Computer Audiophile Pocket Server C.A.P.S. v4 Cortes

For those interested in a JRMark score:

=== Running Benchmarks (please do not interrupt) ===

Running 'Math' benchmark...

Single-threaded integer math... 3.802 seconds

Single-threaded floating point math... 2.324 seconds

Multi-threaded integer math... 1.355 seconds

Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.831 seconds

Score: 2286

Running 'Image' benchmark...

Image creation / destruction... 0.323 seconds

Flood filling... 0.548 seconds

Direct copying... 0.839 seconds

Small renders... 1.049 seconds

Bilinear rendering... 0.822 seconds

Bicubic rendering... 0.487 seconds

Score: 5409

Running 'Database' benchmark...

Create database... 0.180 seconds

Populate database... 0.940 seconds

Save database... 0.206 seconds

Reload database... 0.053 seconds

Search database... 0.798 seconds

Sort database... 0.673 seconds

Group database... 0.644 seconds

Score: 6153

JRMark (version 20.0.41): 4616

Chris,

Thank you, nice write-up - including the decision logic.

For less price-conscious yet compact setup have you considered the M1 case from https://www.ncases.com/ by any chance?

Although I do not use this case for audio streaming, I found that it is pleasantly versatile and has a nice form-factor for the storage/cooling options it accommodates. The only issue with this case is it's limited availability. If you can find a Mini-ITX, Mini-DTX motherboard/CPU combination satisfactory for audio, it may fit well. I use it with i7-4770k, Asus Z87iDeluxe MB, Corsair H100i cooler, fans upgraded to Noctua, SSD. If an audio storage system may get by with i5 CPU and NH-L9i cooler (which I use in my NAS in a different case) NCASE M1 will allow for two extra internal 3.5" HDDs - and you always can add eSATA/USB via the available PCI if motherboard expansion features are not satisfactory. Great case.

Wow- controversy over a CAPS server? That's something new.

I love this to be honest. I have not thought through building a special purpose audio server as a true network server. The choice of XEON chips was inspired I think.

It surprised me a bit that you chose Winders over a Linux base, but I after reading your explanations, I think I even agree with your choice. Honestly, I think this has the potential to change the whole game for a lot of non-computer tech audiophiles.

May I suggest you add in some suggestions on how to network it properly? If memory serves me right, I think you are using some pretty capable switches up there, and have very rock solid wireless networking too.

One other point and I will shut up - I could not (nor would I wish to) avoid using this server for storing and serving up video too. It would work flawlessly with another JRMC computer as a client, but have you looked into integrating ATV, Roku, etc. with it? I know that goes beyond the bounds of pure audio, but it really has the potential to be a one-stop-shop for audiophiles who also like to watch videos.

-Paul

P.S. Is Small Green Computing going to be building and selling these as well?

Sorry but this is really disappointing ...

Just an advert for a bunch of randomly chosen components.

"The 6TB drives are configured as a RAID1 / mirroring set." How? How about some step by step instructions on how you built and configured it all?

How about some details on how you setup J.River?

Sorry Chris ... I'm really disappointed in this as the first of the CAPSv4 articles.

Wow... what a sense of entitlement... how rude...

Ho hum, outdated poor choice. You could have picked a board with built-in raid support or speced a raid controller (LSI seems to be the choice). You could have picked SAS 3 drives that are 12GB. Beyond that, if you're using it as a file server, Windows Server, not Windows 8 is a much better choice. It even included software raid if you don't want to buy a raid controller.

As I say I thought Chris was writing somewhat a tutorial how to build a Cortes server. Instead all I read was a list of components that Chris has used to build HIS Cortes without (to my reading) any guidance how people can replicate it unless they are already experts in configuring Windows and J.River.

Eloise,

You have to know when to call it a day, and withdraw from the field gracefully....

Just a suggestion.

