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Building the ideal(ish) Music Server


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Have been thinking about how to improve the network for audio use and have taken on board that a 2 layer switch seems to help with isolation of the audio part, but how that should be integrated and perhaps are there other things in my network that has never been planned but just added to piece meal. Without really knowing how to test a network I would say its pretty crappy so looking for a bit of guidance. 

 

This is my current setup

phone line connected to TD-W8980 adsl router info here which has a usb drive attached to it. This is then connected by about 15 m of flat network cable to a switch Dlink DES 1005A switch to which is connected a htpc and a games box and another 15m flat network cable which connects to another dlink switch (same as other) which is connected to a smart tv, android htpc tv box,  roon server and separate player/renderer box.

 

I realise that this is probably a terrible setup so looking forward to your suggestions.

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Guest rmpfyf
36 minutes ago, frednork said:

Have been thinking about how to improve the network for audio use and have taken on board that a 2 layer switch seems to help with isolation of the audio part, but how that should be integrated and perhaps are there other things in my network that has never been planned but just added to piece meal. Without really knowing how to test a network I would say its pretty crappy so looking for a bit of guidance. 

 

This is my current setup

phone line connected to TD-W8980 adsl router info here which has a usb drive attached to it. This is then connected by about 15 m of flat network cable to a switch Dlink DES 1005A switch to which is connected a htpc and a games box and another 15m flat network cable which connects to another dlink switch (same as other) which is connected to a smart tv, android htpc tv box,  roon server and separate player/renderer box.

 

I realise that this is probably a terrible setup so looking forward to your suggestions.

 

L2 means nothing unless you're actually putting the audio on a separate subnet.

 

(Why flat cable?)

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1 minute ago, rmpfyf said:

 

L2 means nothing unless you're actually putting the audio on a separate subnet.

 

(Why flat cable?)

Easier to hide.

 

I dont have a layer 2 switch yet but once I started looking at getting one I thought the rest of the setup is probably not much good any way. My intention would be to put audio on a separate subnet.  The other thing I was considering is connecting the roon server and renderer directly but the server doesnt have 2 network ports so which option would be better?

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Guest rmpfyf
2 hours ago, frednork said:

Easier to hide.

 

I dont have a layer 2 switch yet but once I started looking at getting one I thought the rest of the setup is probably not much good any way. My intention would be to put audio on a separate subnet.  The other thing I was considering is connecting the roon server and renderer directly but the server doesnt have 2 network ports so which option would be better?

 Show it loud and proud :D 

 

A direct connection is nice; it’s effectively a subnet of two and less electrical crud. Maybe a separate Ethernet card?

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Yes, it may be possible with a mini express network card. My server mobo is now a dh77df with an i73770s chip and passive cooling, so no room in this case for a standard card. Are there any that are more preferred than others. 

IMG_20190330_223138.jpg

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Guest rmpfyf
10 hours ago, frednork said:

USB to network adapter no good?

Was just about to suggest one... I'd give it a shot. Windoze or Linux? 

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Guest rmpfyf
1 hour ago, frednork said:

Still using snakeoil so Linux

So long as Kith hasn't taken out the driver for whatever USB>Ethernet you get, it should run first time. 

 

Otherwise ask him to put it back in and you're also fine.

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  • 4 months later...


  • 4 weeks later...

Hi all, great thread! I have been dipping in and out of it with interest as I am currently upgrading my music server. At the moment I have:

 

- Minibox M350 case (https://www.cartft.com/catalog/gl/55) - a TINY mini-ITX case (2.5 litres)

- Intel D945GSEJT (Atom N270) mainboard

- 2gb single-sided RAM

- small internal SSD for OS and music (64GB?)

- Zero-Zone 12v 5a LPSU

 

I was using AES to my DAC via a Lynx AES16, but USB has leapfrogged it in the latest update, so right now I am just using the onboard USB.

 

Now, I had to upgrade to Windows 10 because I need USB Audio 2, and my DAC doesn't like Linux.  With the new OS the Atom cpu+onboard graphics are struggling to say the least.  So, I am revamping. I am getting:

 

- Mitac PD10RI (Celeron J3160) from here https://www.cartft.com/catalog/il/2064. Mitac are the OEM for the Intel DN2800MT and this is a compatible update of this board with a more recent CPU.

