Article: Computer Audiophile Pocket Server - C.A.P.S.

[vortecjr]

at the risk of sounding like a copy cat....I ordered that very Intel D945GSEJT MB, backplate and ram for an unrelated venture. I'm not ready to discuss what that venture is at the moment, but that should be enough to say I like the MB. L.S. told me about the MB and the backplate a few fews weeks ago when I asked them about new MBs with PCI and SATA and minimum 2GB of ram. I don't think that the M10 case is quite ready to except that backplate because the backplate was meant for another case. BTW that case is only $35 bucks, but you loose the cd option. I could be wrong, but the AES16 card looks a bit funny in the M10 case;) I really like the idea of the fanless design and the external power adapter or power brick as some call them. That junk does not belong inside the music server! I have something very close to this (my personal unit in the pic) with a mini-itx MB with VIA chip, OCZ ssd, fanless case, 4 GB ram, Windows 7 and firewire to my Minerva and I love it! I use M.M. because the iTouch app rocks IMO. Someday we will have WASAPI and I will be golden. <br />

A side note about Linux with all do respect to your attempt here to try it. My buddy Clay says, "it's a shame about the challenges of Linux." I say it's a shame you did not ask me to help! I understand that my input might spoil the project as a vender, but we should be able to look past that. I agree that Linux poses some challenges moving forward. However, Andrew has been working very hard with me to bridge the gap and make it accessable to anyone willing to try it. For sure you started out with some Linux software distributions that are to hard core for the average Joe. At the same time your building the Windows 7 machine from scratch so installing Andrew's Linux distribution should be on par! Andrew's Linux distribution is also 100% free to use without limitations and it is geared to rip music, store music, and most importantly play music with MPD. My install guide is posted here on CA if anyone is interested. As it stands you need to download the iso, burn the image to a cd and install the software. Then you set the dac from a web gui config page and your ready to go with the on board outputs or a usb dac. Yes, the AES16 card takes a few extra entries at command line and some configuration. The extra entries and config would be a copy and paste exercise. Firewire is still pretty hard, but we are working on it and it is supported.<br />

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Jesus R<br />

www.sonore.us

[vortecjr]

I have that MB and after using it quite a bit with a Linux based OS I think it's great. I run Vortexbox Linux (free distribution from vortexbox.org) with mpd and I can watch the cpu in real time while it's playing 24/192 wav files and it does not even tickle the cpu. Having said that be warned MPD can upsample and that MB does not seem to want to handle it. Who cares though it would not be bit perfect that way:)<br />

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I also have had low power embedded single core VIA MBs (now retired) with Windows 7 that ran fine for music playback with various players. I would not run the mouse around during playback and I would wait for the software to finishing monitoring the drives then listen to music.<br />

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Jesus R<br />

www.sonore.us