The most interesting part of the article for me were the reasons given for using a Windows Server instead of a NAS and the description of what Chris gets up to using his. The 2 paragraphs giving specific parts recommendations are no doubt useful for people who might want to take advantage of Chris's design talent and testing and build one for themselves. I am not inclined to do that but with this information I can go to my favorite computer vendor and order a system (I think most any vendor could help you spec out a similar system) or I can take a suitable spare computer if I have one and use it for this purpose and I would think I could achieve largely the same benefits.

1. As the Cortes is located remotely, can I presume that program control is on a tablet/phone via WiFi? Is there any provision for a regular video display/control in the listening room?

2. You have converted your DSD files to PCM and you make no mention of multichannel files. Can the Cortes send any music file format that JRMC will handle (e.g., DSD or PCM from an ISO)? I know this assumes having a suitably capable renderer in the listening room.

Dear Chris,

first let me say thank you for this first artice out of a new series of CAPS servers. In my opinon, computer audio is not only about the device playing the music, but the complete network. So beginning from groud up (NAS / Server) is the right way.

What I am interested about, are all those software applications you installed - and their purpose. Some of you already use them, but for me, I am using only JRMC at the moment, I don't know them. I think, a short explanation of them would help readers of the previous CAPS 'stories'

Maybe same of these tools / apps are great and could expand the usage of my music library - tagging, streaming, a.s.o.

Have a nice weekend,

Bernhard

Redundant. Please ignore

MinimServer can basically do all this running on a $250 QNAP NAS drive without JRiver. And pretty much silently. And at a *way* smaller form factor...

Ok so, it might not give a user *all* the JRiver bells and wistles, but it's not half bad

I really think its about time JRiver wakes up and gets way leaner. I know they have moved to Linux and this is to be encouraged, but seriously. I believe it's got to "lean up.." alot...

So, I think we need to have some justification why you see WMS/ JRiver combo as the future for streaming from centralised music storage Chris.

Then there is the presence of online streaming services as well as you know. I think the prospect of a 2-3K WMS/JRiver server seems a little cost "ineffective" myself.

If JRiver for example released a QNAP app or something, there is likely to be massive depreciation here coming up on this sort of WMS CAPS server IMHO

Just my 2c...

I'm going to post an apology here to Chris for the brusqueness of first post under this article. The basic meaning of my post came across but I did not intend it to be as harsh as it appears it has been taken. If I could re-write that post, it would be fairer to say I felt the article was a missed opportunity by not including guidance as to how all this should be set up.

I would appreciate if people now stopped making comments about my post(s) especially those referring to feelings of entitlement! As a long term member of the site I do feel I have contributed to the success of the site but that doesn't entitle me to anything beyond my opinion; I would also hope that would entitle me to express those opinions without being insulted as a response.

Yes this is Chris's website ... but it takes everyone who is a member to make it a successful website!

Eloise

I'm going to post an apology here to Chris for the brusqueness of first post under this article. The basic meaning of my post came across but I did not intend it to be as harsh as it appears it has been taken. If I could re-write that post, it would be fairer to say I felt the article was a missed opportunity by not including guidance as to how all this should be set up.

 

I would appreciate if people now stopped making comments about my post(s) especially those referring to feelings of entitlement! As a long term member of the site I do feel I have contributed to the success of the site but that doesn't entitle me to anything beyond my opinion; I would also hope that would entitle me to express those opinions without being insulted as a response.

 

Yes this is Chris's website ... but it takes everyone who is a member to make it a successful website!

 

Eloise

As much as Audio_ELF can be trying at times, she (I assume) has provided much commentary and advice that were valuable. Infact at times I have been surprised at the depth of her knowledge. Site like this is only valuable for the level of expertise provided by its readers and contributors. CA would be nowhere with out people like Audio_ELF, Ted, Barry, etc. We indeed sits on shoulder of giants.....My 2c to try and bring some semblance of truce instead of starting a rot.....

Twisted knicker.....as stated earlier, this CAPS4 has been. Ironic as I am waiting for the next release to start my own CAPS (Finally)....