- 8gb single-sided RAM (maybe 4 is better?)
- PCIe riser kit for the M350 - specific to this motherboard - (https://www.logicsupply.com/mc-bp-mtx/)

- JCAT femto USB card.

 

The board is still 12vdc input so I can reuse the LPSU. Because of the riser kit I can reuse the case as well.

 

The question I have is about storage. I'll be getting an internal SSD large enough to hold all my music (say 500gb). In due course I'll get a 5v LPSU which can power both the USB card and the SSD. In light of that, would I be better off in terms of SQ:

 

- putting the OS on the same SSD as the music; or

- getting a separate, small, mSATA disk and putting the OS on that?

 

I can see advantages to having the OS on a separate disk. Against that, the mSATA is going to inject noise which I can't mitigate.

 

Any thoughts gratefully received!

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  • 2 weeks later...
12 hours ago, was_a said:

Do not use an mSATA card with conventional power from the motherboard! Even on idle the injection of noise is hideous in my experience. 

Second that.

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On 10/10/2019 at 12:05 PM, was_a said:

Do not use an mSATA card with conventional power from the motherboard! Even on idle the injection of noise is hideous in my experience. Rather, use two SSDs with the larger one containing your FLAC files.

 

On 11/10/2019 at 12:12 AM, rmpfyf said:

Second that.

Thanks, both. For simplicity, I'm using one SSD at the moment and that seems to be sounding pretty good.

 

This PD10RI motherboard isn't great. Much noiser than the D945GSEJT. I guess the DC-DC is inferior. I'm thinking I might try an ATX motherboard with picoPSU instead. Does anyone have a recommendation for a mini-ITX Celeron/Atom with ATX power and a PCIe slot? The reccos on this thread are old enough to be impossible to source.

 

... with this being said, with the JCAT USB card fed external 5v power from a @Gieseler Audio LPSU the sound is a LOT cleaner than my previous server. This is a very high quality setup for the price.

Edited by rhgg2
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For the last fanless DC server I built, I couldn't get the "200" pico Tasso recommended (that we did the big filter cap mods to); I got a "160" instead. Something like  

 

http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-160-XT

 

Previously I'd used Asrock mITX boards J3700 and J3710, but had to get an updated one this time: J4205, still with very low TDP.

 

I use single SSDs - not sure if going double would improve matters.

 

I have 2 pairs of 4GB single sided RAM sticks sitting here if anyone has trouble finding some (Kingston 1600 DDR3). (I went to 8GB single sticks, but it didn't improve the stutter problem as hoped).

 

Interesting choice with the JCat Femto USB card - is this the current favorite out there? I got the Clones Shaar Deluxe, but it seems to have gone from their site, and I'd love to hear if someone's done a comparison. Or with the Pink Faun, which now does DSD apparently. And with some rather costly clock options.

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13 minutes ago, BioBrian said:

For the last fanless DC server I built, I couldn't get the "200" pico Tasso recommended (that we did the big filter cap mods to); I got a "160" instead. Something like  

 

http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-160-XT


The other 200w pico that was recommended still seems to be available, so am thinking I might go for that...

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32836338204.html

 

13 minutes ago, BioBrian said:

Previously I'd used Asrock mITX boards J3700 and J3710, but had to get an updated one this time: J4205, still with very low TDP.

Thanks! will look into that.

 

13 minutes ago, BioBrian said:

Interesting choice with the JCat Femto USB card - is this the current favorite out there? I got the Clones Shaar Deluxe, but it seems to have gone from their site, and I'd love to hear if someone's done a comparison. Or with the Pink Faun, which now does DSD apparently. And with some rather costly clock options.

 

The JCat card more or less came about by chance - someone I knew was selling one at a good price. (In fact, I actually had no plans to upgrade my server until that came up.) Don't know if it's the preferred option, but it does seem to be very good.

 

BTW, I got my 1R ram from MSY:

https://www.msy.com.au/kingston-so-dimm-kvr1333d3s9-kvr13s9s8-4gb-single-ddr3-1333-notebook-memory

 

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I find with two SSDs a major improvement in sound quality. For operating system a 256GB Samsung 860 Pro (smaller capacity uses less power) and a larger Samsung 860 QVO for storage of audio files. (As an experiment on the storage drive I have a couple of smaller partitions - around 64GB - for critical listening). 

