View Full Version : Music Servers and Audiophile Hubs Why?
Can someone explain to me how running a music server/audiophile would benefit me (There are many around from reasonable to crazy money)
I do not have any HD tracks still quite small section so I cannot see me moving to this in the near future and I connect my laptop straight into my dac without any issues with a sound quality that suprises nearly everyone who hears it, so what would sometime like this bring to my system if anything?:scratch:
Music server as in a NAS box perhaps? I just installed one and ripped 200 cd's to it as flacs, now I don't need to sort through the cd's when I want to play one, I don't need loads of those ikea beany racks to store them all on, I control the music via my HTC desire and flick through all 200 in seconds, soundwise its as good as a £1000 cd player so I am selling mine now, one less box in the rack (squeezbox and dacmagic take up less room) , I can listen to internet radio jazz fm sounds very good, I can download hi res tracks off linn and others, if not what you were meaning apologies.
Can someone explain to me how running a music server/audiophile would benefit me (There are many around from reasonable to crazy money)
I do not have any HD tracks still quite small section so I cannot see me moving to this in the near future and I connect my laptop straight into my dac without any issues with a sound quality that suprises nearly everyone who hears it, so what would sometime like this bring to my system if anything?:scratch:
The major advantage to the server configuration is that you can run multiple clients/players from the same unique shareable server source library.
I've got about 2.5k FLAC albums on my server, and can play anything from the collection individually or in parallel on any of my multiple systems. Squeezeboxes and PC's are the clients, a QNAP NAS is the server.
If you only ever listen to your music in one room then I can't really see a major advantage in using a server, other than keeping disk/fan noise away from your listening environment. ;)
Music server as in a NAS box perhaps? I just installed one and ripped 200 cd's to it as flacs, now I don't need to sort through the cd's when I want to play one, I don't need loads of those ikea beany racks to store them all on, I control the music via my HTC desire and flick through all 200 in seconds, soundwise its as good as a £1000 cd player so I am selling mine now, one less box in the rack (squeezbox and dacmagic take up less room) , I can listen to internet radio jazz fm sounds very good, I can download hi res tracks off linn and others, if not what you were meaning apologies.
I can do all that via my computer already
Cheers David
The major advantage to the server configuration is that you can run multiple clients/players from the same unique shareable server source library.
I've got about 2.5k FLAC albums on my server, and can play anything from the collection individually or in parallel on any of my multiple systems. Squeezeboxes and PC's are the clients, a QNAP NAS is the server.
If you only ever listen to your music in one room then I can't really see a major advantage in using a server, other than keeping disk/fan noise away from your listening environment. ;)
Only have one system so whilst I can see this being advantage is not something I would need
Cheers so far guys
purite audio
04-05-2011, 17:21
You could try a dac which uses an Async USB or FireWire protocol, connecting directly into your USB port,that would IMHO bring an improvement in sound quality.
You could also check that you have bit perfect output, which OS and version are you using?
Keith.
Hey John.
A lot is going to depend on what you have already and what you call a music server.
You say you get good quality sound from your laptop and that is possible if the laptop is set up right. So the first thing is, what are you using on your laptop now, OS, running processes, hard drive type, RAM processor in fact everything?
I’ve heard a couple of commercially availible “music servers” now (Linn DS and Naim Uniticute) and while they produce an acceptable sound I personally don’t consider them any better than a well set up laptop linked to a Dac with a remote hard disc drive regarding sound quality and certainly not with regard to value. What they may be is convenient offering multiple connection types and a neat one box solution.
I’ve been messing about with computer style servers for a bit now and its quite interesting both what variations of computer and storage get called servers and what differences there are in sound quality.
So, that’s another point, what do you call a server; what do you want it to do?
The music server I’ve built sounds better than my laptop in any configuration I’ve tried; exactly why this should be so, I’m still trying to work out.
So, one advantage imo is some music servers can give a noticeable improvement in sound quality over any general purpose computer I’ve heard.
It may take me awhile to answer this Opps techinical computer ques
The term Server is often misused, and is very context specific, so with my pedantic IT head on I'd like to make a couple of points ;)
Shame we can't do diagrams but here goes...
A classic IT configuration may have one or more DB servers, serving one or more application servers, which in turn ultimately serve one or more clients...we'll leave load balancers etc. out for the time being :)
So in the above example in the context of the DB server, the application server is a client. Whereas in the context of the end user it is a server ;)
I have a QNAP TS-119 (1.2Ghz linux NAS), on which resides my FLAC library, an instance of SqueezeServer, along with an instance of MySQL for the catalogue. This operates in two distinct different manners within my setup.
1. As a basic NAS file server streaming FLAC files via TCP/IP to any one of my network PC's/Laptops, on which I use winamp as my player/client for the preparation of a data stream into my dac. Now in this instance my PC or laptop has become a DAC server.
2. As a file server (FLAC library again), a DB server (SB catalogue), and an application server (SB server), all in one box. The remote SB player/clients are again in turn preparing data for their respective DACS (well apart from the ones where I use the analogue out :eyebrows:), and again could be termed DAC servers.
