not a lot of joy there but having a split power supply, one for the processor and one for the dirty jobs looks more promising.
I’ve tried to keep the laptop active while I mess about with the server build, testing what changes I can on the laptop where possible.
It seems that most acknowledge that transferring audio files from disc to Dac is a low intensity process and everything I’ve managed to measure shows CPU usage to be very low.
However, attache a full 1TB external hard drive to the system with foobar in this case and despite CPU usage remaining below approx 8% the amount of RAM that gets used to hold the music library on the screen for example isn’t quite so easy to measure.
Like Ali I believe and a number of others using the Touch I was getting glitches in playback with a full drive attached.

So, I used DPC latency checker to see if I was getting peaks. I was, and this led me to the Cplay site where they have some informative info regarding minimizing running processes. After some very tiresome stop and start experiments for various processes I decide to see what happened if I disabled completely Realtek audio management rather than just map past it. Well, I have absolutely no idea why but the glitches I was getting have gone and on the bread board style server build I surgically removed Realtek down to the WDM. This seems to have sorted the glitches. But, I don’t know how far I can go down the audio stack because it seems that, on my laptop anyway there are no Windows drivers as such, it’s Realtek all the way through the stack.
Just wondered if anyone else using XP or maybe even win7 had given this a try.

Welder

31-03-2011, 15:06

I thought I may as well stick these up for those who are interested in some serious service stripping using XP.
There are bound to be similar for Win7 users on the net.
Obviously your laptop will be useless for anything bar music replay.

http://www.cicsmemoryplayer.com/
In particular read the BIOS and optimization sections.
You may even fancy giving Cplay a whirl. It’s a bit of a pig to set up.

http://www.blackviper.com/2008/05/19/black-vipers-windows-xp-x86-32-bit-service-pack-3-service-configurations/

http://www.digitalmediaminute.com/article/1841/windows-xp-services-that-can-be-disabled

Welder

04-05-2011, 17:52

Just in case anyone was following this I feel I should write that the project has been more of a success than I expected and a friend and I are considering marketing the completed the final configuration so I don’t expect to be adding any further build details to this thread for the foreseeable future.

jantheman

05-05-2011, 08:44

Welder

05-05-2011, 12:16

"Yes and no..I do but they dont work properly...can I borrow your turbocharged wheelchair....... "

Of course you may but I should warn you it has a tendency to head off to the nearest first person online shooter game :eyebrows:
I should also warn you it doesn’t steer as well as it used to since I got the barrel of my A&R caught in the steering during a particularly intense clan match :doh:

I do tend to forget the benefits of remote control for those who may have mobility problems. Fortunately physically I’m mostly in one piece and active…..mentally….not quite so sure about that :rolleyes:

jantheman

05-05-2011, 13:27

In that case John, I think I'll pass, Im in a bad enough state already. :lolsign::lolsign::lolsign:

RochaCullen

16-05-2011, 15:11

Hi,

I was hoping that this thread would cover such things as,

Recommened soundcard - is the sound card even important given the fact that most people want to pass the bitstream directly to their dac.
Recommended internal power supply, or ways of making it as quiet as possible.
Os optimizations
CD drive effects existent/non-existent

I am about to grab a box that is lying dormant here in work, need to chat this over with the resident IT Tzar, but I am imagine it will be ok. I would like to know if I am going to run the output via USB directly to my Caiman, do I need to bother beefing up the sound card, do I need to do anything in terms of tinkering with the processor or memory usage to get the best out of it?

As regards sound card, what about this?
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_au/Audiophile2496.html

Krisbee

16-05-2011, 16:45

Well, you could ask John (Welder) to see how/why he arrived at his "Linux Voyage MPD SSD server" which might answer some of your questions.

But then, didn't he say he was considering marketing a configuration? So, perhaps he'll want to keep that to himself.

If you're going to "run the output via USB directly to my Caiman" surely you don't need to bother with a soundcard unless you want to compare it to a s/card's optical out.

OS optimisation will depend on what OS and audio software you intend to use. Plus whether you intend to use your "music server" to rip CD's, for storage and streaming, or just audio playback.

A suitable power supply for a PC based system with low noise, electrical and db, is more of an open question. Does anything really exist? Some users of mini-itx boards with 12V DC inputs have turned to linear power supplies. Apart from specialist audio PSU being expensive (Paul Hynes, TeddyPardo etc.), would there be any great benefit in trying to find an ultra low electrical noise PSU when using USB into a Caiman?

Another approach is trying to electrcailly isolate the USB connection to a Caiman by using some kind of USB isolater, such as this:

http://electronics-shop.dk/usb_isolation.htm?currency=EUR

The idea being to provide isolation on the USB connection, a bit like saying optical out provides electrically isolation between PC and DAC. I never tried this myself, but others may have practical experience.

Anyway, if you intend to re-use an existing box, you may be restricted in what can be achieved with the hardware as opposed to starting from
scratch. Although I'm biased, I believe you can't go far wrong in using Linux as oppsoed to Windows, assuming you're a comfortable with the learning curve. It's not so demanding on resources (cpu, memory etc.) & runs well on older hardware and audio SQ can be very good.

Welder

16-05-2011, 18:50

Hi Nathan.

There is quite a lot of the type of information you are looking for in the links in my post and a bit concerning USB isolation in my gallery posts.

Part of the problem in giving detailed comments on my particular build is I’ve gone a different route from the normal low power SMPSU, minimum RAM, mini ATX board build that is popular at the moment.
What I and my friend have built is a bit more than a basic music player/server it’s a DSP unit. While it will just push data it will hopefully allow for considerable adjustment with regard to ancillary equipment and environment, (the D in this case may well stand for Damaging, but hopefully not) A bit of research of some of the stuff Peter (xxhigh end) has written regarding his view of future music players may be useful.
There is also some fairly intricate MOB reworking involved not to mention the separating of various power legs.

Having looked at what Bryston and other well known companies are charging for what are very basic designs in pretty boxes there may be a market for something like our build.

There is lots of info on the net about building mini ATX type servers and as far as I can see that majority use Linux in one form or another as the OS of choice, primarily as Chris points out because of their low CPU load and 24/192 capability.
As I have attempted to point out in various posts, if you want an excellent basic guide to what some consider basic requirements for an “audiophile” music player then the Cplay site is an excellent resource. You need to read it all and experiment with one tweak at a time.

Les Paul '67

26-05-2011, 13:36

Hi Rocha,

The M Audio card you linked to is great, I have a slightly older one in my i7 980 machine and it sounds great, however I've not really used it in a "pure" audiophile situation - I tend to use it when recording my guitar :eyebrows:

Welder

24-07-2011, 14:00

Having written off a few Mother Boards now trying to tackle the shortfalls of USB power management and the supply clean power this might just save you some aggravation if you’re into music server building.

http://sotm-audio.com/sotm/products/tX-USB.htm

Not overly impressed with the switch but its easy to bypass and remove.
The downside is of course the cost and another USB socket would have been nice.