I'm going to post an apology here to Chris for the brusqueness of first post under this article. The basic meaning of my post came across but I did not intend it to be as harsh as it appears it has been taken. If I could re-write that post, it would be fairer to say I felt the article was a missed opportunity by not including guidance as to how all this should be set up.

 

I would appreciate if people now stopped making comments about my post(s) especially those referring to feelings of entitlement! As a long term member of the site I do feel I have contributed to the success of the site but that doesn't entitle me to anything beyond my opinion; I would also hope that would entitle me to express those opinions without being insulted as a response.

 

Yes this is Chris's website ... but it takes everyone who is a member to make it a successful website!

 

Eloise

Heavens- I assumed you and Chris were playing, not being serious! I think everyone could read and recognize what you meant, it is just so rare when you slip up and word anything poorly, or even misspell a word... well! The urge to tease you a little is nearly irresistible. (grin)

Certainly step by step explanations and tutorials on how to install and etc. would be nice, but it is demonically difficult to keep those up to date.

Rather than picking apart the specific details of the design, take a read at what you can leverage from his experimentation and learning. From my first simple read I see that the buildout has no audible impacts on SQ, therefore go heavy with hardware if you want. Device Spy seemed pretty useful, the liquid CPU cooler was pretty neat, IPMI was very cool, and a DSP controlled power supply at $185 was good news.

All in all he taught us that if you wanted to go out and spec your Dell then your SQ probably won't suffer. I think that was worth a 10 minute read and I thank Chris.

Hi Chris, you chose a Xeon CPU as it is purely for number crunching as opposed to a Core i7 which also has video capabilities in the CPU. What is driving the video in the Cortes and how capable is it?

With a traditional NAS setup the music library is on the NAS and a PC elsewhere on the network runs JRiver. The PC running JRiver for many people also feeds via USB cable the the digital data to USB capable DAC.

Cortes puts the NAS and JRiver in the same box. Cortes is loud enough that you would not want to keep it in your listening environment. With this set up I now need another computer or streamer to feed the USB DAC when Cortes can do that task.

I suppose you could run a USB cable through the walls but what are the limits on USB cable length?

If I was starting from scratch I might consider Cortes, but since I already have computers around it seems excessive to build or buy another computer to be an audio server alone. As another post mentioned, if it serves more duties like a video server or other functions it would make it more attractive.

Did you consider the option of building a completely silent computer in a similar sized enclosure? If I recall you had a pretty awesome silent mid tower case at one point in time. Having a silent build, although more expensive, would provide the option to have the computer in the listening room. Surely the other CAPS v4 versions you will introduce will be silent and will serve as in room streamers. Why not have an ultimate version Cortes that is silent as well?

Just my thoughts.

TV

Hi Chris, you chose a Xeon CPU as it is purely for number crunching as opposed to a Core i7 which also has video capabilities in the CPU. What is driving the video in the Cortes and how capable is it?

With a traditional NAS setup the music library is on the NAS and a PC elsewhere on the network runs JRiver. The PC running JRiver for many people also feeds via USB cable the the digital data to USB capable DAC.

Cortes puts the NAS and JRiver in the same box. Cortes is loud enough that you would not want to keep it in your listening environment. With this set up I now need another computer or streamer to feed the USB DAC when Cortes can do that task.

I suppose you could run a USB cable through the walls but what are the limits on USB cable length?

If I was starting from scratch I might consider Cortes, but since I already have computers around it seems excessive to build or buy another computer to be an audio server alone. As another post mentioned, if it serves more duties like a video server or other functions it would make it more attractive.

Did you consider the option of building a completely silent computer in a similar sized enclosure? If I recall you had a pretty awesome silent mid tower case at one point in time. Having a silent build, although more expensive, would provide the option to have the computer in the listening room. Surely the other CAPS v4 versions you will introduce will be silent and will serve as in room streamers. Why not have an ultimate version Cortes that is silent as well?

