Article: CAPS v4 Maroubra and Bundoran

[agillis]

Are these devices powerful enough to deal with SACD iso decoding without hiccough?

 

This unit uses the Intel i5-4250U processor. Although this is only a dual core processor it has 3mb of cache. This means that most up sampling or resampling code with fit entirely into the cache.

 

The end result is this will have plenty of power to for up sampling or resampling of SACD to DoP.

 

Here is the specs on the processor if your interested

 

ARK | Intel® Core

[agillis]

Yes, that is confusing. I think the chassis *is* the heat sink, that's certainly the description elsewhere. But that language muddies the issue.

 

Yes correct the case is made of aluminium and the CPU touches it. The heat is dispersed from the small fins on the top of the case.

[agillis]

I have a newbie question.

 

I currently use an Apple iMac running Audirvana+ 2.0 as my source, but I'm interested in replacing it with a C.A.P.S, particularly the Maroubra due to its price and form factor.

 

Could the Maroubra be used as a dedicated music server only, or also as a personal computer? In other words, if I have a PC monitor, keyboard, mouse and printer, could I use it as a full-fledged desktop PC running Windows that I can not only listen to music with, but also use the Internet via Wi-Fi, watch videos, perform word processor task (such as MS Word) and stuff?

 

Also, does the Maroubra have a CD drive? Or do I need to purchase a separate drive and connect it to the PC? If the above is possible, I would like to use dBpoweramp to rip CD's.

 

You you could use the CAPS for a general purpose PC but as Stuarth says you don't want to be running a firewall, or antivirus on a music server so you would need to be very careful when you connect to the internet.

 

You could rip CDs but you would need a USB CD drive.

 

There is no Wi-Fi available on any of the CAPS because Wi-Fi is not a good idea on a music server. You need a hard Ethernet connection or HomePlug.

[agillis]

Can you run Windows Server 2012 with Audiophile Optimizer on CAPS v4 Maroubra?

 

No you can't. Intel does not make a WS2012 driver for the NIC card that is in the CAPS v4 Maroubra. For customers that want to run WS2012 I recommend the micro ZUMA.

[agillis]

Actually yes you can. Here is a link to the work around.

 

Intel NUC D54250WYKH: Installing LAN Driver on Windows Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 | JDeployment

 

Yes I have seen a few people get this working. I have also seem some people who could not get it working. Basically Intel is trying very hard to keep it from working so future updates of the driver or Windows 2012 might break this hack.

 

Don't seem like a good idea to go against Intel.

[agillis]

I'd like to revisit a section of the CAPS v3 build's write up as it pertains to this build:

 

mSATA drives are much more like computer memory in size and appearance. These drives are solid state and fit directly into the motherboard without any cables. Even though the DN2800MT board has mSATA capability the Carbon design doesn't use this slot. The server is still very easy to build but absolute simplicity was outweighed by the desire for a lower power SSD that requires internal power and SATA cables.

 

I guess my question is, why not use a mSata drive in v3 when it's the only way to go in v4? Is the technology better now? Is it because it's a means to an end in v4? Is it a power thing? Just curious.

 

The CAPS v3 spec came out a while ago. At the time (2012) mSATA SSD drives were not as good as regular SSD drives. They were slower and used less reliable technology. Now (2015) that mSATA SSD drives are as good as SSD drives it makes sense to use them for any build.