Also, it may make sense to use SATA rather than USB for file transfer and this may be of interest.
http://www.sonore.us/SOtM.html#3

Tim

24-07-2011, 14:09

Thanks John, useful information. Just wondering about the USB card, are it's benefits just for controlling and perhaps boosting power to the USB sockets?

Rare Bird

24-07-2011, 15:20

Until i can use a large wall mounted touch screen to select FLAC Files (at my fingertips, no physical mice or keybords) i shant bother with files. & i certainly don't want to select choice via remote controller.

Welder

25-07-2011, 11:56

Hi Tim.

Its not so much a power boost but the ability to supply regulated 0.5 amp current at 5 volts that isn’t subject to the demands of other USB dependant devices and protocols.

Whether or not there are any audible benefits will largely depend on the Dac in use I would have thought; whether or not it has galvanic isolation and how well that is implemented, how much current the Dac draws and of course, what else in your particular configuration is making demands on the availible USB power.

If you are confident at shutting down the various other services through your operating system that make demands on USB power that seem to be largely responsible for the drop outs reported by some who have gone the USB Dac route and your USB port configuration allows for more than the standard 100 mA current draw at a particular port the this may be an overkill.
But, given the trouble may Hi Fi enthusiast go to to supply clean adequate power to Dacs in general I cant see why when it comes to USB power the same principles shouldn’t apply.
There is quite a lot of debate about the audibility of what is apparently measurable noise in USB power.

There are a few approaches to overcome both the possible power limitations and noise in USB power and data transfer.
One that I’ve been messing about with is to separate USB power on the MOB and supply it separately from the main board power leg, hence the scrapped boards.
Ideally it would seem three separate power supplies would be ideal, one for USB, one for just the processor and yet another for everything else.
The board linked above has at least the potential to provide independent USB power with, if you want to build one, a linear supply without hacking the MOB about and attempting to wire in one yourself.

Hi Andre.
Touch screens haven’t been something I’ve been interested in so far but I believe it’s quite possible to operate a server from a touch screen alone.

Rare Bird

25-07-2011, 12:38

Hi Tim.

Its not so much a power boost but the ability to supply regulated 0.5 amp current at 5 volts that isn’t subject to the demands of other USB dependant devices and protocols.

Isnt your HRT secret weapon something to do with it's power regulation?

Welder

25-07-2011, 13:04

Sshhhhh, you promised the secret weapon stuff would stay buried in my walls of text that nobody can be bothered to wade through.:doh:

Yeah, basically the same outcome combined with OS tweaks. The secret weapon may even be the more cost effective option, a lot will depend on how happy one is hacking cables about and building power supplies and then making certain the computer is absolutely useless for its original purpose.
What the PCI card seems to offer is a plug in solution for those not quite so barking mad :lol:

Tim

25-07-2011, 14:33

That makes a lot of sense John, I had thought about some of those points, but had never considered powering the USB ports independently to the CPU, yet alone the board as well. Interesting read as always :)

WAD62

25-07-2011, 16:24

As regards sound card, what about this?
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_au/Audiophile2496.html

Got one going spare, I've just upgraded to the 192 due to it having a better digital out RCA connection.

They were both used to feed a beresford via the coax connection, and very nice they are too, particularly via their ASIO driver. ;)

WAD62

25-07-2011, 16:45

What the PCI card seems to offer is a plug in solution for those not quite so barking mad :lol:

...or the lazy man option, which suits me perfectly John ;)

Welder

25-07-2011, 19:12

Yep, or lazy, always fergit the obvious pissed couch potato element Will :lolsign:

erm re one of your PM's and lack of Open Source compatible hammers i thought this might be of interest.

I haven’t tried this yet but it looks promising for those of us who struggle with Linux geekish :doh:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=70052

Ali Tait

25-07-2011, 19:44

Is there a particular reason to use Linux John?

Welder

25-07-2011, 20:14

Oh yes mate, undoubtedly :)
For a start, as soon as you’ve managed to successfully install a Linux OS on any computer you are immediately eligible for the converted “I haz Linux hammerz skillz” badge and automatically entitled to go on any forum and talk a load of unintelligible bollocks to normal contributors like they’re seriously plank like. :lol:

Then of course you get a six months supply of codeine based headache pills supplied free to assist with the understanding of the next distribution, but watch out coz they rush you somat wicked for the postage :steam:

It’s an interesting and somewhat controversial question Ali and one which I’ll attempt to give my opinion on later or maybe tomorrow.

Ali Tait

25-07-2011, 20:42

Wasn't trying to be controversial John, just wondered if there was a SQ reason, over and above other OS's.:)

Nick knows a fair bit about Linux.

Welder

25-07-2011, 21:01

My bad really Ali.
Just trying to add my particularly awful brand of humour to the forum ;)

I will attempt to give a more serious response later. It’s a very interesting area imo and one which while I’m far from expert in I’ve found extremely interesting but very frustrating.

Ali Tait

25-07-2011, 21:05

Me too!

Welder

27-07-2011, 11:57

I’ve had a bit of think about your question Ali and providing a straightforward unbiased answer isn’t that easy.

I’ve heard what I consider to be good quality audio from computers using Windows, Apple and Linux.

My view is if the usual frustration of installing and learning to use any unfamiliar OS is taken into account there aren’t any advantages in any OS over another bar the fact that Linux doesn’t cost you money and there is a version (distribution) somewhere that will run on just about any hardware config.
This may not seem important but try installing Windows7 using a single core low powered processor and 256 RAM.
It is possible armed with knowledge and perseverance to coax Windows into concentrating on audio and it will eventually give excellent audio within its limitations.

However, once the learning hurdle is dealt with then imo Apple is the easiest OS to use when it comes to squeezing decent quality audio from a standard set up; by this I mean a standard computer/laptop with minimal messing about with the Operating System.

When it comes to music servers (the computer used to process files rather than a storage server set up) then Linux does imo have some considerable advantages.

There are Linux distributions that will run from a very small capacity flash drive or memory card and this offers the potential to do away with a conventional hard drive. While it’s true an SSD drive has most of the benefits of a flash drive they tend to be expensive, use more power and generate more heat.

So, a Linux distribution can give you much greater flexibility in the hardware choices for a server build.

Many Linux distributions will allow for 24/192 over USB, something Windows won’t do without proprietary drivers.

Because Linux comes in such a wide range of distributions its considerably easier to pick a distribution that concentrates on particular area of computing rather than one that attempts to be a jack of all trades and because the code is freely availible with very little in the way of legal restrictions regard what you can or can’t do with it, it tends to develop faster than Windows and Apple. You could wait months even years for a particular audio related problem in Widow to be addressed.

If you’re a bits are bits and computers were designed to multitask advocate then you probably wont be building a music server. Having seen the end results of the worlds acknowledged experts in multitasking (women) I’m of the opinion that full concentration on a single task gives the best results.

For any still unconvinced, take the Logitech Touch. It’s just a computer running on a hacked version of Debian Linux but it has an excellent reputation for producing glorious music.
It can’t be the fantastic build quality can it? It certainly isn’t due to boutique components is it?
Fact is its just a mini music server running on Linux.