Just my thoughts.

TV

An option you should look into for CAPS NAS v5 is the newer Intel Atom server line. These procs are more than enough to handle NAS duties and the prices are very reasonable.

An Atom C2750 sports 8-cores, supports up to 64GB RAM, and is x86 based so it will run Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, etc. SuperMicro, ASRock, Gigabyte and ASUS make boards based on the C2750 ranging from $350-$500 (that includes motherboard, processor, up to 4 server-grade NICs, dKVM, and an expansion slot) packed into a mini-ITX format with a 20W TDP. The 4-core versions start around $250 with a 14W TDP and are completely fanless.

At the mini-ITX range you can get into some very interesting case options. The SilverStone DS380B has 8 hot swappable bays and looks stunning. Costs about the same or less than the Corsair, and is smaller and quieter. Or the LIAN LI PC-Q25B, which has 5 hot swap bays for ~$100. There is a new game in town too, U-NAS, which has some interesting looking cases that support mini-ITX as well.

Using this kind of hardware you can build a 16TB server (raw capacity) with 16GB RAM for about the same cost, or less, than the Cortes with identical or better file server performance.

If you want to go all fancy you can throw on Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials. This allows you to team NICs, have centralized auth (creates a domain) for easy file sharing, access from the Internet, automatic backups, and all sorts of other goodies. All of this is auto-magically setup through a wizard and run through a pretty easy to use Dashboard, so no need to be a server admin to run the show.

Chris, something is going wrong with the site. Apologies for the double post above but when refreshing my browser the first post did not show.

Also, viewing from another browser shows over 40 comments before logging in and only 28 comments after logging in! I'm going to guess that this post will now show on a refresh either!

TV

I, for one, get this server. High power. Can leverage all of J.River, including DSP via dnla. Imagine building whole house, Acourate adjusted audio for multiple rooms, via BBBs with AQ Dragonflies attached. Thin client audiophile computing.

... the LIAN LI PC-Q25B, which has 5 hot swap bays for ~$100...

Do you have a first-hand experience with PC-Q25 case? How do you like it? Asking, because I had high hopes for Lian-Li PC-Q35 and was disappointed with it's drive bay arrangements when installed it.

Yeah, for whatever reason the site limits my login to 28 comments on this post like for another commenter. All comments show after logging out.

On the home page is says the article has 46 comments, but when I click through there are only 28. I've seen this issue on other threads also. Apparently there is some site issue with counting or displaying comments.

I like this concept, but would like to hear from others how they'd envision using it. I can think of 3 scenarios:

1) with a streamer, direct feed from the Cortes;

2) With a server like a CAPS 3;

3) In a dual PC setup with JPlay, with the Cortes doing the processing and a less powerful PC doing the playback.

In scenarios 2 and 3 you'd still need a well optimized audio playback PC in addition to the Cortes for optimum SQ.

In scenario 2, the Cortes seems like overkill, b/c if you needed to do any serious processing of your signal for listening (DSP room correction or on the fly upsampling to hi-res/DSD), you'd need to do it on the playback PC, and not on the Cortes. For scenario 2 the Cortes doesn't seem like it would be that useful, except in situations such as those Chris described in the article where he batch processed a lot of files. But unless you think you are going to be doing that often, the Cortes seems like an expensive alternative to a conventional NAS.

Let me know what I'm missing here or any other comments on how to implement the Cortes.

It's a very powerful 'conventional NAS' replacement running Windows (to install all and any 'server task' oriented software you like) and JRiver for DLNA/uPnP server functionality. It's not for a dual play JPlay setup and it's not envisioned to be used to connect to your DAC using USB or SPDIF/AES-EBU.

So it can be the spider in the web (your home network) for reliable storage, DLNA/uPnP and general server duties to be placed anywhere in your home, out of sight (not near your AV equipment) without a physical KVM (keyboard, monitor and mouse).