 

 

 

 

Edited by was_a
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On 30/09/2019 at 10:51 AM, rhgg2 said:

Hi all, great thread! I have been dipping in and out of it with interest as I am currently upgrading my music server. At the moment I have:

 

- Minibox M350 case (https://www.cartft.com/catalog/gl/55) - a TINY mini-ITX case (2.5 litres)

- Intel D945GSEJT (Atom N270) mainboard

- 2gb single-sided RAM

- small internal SSD for OS and music (64GB?)

- Zero-Zone 12v 5a LPSU

 

I was using AES to my DAC via a Lynx AES16, but USB has leapfrogged it in the latest update, so right now I am just using the onboard USB.

 

Now, I had to upgrade to Windows 10 because I need USB Audio 2, and my DAC doesn't like Linux.  With the new OS the Atom cpu+onboard graphics are struggling to say the least.  So, I am revamping. I am getting:

 

- Mitac PD10RI (Celeron J3160) from here https://www.cartft.com/catalog/il/2064. Mitac are the OEM for the Intel DN2800MT and this is a compatible update of this board with a more recent CPU.

- 8gb single-sided RAM (maybe 4 is better?)
- PCIe riser kit for the M350 - specific to this motherboard - (https://www.logicsupply.com/mc-bp-mtx/)

- JCAT femto USB card.

 

The board is still 12vdc input so I can reuse the LPSU. Because of the riser kit I can reuse the case as well.

 

The question I have is about storage. I'll be getting an internal SSD large enough to hold all my music (say 500gb). In due course I'll get a 5v LPSU which can power both the USB card and the SSD. In light of that, would I be better off in terms of SQ:

 

- putting the OS on the same SSD as the music; or

- getting a separate, small, mSATA disk and putting the OS on that?

 

I can see advantages to having the OS on a separate disk. Against that, the mSATA is going to inject noise which I can't mitigate.

 

Any thoughts gratefully received!

 

6 hours ago, rhgg2 said:

 

Thanks, both. For simplicity, I'm using one SSD at the moment and that seems to be sounding pretty good.

 

This PD10RI motherboard isn't great. Much noiser than the D945GSEJT. I guess the DC-DC is inferior. I'm thinking I might try an ATX motherboard with picoPSU instead. Does anyone have a recommendation for a mini-ITX Celeron/Atom with ATX power and a PCIe slot? The reccos on this thread are old enough to be impossible to source.

 

... with this being said, with the JCAT USB card fed external 5v power from a @Gieseler Audio LPSU the sound is a LOT cleaner than my previous server. This is a very high quality setup for the price.

 

As usual getting all isolated/buffered/reclocked downstream of the PC hopefully makes all our PC tinkering irrelevant. 

 

In the meantime :) ...

 

Your DAC should have no feelings about Linux. Do you know what's inside it (as in what the USB>I2S interface actually is)?

 

Major thoughts on motherboards:

  • Minimum on-board devices mean less to power and less injected noise from components doing their own thing
  • You're battling lower power use vs higher number of power phases vs pipeline width (if your software uses it) vs device ordering (especially if you're using onboard graphics and the GPU is time-sliced out of CPU operation, later Core CPU designs use this). My experience has been to avoid Atom CPUs (two CPU power phases make for comparatively noisy rails - look for four minimum), T-series CPUs, no onboard graphics past the 4th gen Intel Core CPUs (though I'd like to try an Intel Xeon D/expensive tho), compile the OS carefully to take advantage (lots of tricks in the last point - not possible with Windows). Run a 'big' CPU slowly, there's more control and less variance over power consumption, and some software will take advantage of the bigger pipelines inherent. Nothing over 35W TDP and hopefully less with modern CPUs. 
  • Board clocks/implementations do make a difference, more so if you're using onboard USB. Some boards have very direct paths, some have very crap phase noise characteristics. All can be improved but this is at the bleeding edge of a**ing about. 
  • Ideally a M2 NVMe on a separate power supply would be ideal from an interrupt/latency management perspective. Maybe a shielded and independently powered PCIe riser? In the meantime just power the SSD's independently, and ideally off the same SATA device. 