Welder

27-07-2011, 12:04

I thought I had linked this elsewhere but I can’t find it so for those who are interested in stripping out a Windows installation this is a great site for working out what you can rip out without Windows throwing its dollies out of its pram and pissing off back to Microsoft leaving you with the dreaded BSOD.

http://www.blackviper.com/

Macca

27-07-2011, 12:06

. Having seen the end results of the worlds acknowledged experts in multitasking (women) I’m of the opinion that full concentration on a single task gives the best results.

.

:lolsign:

Ali Tait

27-07-2011, 16:22

Welder

27-07-2011, 19:24

Another interesting bit of technology that could be used in a server Dac config.

http://exadevices.com/Home.aspx

Best not to look at the price :eek:

@Ali.

If i recall correctly you've got a standard laptop helping the Touch along with the heavy processing tasks (?)

Ali Tait

27-07-2011, 19:54

Yikes!

Welder

27-07-2011, 21:30

Yep, Yikes is fairly close to my thoughts at the time but spelt different ;)

Could make a nice front end to a Buffalo11 Dac was my thinking :scratch:

WAD62

28-07-2011, 08:06

Yep, Yikes is fairly close to my thoughts at the time but spelt different ;)

Could make a nice front end to a Buffalo11 Dac was my thinking :scratch:

...mmm pricey soundcard!

That's the first time I'd heard of I2S John

Looks like the I2S connection is an advantage, presumably one requires a compatible DAC, hence your mention of the buffalo...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I2S :)

WAD62

28-07-2011, 08:12

Cheers John, yes I see where you are coming from. Not really an issue for me, using a Touch as I do. I do need to network mine though, as it is having trouble with the size of my music collection now. In fact it's got to the point where I just download what I want to listen to onto a flash drive and plug it into the Touch. Works fine like that.

I use a QNAP TS-119 Tubo NAS, which is really a 1.2 gb headless linux (kernel) server, for my 3 squeezeboxes, and it works very well even with large playlists.

However if you're going to use any SoX processing etc. I'd advise going for something with a little more grunt, and updates to SqueezeCenter/Server are all very manual.

But it is neat, stable, cheap, and silent :)

Ali Tait

28-07-2011, 08:28

Cheers Will, I already have a Drobo NAS, was connected directly till I started having too many problems. Need to find a mini pc to run SC on.

WAD62

28-07-2011, 08:39

Cheers Will, I already have a Drobo NAS, was connected directly till I started having too many problems. Need to find a mini pc to run SC on.

Have you had a look at the Tranquil ones, a bit pricey (the only reason I went with the QNAP instead), but they'd be more scalable and a bit easier to use...they are low energy and silent...

http://www.tranquilpc.co.uk/

Ali Tait

28-07-2011, 09:34

Yes thanks, I've seen them, nice but a nice price! There are lots of offerings on the bay. Not sure what to go for though.

WAD62

29-07-2011, 11:53

Yes thanks, I've seen them, nice but a nice price! There are lots of offerings on the bay. Not sure what to go for though.

Hi Ali,

Edit; I think it's worth me being clearer on my terminology here, for Server I mean a centralised music file repository/computer that can serve up data files via an FTP process to one or more Clients/Players...

I've been thinking about this dilemma myself for a while, how to 'future proof' my music server and network players.

My Squeezebox configuration is FLAC (@ 16/44.1), QNAP NAS, SqueezeCenter/Server, wi-fi to 2 * SB receivers & an SB3

As long as I keep things to 16/44.1 FLAC the whole configuration works a treat, but it is a bit of a glass ceiling with regard to the future, where I think higher resolution will become more of a factor.

I know you're a touch user, and therefore you can utilise higher resolution from the server, along with that you can use the SoX processor in SqueezeServer to resample/upsample on the fly, but this puts a much greater load on the server, as you know, and hence a standard NAS just isn't up to the task.

I also use my NAS FLAC library as a source for my PC, running winamp, where the SoX algorithm runs happily as part of the client player (I like the effects of upsampling to 24/96 and things can only get better in this area), not at the server end. This is the model I want to follow for the future...compressed data transfer requiring a low bandwidth (FLAC at whatever resolution), low server processing (simple file distribution), and 'music players' with greater local processing capabilities, upsampling & resampling etc.

There's nothing quite yet on the market, although there is already a SqueezePlayer for Android, so I think shortly I'll be able to use an Android tablet as a generic player. As to whether I'll be using SB software is a different matter, perhaps winamp will have an offering, or even Google themselves.

The next thing to consider is the real potential of a cloud 'Server', and with the next generation or mobile data transmission bandwidth round the corner an internet ready tablet/phone player will be the way forward...obviously getting that data into a decent DAC is still a relevant issue.

So I'm going to stick with my NAS and my older SBs for the time being, I don't feel that a more powerful server is the way forward...for me at least.

Hope that make some form of sense...:)

Welder

29-07-2011, 12:58

Y U NO WANTZ MOAR POWER?

(oops, sry ‘bout that, seem to have mixed my caffeine, megalomania and forums again) :doh:

WAD62

29-07-2011, 13:00

Y U NO WANTZ MOAR POWER?

(oops, sry ‘bout that, seem to have mixed my caffeine, megalomania and forums again) :doh:

...innit :)

I think the future, for me at least, lies in higher powered clients/players (with much more processing power than the average SB), being fed by local or cloud file servers, getting the data to the client is just an FTP process...if you're using multiple clients then it makes things much more scalable, bandwidth, server power etc.

If you're using the server to feed a single player then I admit that changes things somewhat...innit ;)

Welder

29-07-2011, 13:36

Ah yes, I see, maybe.
I’m not sure if there is a right or wrong to this but I call what others call a server, storage and it all gets more confusing from there on :)

WAD62

29-07-2011, 14:17

Ah yes, I see, maybe.
I’m not sure if there is a right or wrong to this but I call what others call a server, storage and it all gets more confusing from there on :)

...force of habit John, I keep on referring to Client/Server in IT terms, which may not be the terminology used in music circles. :)

I'll have to start a new term called DACServer, something that provides a DAC with a digital music stream...damned it's already been done! It's called a CD transport ;)

Ali Tait

29-07-2011, 18:43

Hi Ali,

Edit; I think it's worth me being clearer on my terminology here, for Server I mean a centralised music file repository/computer that can serve up data files via an FTP process to one or more Clients/Players...

I've been thinking about this dilemma myself for a while, how to 'future proof' my music server and network players.

My Squeezebox configuration is FLAC (@ 16/44.1), QNAP NAS, SqueezeCenter/Server, wi-fi to 2 * SB receivers & an SB3

As long as I keep things to 16/44.1 FLAC the whole configuration works a treat, but it is a bit of a glass ceiling with regard to the future, where I think higher resolution will become more of a factor.

I know you're a touch user, and therefore you can utilise higher resolution from the server, along with that you can use the SoX processor in SqueezeServer to resample/upsample on the fly, but this puts a much greater load on the server, as you know, and hence a standard NAS just isn't up to the task.