So it's just a question about how modular you want things to be, if you have no requirement for sharing data/resources, and only intend to have one ultimate client then there's absolutely no advantage in separating the functionality out into separate boxes. ;)
The detailed work John is engaged with is, in my mind, fine tuning the performance of the client/player itself, (or as I said earlier if it is to be called a server it's a DAC server), the file server portion of his setup is the local disk itself. :)
I use a NAS with 2x 2Tb drives in a raid format, this is connected via ethernet cable to my wireless Modem/Router. My PC is also connected via ethernet cable to the Router. I can play my music whilst at my PC. In the lounge I have a squeezebox touch which is connected to the router wirelessly so I can play my music whilst in the lounge through my main system. Also both my wife and son have laptops and they can also access the music files at the same time as I do. There is also an Xbox360 and a couple of wireless enabled MP3/media players around the house too, yup they can also access the files.
All in all the NAS box comes in very handy as we only need 1 copy of each file.
All in all the NAS box comes in very handy as we only need 1 copy of each file.
Agreed, I find the ability to access it from multiple locations a major advantage...in DB terms it provides a single unique view of the truth, and gives the advantage of a single point of backup. I keep a RAID image of my NAS server, along with an additional backup of my FLAC library...the players are of a secondary concern :)
Vincent Kars
05-05-2011, 19:03
What industry calls a Music Server is most of the time a PC with a soundcard dressed up as audio gear but used for direct playback.
Exactly like you do on a ‘normal’ PC.
A lot of these boxes are also DLNA compliant so can be used as a server to other UPnP/DLNA clients or play from other DLNA/UPnP boxes.
This is acting as a server or a client indeed.
The same can be achieved by putting media sharing on at the PC (assuming Win).
A bit more on “Music Servers”: http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/HW/HD_players.html
What industry calls a Music Server is most of the time a PC with a soundcard dressed up as audio gear but used for direct playback.
Exactly like you do on a ‘normal’ PC.
Indeed Vincent...it's just semantics, a server? a client? a music player?...some kind of computer, with some kind of file storage, and a sound card, will do at a basic level ;)
HighFidelityGuy
06-05-2011, 12:14
If you're happy using your laptop in the way you currently use it to play music then I don't think there's much point in you getting a server or NAS drive as it's just another way to store your files. You'll still be using the laptop as a transport at the end of the day. Personally I think what you ought to experiment with next is adding a digital transport between your laptop and DAC as Keith suggested. Something like the HiFace EVO or KingRex UC192 can connect via USB and give you a better quality digital output to feed into your DAC. The digital outputs on laptops are usually quite poor quality for some reason. This is one of the next areas I'm going to look at in my system. :)
“The digital outputs on laptops are usually quite poor quality for some reason.”
Rather curious as to what you mean by this Dave?
HighFidelityGuy
06-05-2011, 12:42
“The digital outputs on laptops are usually quite poor quality for some reason.”
Rather curious as to what you mean by this Dave?
I probably should have added "as far as I've read". It's just that I've read several comparisons between desktops and laptops, both Windows and Mac from an audiophile point of view where the reviewer has stated that the laptops tested sounded poorer than the desktops when using the built-in soundcards in both.
I guess it's because the soundcards in laptops are rarely designed with ultra purity of sound in mind. They're just off the shelf chipsets built into the motherboard along with all the other noisy electronics. At least in a desktop you can have a discrete soundcard. The trend always seems to be that the more you separate the soundcard away from the computer the better the sound quality. The ultimate example being an external soundcard that is galvanically or optically isolated from the computer and that has it's own separate high quality power supply. That way you're isolating the audio components from the electrically noisy environment inside the computer.
I've personally never compared the digital output on a laptop to that of anything else as I simply don't have the need to use a laptop in this way. However I have experienced a vast difference in the sound quality from desktop soundcards. Some of the cheaper ones are shockingly bad and their analogue outputs are unusable for proper Hi-Fi. :)
Ah, I see.
Yes I would agree that a PC with a good quality sound card can give decent audio compared to the integrated sound solution used in many laptops. But, most here I think would be using a Dac which makes the sound card in either somewhat secondary with regard to audio quality.
But, I think there is something in what you originally wrote and that digital outputs do leave a lot to be desired by way of build quality, whether or not that has any effect on audio quality is an interesting point.
I have done away with USB connectors on my sever build for example and adapted another type of connector, and we are atm trying to rework the SPDIF header arrangement on the MOB we are using.
I have also got a dedicated discrete 5V power supply for USB built into the server….well sort of hanging out atm , but we’ll get there.
purite audio
06-05-2011, 16:46
I don't believe there is anything wrong with digital outputs per se however it is important to make sure you are getting bit perfect output.
I have found the best results have been with dacs that use either Async FireWire or async USB data transfer.
Avoid s/pdif and AES if you can.
Keth.
Vincent Kars
06-05-2011, 18:18
It is simple
PCM is samples with a fixed sample rate.
The bits must be right and the time step must be right
Perfect playback is bit perfect and time step perfect playback.
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/Intro/SQ/BitPerfectPlayback.htm
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