Single-sided RAM as per earlier comments.

 

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On 16/10/2019 at 4:40 PM, rmpfyf said:

 

Your DAC should have no feelings about Linux. Do you know what's inside it (as in what the USB>I2S interface actually is)?

 

It's not an off-the-shelf chip, it's a beta of a custom solution which isn't fully debugged for Linux yet. I'll probably get the v1.0 next year sometime, but until then...

 

Quote

 

  • You're battling lower power use vs higher number of power phases vs pipeline width (if your software uses it) vs device ordering (especially if you're using onboard graphics and the GPU is time-sliced out of CPU operation, later Core CPU designs use this). My experience has been to avoid Atom CPUs (two CPU power phases make for comparatively noisy rails - look for four minimum), T-series CPUs, no onboard graphics past the 4th gen Intel Core CPUs (though I'd like to try an Intel Xeon D/expensive tho), compile the OS carefully to take advantage (lots of tricks in the last point - not possible with Windows). Run a 'big' CPU slowly, there's more control and less variance over power consumption, and some software will take advantage of the bigger pipelines inherent. Nothing over 35W TDP and hopefully less with modern CPUs. 

OK, thanks, I will look into Haswell T-series. The million-dollar question is power envelope. The lowest TDP I can find for a consumer cpu is 35w. Can I power the motherboard, 35w cpu (downclocked as far as possible), onboard graphics, and one ssd from a 12V 4A power supply?

 

 

Edited by rhgg2
typos
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2 hours ago, rhgg2 said:

It's not an off-the-shelf chip, it's a beta of a custom solution which isn't fully debugged for Linux yet. I'll probably get the v1.0 next year sometime, but until then...

 

OK, thanks, I will look into Haswell T-series. The million-dollar question is power envelope. The lowest TDP I can find for a consumer cpu is 35w. Can I power the motherboard, 35w cpu (downclocked as far as possible), onboard graphics, and one ssd from a 12V 4A power supply?

 

 

 

Should be, you'll be less than 35W underclocked.

 

Would just tune, measure and then change over to your desired PSU.

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2 hours ago, rhgg2 said:

The lowest TDP I can find for a consumer cpu is 35w.

Curious - the 3 Asrock boards I mentioned have TDPs of 6, 6.5, and 10.

 

But I'm no tech, so would be listening to any reasons why they aren't ideal for a Linux server.

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3 hours ago, BioBrian said:

Curious - the 3 Asrock boards I mentioned have TDPs of 6, 6.5, and 10.

 

But I'm no tech, so would be listening to any reasons why they aren't ideal for a Linux server.

It's how they time and power ripple.

 

I'd think we could do better than 35W Haswell parts... Getting on a bit now. I use 4th gen parts because that's what I had lying about... With a bit of research would be interesting to see what's possible now.

 

Anyone out there underclocking a K out of interest?

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  • 4 weeks later...

Recently came across this server, cost insanely 24,000 to 28,900 Euro.  ?

 

This has motivated me somewhat to further R&D my existing dual pc setup with fine tune to i7-9500 or i9...?!? 

I have been very pleased with my CA setup though...., until now seeing this crazy server at nearly a Mini Countryman!!! 


Ideally - I am going revisit my ATX linear power supplies with individually choke input filter for all 7 rails linear psu to accomodate full spectrum ATX specs, including PSU for add on USB card and addon Ethernet card for complete isolation. A dual pc setup with Roon server Ethernet direct to HQPlayer 4.2 audio for room REW filter. Will be using windows server 2019 and operate as Ramdisk to eliminate M.2 and Sata3..... 

 

going to be interesting...  for sure! 

EA67BF5A-CC2A-4B8B-B126-0CE1252FB68D.jpeg

99684C48-FE9B-4A4E-A09F-895AFE94BFF8.png

111F6676-8FA4-4A6B-963E-056CA65788DD.jpeg

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51 minutes ago, Enikma1123 said:

Hey Chanh,

 

If anyone can build it better, stronger, cheaper and dispel this insane price, you can!!

 

Good luck with this

 

Nik

 

Second that... That thing doesn't look unbeatable.

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