I also use my NAS FLAC library as a source for my PC, running winamp, where the SoX algorithm runs happily as part of the client player (I like the effects of upsampling to 24/96 and things can only get better in this area), not at the server end. This is the model I want to follow for the future...compressed data transfer requiring a low bandwidth (FLAC at whatever resolution), low server processing (simple file distribution), and 'music players' with greater local processing capabilities, upsampling & resampling etc.

There's nothing quite yet on the market, although there is already a SqueezePlayer for Android, so I think shortly I'll be able to use an Android tablet as a generic player. As to whether I'll be using SB software is a different matter, perhaps winamp will have an offering, or even Google themselves.

The next thing to consider is the real potential of a cloud 'Server', and with the next generation or mobile data transmission bandwidth round the corner an internet ready tablet/phone player will be the way forward...obviously getting that data into a decent DAC is still a relevant issue.

So I'm going to stick with my NAS and my older SBs for the time being, I don't feel that a more powerful server is the way forward...for me at least.

Hope that make some form of sense...:)

Cheers Will, you clearly know a lot more than me about this-not difficult- yes I agree that is probably the way things will shake out.

I do indeed run a Touch, which is why I waited so long to get into file audio, as I never liked the idea of having to have a computer on every time I wanted to listen to music. I thought the Touch was indeed the answer, until I started getting issues because of the size of my music collection. Ironically, I'm now in the position where I need to have a separate computer to run SC on, in order to allow the Touch to operate as it used to- i.e. seamlessly. So, I'm now looking at some kind of mini pc I can tuck away somewhere and leave on 24/7, so I can listen whenever I like. I have also been looking at the Acer Aspire Revo, which looks a decent bit of kit. Not cheap I know, but I guess I could use it for movies too. Any thoughts?

Stratmangler

29-07-2011, 18:46

Hook your Drobo up to one of these http://fit-pc.co.uk/

Ali Tait

29-07-2011, 19:08

Aye, seen those before too mate. Look good, but don't have the sexy remote the Acer does!

Tim

29-07-2011, 19:19

They are nice and convenient but pretty darned expensive for what you get IMO. Mind you, the very small footprint is the seller I reckon.

Stratmangler

29-07-2011, 19:41

They are nice and convenient but pretty darned expensive for what you get IMO. Mind you, the very small footprint is the seller I reckon.

The electricity consumption is an even better selling point - over the course of a year it would easily pay for itself if you use it as a 24/7 server.

Ali Tait

29-07-2011, 19:50

Yeh, but in my job I just bring home buckets of leccy for free! It's shocking how much is wasted by these substations y'know... :lol:

Welder

29-07-2011, 19:56

“Yeh, but in my job I just bring home buckets of leccy for free! It's shocking how much is wasted by these substations y'know... ”
:lolsign:

I hope you’re not nicking any of that 230Volt stuff they throw out Ali.

Ali Tait

29-07-2011, 20:16

Nah, got a filter for that shite! :lolsign:

Welder

01-08-2011, 12:56

For those who are reluctant to struggle with installing a Linux OS on existing kit, or are looking for an uncomplicated server build, this may fit the bill.

http://store.voyage.hk/KMPD2e.php

or wireless,

http://store.voyage.hk/KMPD2ew2.php

Tim

01-08-2011, 13:43

That's a neat little package John, have you tried one?

Welder

01-08-2011, 14:14

Ali Tait

01-08-2011, 16:08

Are you going to use yours for movies too John?

Tim

01-08-2011, 18:14

Hey Tim :)

No, I haven’t. It’s a bit limited for my particular server vision :eyebrows:
I’m still on the "moar power!" quest mate :lol:
It does seem a cheap and easy way of trying out a Linux based music server without the frustration of hacking the everyday multipurpose computer many of us use to dip our toes in file based audio.
Can’t go wrong for what is the price of a set of “audiophile” interconnects :mental:
I think I may have a punt at one of those at some point, If I buy one, I will let you know how I get one.
I'm not using much power and run my server on a 1.8GHz dual core Atom, I wanted very low power and minimal heat as I don't have any fans.
This is the board I use in mine, a Mini ITX only 17 cm x 17 cm, very pleased with it.

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/greatgig/asus.jpg

Welder

02-08-2011, 13:14

That Ali is an interesting question and one brought up when I took my demo server to a friends offspring’s party not so long ago; “be cool if you could watch music vids on it” ;)

The impression I get is a lot the younger people download video content with their music, but video capable at high resolutions is fairly CPU intensive.

Initially the vision was to use a 10” screen mounted away from the server itself just to allow for the display of a music player GUI. However, many of the modern multi threading CPU’s have inbuilt graphics capabilities. In fact, some of the more recent MOB also have on board graphics capability as well. Unfortunately I just cant get to try out enough CPU/MOB combinations. While I can borrow a few combinations from my gaming friends, they’re quite reasonably not willing to let me hack their kit about so I can lash up a couple of linear power supplies to the boards and it’s the power supply arrangement that to my ears at least, have had one of biggest impacts on sound quality.

What do you think? Is video capable, and by that I mean 42” screen at decent resolution something that would interest you?

Hey Tim.

Nice MOB.

The mini ATX/ITX style boards are getting to be pretty decent, offering, as you point out, cool running and sufficient power to handle music streaming from a large library without hiccups.
What they are not is easy to work on if you wish to physically alter the board.
I’ve just about decided exactly what I do and don’t want on a board and what I need to be able to do to it but like everything to do with computers it seems multi tasking capability is the prime objective and that’s not necessarily ideal for audio only application.

WAD62

02-08-2011, 13:45

John,

That's why I want to have the file server, and file player (whether audio or video) architecture.

So audio and video files will be stored centrally (and archived etc) on the server, and the only load it will have is file transfer etc.

I'll probably end up with something like a 'popcorn', a bit of a SB for video as the player/client, or even perhaps a REVO strapped to the back of my TV, we'll see I'm still in the planning mode.

The idea is to use an icybox docking station connected via the eSATA connection to my QNAP NAS, via which I can insert n different 3.5" HDs on which I can 'archive' blu-rays via HD FabDecrypter or some such.

We'll see if my wi-fi has enough bandwidth to support 3 SBs, and blu-ray streaming :eyebrows:

Welder

02-08-2011, 14:49

WAD62

02-08-2011, 14:59

Hey Will :)

My goal is; (I can’t believe I’m going to do a Marco here) the best possible audio reproduction from file with minimal regard for convenience.

I have reservations about wireless streaming, storage based software, multi media serving and all based on a hysterical superstition of modern technology and a baseless conviction that the best software is no software :lolsign:

...I know where you're coming from John, the theory that I'm clinging to is that if I keep the files on the server a reliable FTP mechanism will get the data to it's desired recipient, by wi-fi or ethernet...which will probably be a dedicated 'appliance' (another trumped up IT term), eg an SB for audio, and possibly a "popcorn' thingy for video, keep the processing at the player end, which is similar in many ways to your theory I suppose...apart from the file location of course.

Anyway we'll see if I ever get round to the video side of things :)

Ali Tait

02-08-2011, 16:23

Tim

02-08-2011, 17:51

The video capability would be a lesser priority for me personally, though it would be nice to have I guess- be handy for things like iplayer and 4oD etc. too.

The reason I asked was your comment about wanting more power, as I guess a system purely for music would not need that much processing power?
Just for info Ali, that MOBO I use has HDMI out on it and it plays movies faultlessly, either from an attached USB drive or from my NAS. It copes nicely with the iPlayer and 4oD too, but I don't really use it for that. The only downside is there is no sound over HDMI, so if you play movies it has to be connected to an amp - but as it's a music server anyway, that's not a problem. I don't tend to use it for movies, as I have a Western Digital Live TV media player, which is hooked up to my NAS.

Purely for playing music, you need very little processing power from a simple player like mine - depends on how far you want to go I guess?. When mine is running it is using only 1-2% of the CPU's capacity, with peaks to 10% when selecting new albums. RAM usage is only 810MB out of 4GB and that's with Windows 7 64 bit running. Put Linux on there are you can half that and some! I think 4GB of RAM in my case is overkill and I could have got away with 2GB. If I built another one, it would be of a significantly lower specification. But mines quite a simple set-up, John's a lot more adventurous than me and a lot more knowledable ;)

Welder

02-08-2011, 17:53

I’m going to very carefully skirt around whether a more powerful processor has any direct bearing on sound quality. It’s every audiophile for their selves on this one.

Core numbers and the ability to isolate individual cores and allocate a specific process might make more sense.

From your experience with the Logitech Touch you can see that supporting a large music file collection, some sort of GUI and stream the music can give problems.
It would be interesting to see if the Touch was maxed out in processing power or if it was processor speed that caused the glitches, if either.
So there are two things to consider here, speed of delivery and available delivery pipes if you will.
Similar results can be achieved by either pushing data through at a high rate or slowing it down but giving it more pipes to travel on.
In general fast processors tend run hotter than their lower speed but more core varieties. How they are threaded makes a difference of course, and this is what the Intel i series attempt to address; more sophisticated threading technology on twin cores as I understand it. I’m using an i5 atm.

However, I want my server to have the ability to do a bit more than just stream music, room correction, core process allocation software, for example.
Think more DSP processor.

Bear in mind I'm no expert here Ali. I just have a few ideas which gathered up from those who have gone before me and I'm trying out what i can with limited resources.

Ali Tait

02-08-2011, 18:14

Aye, my laptop has an i5 processor. So do you think a more powerful processor using a smaller proportion of it's power compared to a lesser processor would sound better/produce less noise? That the avenue you are exploring?

Interesting to note, a friend on another forum who is just getting into this streaming lark says he has found music streamed from his laptop sounds better using Linux than Win 7.

Welder

02-08-2011, 18:55

Ali Tait

02-08-2011, 19:16

It would be interesting to compare to the Touch. I use a decent PS on it already. I'd only need the pooter to run SC, so not sure how much of an impact the OS, or indeed the other mods you have done, would have in my case. I guess there are things that could be done to the Touch hardware that would improve things- better regs etc.

Welder

02-08-2011, 19:33

I dunno either Ali :scratch:
You’ve got Linux where it matters, possibly.

I’m just interested in seeing what can be done really :)
My mate’s server feeding his Metric Halo is the best file audio I’ve heard but he’s a good way further down the road than me and has the money to spend on such projects :steam:

So far, I prefer my server to any laptop/Commercial PC based system I’ve heard. It’s not so much “extra” of anything but rather more less of something, if you can understand where I’m coming from :scratch:
None of its night and day stuff but sit down and listen for a while and it just sounds less wrong than something else.

Imo there is way too much expectation of hearing massive difference between systems and components and in my experience it just ain’t like that.

Ali Tait

02-08-2011, 19:41

Aye, I know what you mean. I have a nice valve dac coming soon which hopefully should improve things. That Metric Halo gear looks expensive!

Krisbee

12-08-2011, 16:46

Despite occasional interrupts, I'm glad this thread is still alive and kicking as I enjoy reading John the Welder's entertaining post which always give food for thought. That's whether he's murdering motherboards or musing on SoTM USB exotica (nice card, pity about the price) all in the pursuit of audio nirvana.

At least one American commercial offering has taken many of these ideas onboard, that's Auraliti. Their new PK90 incorporates the SoTM tX-USB card, is based on an Intel D945GSEJT Fanless mini-ITX motherboard and runs a customised version of VoaygeMPD Linux. Their previous PK100 used a modded ESI Juli@ sound card with SPDIF 75 ohm BNC digital out, but the same m/board etc. All the internal power supply stuff has been tweaked. But somehow I doubt if we'll see anything like this on our side of the pond.

Assuming I had the cash, building something like the PK90 and loading and configuring VoyageMPD isn't beyond me, but building/modding PSUs would be. What I'd realy like to see is a commercial offering of a PSU, or set of DIY components, along the lines of what's inside the Brtyson BDP-1 which connects to the four pin molex of a m/board that would otherwise use an external PSU as does the Intel D945GSEJT and provides clean DC power to the 5v, 12v lines etc at sufficient current for the m/board and not some typical monster computer power supply.

John, if you are interested in more software tweaks for MPD then take a look at this site:

http://kubotayo.web.fc2.com/voyagempd.html#patch

Welder

04-12-2011, 16:13

This looks to be an interesting product.
Expensive, got all the audiophile make happy bits.

http://www.aurender.com/products/s10.html

(Thanks for the link Chris. I’ve already had a look at this and relevant mods from the Touch people. It’s all a very slow process and every change seems to cost more money than the last)

Welder

02-02-2012, 15:55

Ground to a bit of a stop with the server. :(
The first problem is the guy who does the coding is away recording stuff somewhere and the final hardware problem has so far defeated me.:brickwall:
I have eliminated every SMPS in the system bar one and that’s the SMPS in the monitor.
Monitors chuck out huge amounts of EMF and one way of reducing this is to use a linear power supply.
I’ve buggered up a couple of old monitors now and wondered if anyone had successfully replaced their inbuilt monitor power supply (?).

Val33

02-02-2012, 17:29

Why not use a monitor with an external power supply? All the early 14-15" flat screen monitors I had used them. Must be loads around gathering dust!

Val

Welder

02-02-2012, 17:37

Now that Val is a possibility I must admit I had overlooked.:doh:
All the monitors I've "rescued" so far have had inbuilt supplies ( a bit tight on the budget so I've played with what I could get for nothing preferably) ;)

You may just have made my dog very happy coz he don't like it when stuff goes POP!

Smoker

04-02-2012, 04:00

your monitor psu problem reminded me of what this guy did :eyebrows:

fugly but operational!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_xmUxVCSzP9A/R5t6O2eFqgI/AAAAAAAAA1Y/g6J96sU_1LI/s320/100_0285.jpg

link (http://computerguru365.blogspot.com/2008/01/fix-that-lcd-flat-panel-monitor.html)

AlexM

07-02-2012, 09:56

That's just replacing one SMPS with another!.

Presume they did that because the original one broke.

Alex

AlexM

07-02-2012, 10:08

Ali wrote:

“So do you think a more powerful processor using a smaller proportion of it's power compared to a lesser processor would sound better/produce less noise? That the avenue you are exploring?”

Basically yes but there is a heat trade off.

“Interesting to note, a friend on another forum who is just getting into this streaming lark says he has found music streamed from his laptop sounds better using Linux than Win 7.”

I think so as well. Pleased to read I may not be deaf but still daft ;)

Okay, this is where I’ve got to so far.

Separate Linear power supplies for USB and CPU, maybe a third for the rest.
Each supply in its own fully shielded enclosure against both RFI and EMI
Possibly the USB supply card mentioned above but Linux has USB better sorted than Windows imo.
Passive cooling.
4 GB of good quality RAM but on the minimum possible number of rails. Scrap any unused rails.
SATA in filter.
Don’t use a pin based SPDIF header. Instead hardwire to good quality RCA.
ADUM Isolator per USB outlet.
Rewire Ethernet out and take the socket off the board.
All unused board track leading to unused outlets physically removed with outlets and hard wire jumped where necessary.
Low speed multi cored processor with hyper threading technology
Linux OS
Multi core thread process allocation software. (Still working on this but my mate’s server has it and it seems to make a difference….i think.)
No wireless capability.
Fully screened overall enclosure.

Oh arr, forgot OS optimisation. Very hit and miss.

John,

Some interesting ideas on the h/w mods. I wonder how much there is to be gained by using an impedance matching pulse transformer on the SPDIF to get a true 75ohm impedance, and use a BNC connector rather than RCA. Worth you getting a s/h scope and using it to see what helps with the eye patterns. It will also help you isolate other noise sources that you want to eliminate.

With the USB outputs, why not just wire in a powered HUB, run it from your 5v linear PSU, and just disconnect the +5v and ground in the USB cable from the motherboard to the hub?. Shoud be easier than hacking motherboard traces. What benefit do you think you get from removing DIMM slots?.

For storage, you could go completely diskless and boot from DVD or a memory key, and then use a remote NAS or other server and use iSCSI over ethernet. that way there can be no PSU interaction with your storage device.

.... or you could just use a SB touch and avoid the whole problem <runs for cover> :D

Cheers,
Alex

bobbasrah

07-02-2012, 11:53

.... or you could just use a SB touch and avoid the whole problem <runs for cover> :D

Where's the challenge in that :eyebrows:

Ali Tait

07-02-2012, 14:10

Aye, but the Touch is only as good as it is, there is better to be had.

Stratmangler

07-02-2012, 14:12

Where's the challenge in that :eyebrows:

None whatsoever, but at least you'd have great sounds playing in minutes and with the minimum of audiophilia nervosa ;)

Clive

07-02-2012, 14:30

None whatsoever, but at least you'd have great sounds playing in minutes and with the minimum of audiophilia nervosa ;)
ooh, that's the 2nd recent implication that John's an audiophile - shock, horror - he'll be mortified!

Tim

07-02-2012, 17:12

None whatsoever, but at least you'd have great sounds playing in minutes and with the minimum of audiophilia nervosa ;)
I'm all for that Chris ;)

Welder

07-02-2012, 17:26

I like a bit of audio nervosa; it gives me an excuse to keep taking the pills. :D

I will attempt to answer you Alex at some point.
Just need to try and stop Clive taking the piss first :D

Ali Tait

07-02-2012, 19:20

:lol: Takes one to know one!

bobbasrah

08-02-2012, 08:34

Even though my own media solution is heavily based on the HTPC arrangement, my suspicion is that the future, certainly for audio, lies with devices similar to the Logitech, acting as a data receiver/fifo buffer, onboard player, bypassable DAC etc, to circumvent the issues of the computer/cdp on the noise and time elements which are critical on the music reproduction side.

Ali Tait

08-02-2012, 09:06

Yes agreed. Makes sense to have a device dedicated to it's purpose.

Welder

08-02-2012, 13:15

John,

Some interesting ideas on the h/w mods. I wonder how much there is to be gained by using an impedance matching pulse transformer on the SPDIF to get a true 75ohm impedance, and use a BNC connector rather than RCA. Worth you getting a s/h scope and using it to see what helps with the eye patterns. It will also help you isolate other noise sources that you want to eliminate.

With the USB outputs, why not just wire in a powered HUB, run it from your 5v linear PSU, and just disconnect the +5v and ground in the USB cable from the motherboard to the hub?. Shoud be easier than hacking motherboard traces. What benefit do you think you get from removing DIMM slots?.

For storage, you could go completely diskless and boot from DVD or a memory key, and then use a remote NAS or other server and use iSCSI over ethernet. that way there can be no PSU interaction with your storage device.

.... or you could just use a SB touch and avoid the whole problem <runs for cover> :D

Cheers,
Alex

You make it all sound so easy and sensible Alex ;)
First, I don’t have a lab and second, I’m on a very limited budget.
A pulse transformer might help reduce timing errors over S/PDIF, but,
a) where would you put it (I don’t really want to have to attempt screen off yet another transformer
b) decent transformers add to the cost
c) S/PDIF is dead anyway (not undergoing development).

I’m rather keen on Ethernet or USB for data transfer. When someone comes up with asynchronous data transfer over S/PDIF I might have another think.

Regarding eye patterns, once again this sounds knowledgeable and sensible. The problem is having a method of analysing a signal doesn’t actually help much in determining what needs to be improved upon to give a more satisfactory pattern; that takes knowledge and experience; something I don’t have.
Sure, like some cable manufacturers I could show pretty scope pattens next to my music server and maybe even baffle the shite out of the more gullible but it wont make it sound any better.

Ah jitter! I wonder where jitter hid when CD players came on the market. Now, everything is blamed on jitter, including the weather. :doh:
My more knowledgeable mates are very much into Pro audio (you can blame them for my interest in file based playback) and they assure me that I am as likely to hear jitter with a competently designed Dac as I am to win the lottery.
A couple of these guys have the best sounding file based replay systems I’ve heard and do this stuff for a living, so given I’m a bodging amateur and I can hear a difference between their systems and mine, I’ll take their word for stuff I don’t fully understand for now. :eyebrows:

The above to my mind illustrate just one of the problems the spread of the Internet has brought about. People read stuff and then go and repeat in an attempt to sound knowledgeable about a subject without engaging their brain, or even their ears before their fingers get tapping.

Regarding your storage suggestions; I’m sorry Alex, I don’t understand. How could I go discless? Even if I used a NAS, or collected from an online storage facility there is bound to be a disc in the chain somewhere.
I already have a solid state drive in my server for storing the OS and DSP. What is an SSD if not a large flash card?

I’ve done the Linear powered USB route as mentioned in my Gallery post somewhere. Now, it’s a question of better integration into a motherboard environment.

Finally, I don’t want to buy a Touch because what i have sounds better.
What seems to get forgotten is the Touch is just another cheap, low powered computer. I’ve got plenty of those already.
Add to this on the present model you have to hack it about to accept more USB inputs and give USB output, it needs steroids if you ask it to cope with a large file database, I cant read the feckin display without my glasses and my dog likes to chews stuff like mobile phones and remote’s (maybe he can hear them buzzing) (surprisingly astute is my dog when it comes to crap electronics) and you’ll start to get the picture.

My MOB hacking is my attempt to find out exactly what components and traces I need. Eventually I hope to design and build my own board but don't hold your breath. :)

AlexM

08-02-2012, 14:25

You make it all sound so easy and sensible Alex ;)
First, I don’t have a lab and second, I’m on a very limited budget.
A pulse transformer might help reduce timing errors over S/PDIF, but,
a) where would you put it (I don’t really want to have to attempt screen off yet another transformer
b) decent transformers add to the cost
c) S/PDIF is dead anyway (not undergoing development).

I’m rather keen on Ethernet or USB for data transfer. When someone comes up with asynchronous data transfer over S/PDIF I might have another think.

Regarding eye patterns, once again this sounds knowledgeable and sensible. The problem is having a method of analysing a signal doesn’t actually help much in determining what needs to be improved upon to give a more satisfactory pattern; that takes knowledge and experience; something I don’t have.
Sure, like some cable manufacturers I could show pretty scope pattens next to my music server and maybe even baffle the shite out of the more gullible but it wont make it sound any better.

Ah jitter! I wonder where jitter hid when CD players came on the market. Now, everything is blamed on jitter, including the weather. :doh:
My more knowledgeable mates are very much into Pro audio (you can blame them for my interest in file based playback) and they assure me that I am as likely to hear jitter with a competently designed Dac as I am to win the lottery.
A couple of these guys have the best sounding file based replay systems I’ve heard and do this stuff for a living, so given I’m a bodging amateur and I can hear a difference between their systems and mine, I’ll take their word for stuff I don’t fully understand for now. :eyebrows:

The above to my mind illustrate just one of the problems the spread of the Internet has brought about. People read stuff and then go and repeat in an attempt to sound knowledgeable about a subject without engaging their brain, or even their ears before their fingers get tapping.

Regarding your storage suggestions; I’m sorry Alex, I don’t understand. How could I go discless? Even if I used a NAS, or collected from an online storage facility there is bound to be a disc in the chain somewhere.
I already have a solid state drive in my server for storing the OS and DSP. What is an SSD if not a large flash card?

I’ve done the Linear powered USB route as mentioned in my Gallery post somewhere. Now, it’s a question of better integration into a motherboard environment.

Finally, I don’t want to buy a Touch because what i have sounds better.
What seems to get forgotten is the Touch is just another cheap, low powered computer. I’ve got plenty of those already.
Add to this on the present model you have to hack it about to accept more USB inputs and give USB output, it needs steroids if you ask it to cope with a large file database, I cant read the feckin display without my glasses and my dog likes to chews stuff like mobile phones and remote’s (maybe he can hear them buzzing) (surprisingly astute is my dog when it comes to crap electronics) and you’ll start to get the picture.

My MOB hacking is my attempt to find out exactly what components and traces I need. Eventually I hope to design and build my own board but don't hold your breath. :)

John,

A scope would help you work out whether you had a noise issue or not. I bought one to trouble shoot cable routing on a valve amp, and it did help me reduce hum by quite a bit.

No reason to take +5v from the motherboard - if you're worried about noise transmission down the power lines, then just take the signal pins from the motherboard headers, and power the +5v and supply ground externally. I can't see how you can reduce noise from the USB controller much further, other than by isolating transformer or opto coupler.

If you don't really care much about SPDIF, then fine, but otherwise here (http://lampizator.eu/LAMPIZATOR/TRANSPORT/spdif.html) are some schematics for circuit that would provide a buffered, transformer coupled SPDIF output. a 1:1 pulse transformer would be located close to the motherboard header, and shielded coax from the output to the socket. Personally I don't think jitter on SPDIF is such a big issue anymore given improvements to SPDIF recievers in at least some DACs, but given the 3Mhz frequency and max allowable 1/4 clk variation allowable, it would seem worthwhile to pay some attention to this.

I think providing a I2S interface would be more interesting and potentially more useful, but only with an appropriate DAC of course.

If you are really worried about disk access introducing noise then using a remotely mounted NFS or iSCSI target to store your music files would remove this at a stroke - think 'diskless workstations'. You don't need a local OS or swap disk at all.

Respect to you if you plan to build your own PC board, although I don't think this is feasible considering BGA chips, SMDs, multi-layer boards etc!.

Anyway, crack on and enjoy the build!.

Alex

Welder

08-02-2012, 14:55

I'm not taking 5V from the motherboard Alex; that's why i mentioned my gallery post, so you could understand the direction I've taken. ;)

Yes, a scope is great for analysis but what then? You need to know what components, or track configurations are likely to influence the eye pattern and I don't!
Measuring stuff is great, I'm all for it but then you need to know what to change to change the outcome. Sure, you can go through the board randomly replacing stuff but come on, that gets expensive and if you're as blind and clumsy as me, you scrap boards and I'm running out!

I use 12s on the buffalo Dac, preceded by a asynchronous USB receiver.
Is it any better than my HRT Pro? Not really.

I don't need to worry about disc access introducing noise really because my approach has been to provide clean power so noise doesn't get shunted back into the mains, separate the power rails on the MOB and supply individually to USB and processor and then not worry too much about noise until the data gets to the to USB where there is already proven methods of dumping the noise from both the power and D rails.

I wont be soldering, I'll design the board and give it to a company that specialises in flow soldering. You must think I'm daft. :lol:

Read the thread mate and then the gallery post and you'll understand better.

Welder

19-03-2012, 11:30

There have been a few things with computer audio that have never made much sense to me.
All the music severs I’ve seen have been based on an existing MOB which are designed to do a lot more than support the necessary functions relating to audio.
I’m not a MOB designer or even a electronics engineer, but my attempts to supply independent power to various parts of a MOB led me to the conclusion that what was required was a completely re-designed MOB rather than trying to alter an existing board which supports a vast array of functions completely unrelated to moving audio data from storage to Dac.
There isn’t it seems a more unwanted technology than an old computer and people, and some fairly large commercial concerns, just throw the old tech out when replaced by the new.
I’ve got MOB from computers in skips, from a office furniture/renovating company and from a few of my gaming friends who seem to upgrade their computers like some here upgrade their Hi Fi.
Armed with a fine electric hobby saw, a drill a supply of hook up wire and a soldering iron I’ve spent a few months hacking MOB to bits, joining this bit to that in an attempt to find out what is and what isn’t needed on a MOB to support what I required for a file server.
It’s taken a while, but a few weeks ago I managed to get what I wanted drawn up and some boards board made up with the components which supported the chipset, BIOS, processor and power connections I wanted. Much to my surprise the board works.
My friend Stef who works in the Pro audio industry levered a Linux OS onto the board. We build a couple of working servers one of which he has been travelling around with Stef to various studios.
To cut a long story short, a company involved in Pro audio equipment has expressed an interest in developing this board, something I don’t have the knowledge or funds for, so I’m rather chuffed and it looks like I may even be a few quid better off. :)

bobbasrah

19-03-2012, 11:54

Nice one John.
Does this mean your skip-diving days are over, or are you just moving onto a better class of skip ?

Welder

19-03-2012, 12:35

Probably neither Bob. ;)
I’m very unlikely to make much money.

However, it seems the idea of a audio dedicated MOB hasn’t really been considered by either the sound card people or the big MOB manufacturers, just not enough sales potential in the past and nobody bothered to sit down and make one.

Virtually all the servers I’ve seen are built around MOB, Sound Cards and sometimes OS that have major restrictions regarding what you can and cant do and still resell.
Basically, if you know the MOB, sound card etc you have a pretty good idea what can and can’t have been done to make them “audiophile” no matter what the advertising hype may say about special tweaking. :eyebrows::D
Its a bit of a case of heard one you’ve heard them all with the same boards. Course, a bit care in presentation and some “helpful" forum reviews does wonders for how they sound. :)
If I make enough money to do the Greek coastline walk I’ve been wanting to do for a while now I’ll be pleased.

Clive

20-03-2012, 10:23

bobbasrah

20-03-2012, 15:04

Cool stuff John. Will you experiment with linear vs switcher power supplies to work out which chips need linear and which don't? Or do you feel noise will pollute the ground so therefore no switchers will be allowed?

Interesting that you should raise that Clive, was reading an online article a few days ago regarding modern SMPS for desktops, ie ATX etc...
Ignoring the cheap end of the market, modern units are reputedly better designed and built, and motherboard filtering is better incorporated, and the conclusion of their testing was that there was more noise generated by the onboard digital switching and onboard controllers than the supplies themselves.:doh:
Must root that out and post a link....:scratch:

Welder

20-03-2012, 19:17

I’ve gone for Linear supply Clive; three of them.
Tbh, I can’t hear the effect of good quality SMPS feeding forward but I have heard the effects of SMPS shunting noise back into the mains and on to other equipment.

The major problems I’ve had have been to do with BIOS; hack a bit off a MOB and BIOS tends to sulk coz it cant find stuff and I haven’t got a clue about programming BIOS chips. :eyebrows::D
It took me a long time to find a combination that worked. :mental:

Another problem is my, erm, design skills aren’t what one would call mainstream. :lol:
Cutting up MOB and linking bits together with equipment wire and then seeing if stuff still works isn’t bleeding edge technology apparently. :eek:
I had sixteen bits of board linked up at one stage. :mental:

The prototype board is very simple compared to the “average” MOB. It’s surprising just how much of a board you don’t need if all you want to do is move data from point A to B and not support all the other stuff computers do; not really a computer MOB at all. :scratch:

Reid Malenfant

20-03-2012, 19:33

Nice work on the cut down motherboard John :D Never heard of that being done before & I can only attempt to imagine what you had to go through to get it working properly! :eek:

Hats off to you fella! :respect:

Welder

06-04-2012, 18:42

During my attempts to build the music sever I’ve gone from what might be considered reasonable and rational to the improbable and extreme in attempting to coax a noticeable improvement above the audio one might expect from a well set up file serving laptop, or low cost purpose built file server.

I must admit, I’ve had a lot of fun doing it and not only learnt a lot, but also met a few interesting and knowledgably people, primarily in the Pro audio business.

Both Stef and I have had the opportunity to do side by side comparisons against a few of the commercially available music servers and a number of more standard computers set up for audio.

The slightly unpalatable truth is while there are audible differences between one configuration and another, they are very small and become even smaller when the power supply side is standardized and no onboard Dac is present
Once the moving parts of the standard computer are eliminated, one computer sounds much like another up to the Dac stage.
We did have better results with independently powered USB when using USB asynchronous Dacs and overall I believe a correctly set up USB data transfer system gives better results than S/PDIF.

Interestingly a number of people we demonstrated our server to could hear (or believed they could) a difference in music players on identical hardware. My personal view is there may be very small differences in presentation that only long term listening could establish.

Despite what could be seen as a slightly disappointing outcome it does look like I’m the only person to make what is probably a generally useless audio priority MOB.
Nice to be first at something….:eyebrows::D

I’ve read a number of reviews of various servers where the reviewer seems to be convinced that they are hearing major differences between one set up and another but unfortunately the exact comparison conditions and any controls are rarely mentioned.
I have my doubts given my own experiences.

We had ten board sets. Three were populated and sold uncased to friends and another three will go once the cases are finished which is great because this means I won’t lose money on the project.

My recommendation is build your own and ignore the Hi Fi press and forum hype. Provided you take care with how you supply power to whichever method you use to transfer data (a twin supply is fine, USB and the rest for example) have no moving parts, a dual core processor, enough RAM to permit the use of a memory player your server will be just as good as any other.

(Cheers Mark. Some things I just have to find out for myself)

Ali Tait

06-04-2012, 21:19

Interesting stuff John. Can't help thinking, any difference in SQ must surely mostly be down to power supply quality?

I have been told this, and experienced it for myself on many occasions.

Tim

06-04-2012, 23:05

My recommendation is build your own and ignore the Hi Fi press and forum hype. Provided you take care with how you supply power to whichever method you use to transfer data (a twin supply is fine, USB and the rest for example) have no moving parts, a dual core processor, enough RAM to permit the use of a memory player your server will be just as good as any other.
I think you have pretty much hit the nail on the head there John, I find myself 100% in agreement with you again ;)

goraman

07-04-2012, 04:50

John,
When will we start to see pictures?
How about a 1st generation Apple TV with a 500 gig hard drive and an out board 5v power supply?

Tim

30-04-2012, 12:00

Well I have just rebuilt my music server after buying a smaller and cosmetically much better case. It's the same style as my Rega units, so fits in nicely being small square and black.

What I have also done is remove the mechanical drive from the server and I just have an SSD in there now, so there are no moving parts whatsoever in the server. FLAC files are streamed over my home network and I now use JRiver Music Center 17 as the player software. These changes have stepped performance up and the sound quality has certainly improved by just having an SSD in there. I did try an SSD before and couldn't detect any difference in sound quality by having the operating system on the SSD. What I didn't try was the SSD alone, as I had a 2TB hard drive in there with my music library and the O/S on the SSD. With the 2TB mechanical drive out of the case, there has been an improvement, not night and day (folk seem to like this phrase), but certainly a marked and pleasing one.

The net results are lower operating temperatures, lowered power consumption and improved sound quality, so I'm very pleased. I have version 3 of my server mapped out and when funds allow I will be buying a new motherboard, with an mSATA SSD drive plugged directly into the board, high current USB ports and a new outboard power supply.