Design a PC/Server for ROON and HQ Player

[PieterP]

On 13-3-2018 at 11:47 PM, ddetaey said:

Streamer 2.16

• Custom-made aluminum rigid frame.
• Full passive cooled PSU and processor, an eight heat pipes cooling system for processor, no moving parts.
• Three Low-B, internal- and external shielded power transformers.
• Up to 20 linear regulated supplies (depending on hardware configuration).
• Separate linear supply for the processor, motherboard, SSD’s, OCXO clocks and the digital output card.
• Schottky rectifier diodes, crystalline core choke Pi-filters.
• Low ESR 105 degree Nichicon capacitors, the total buffer capacity is more than 800.000uF.
• Star-grounding- and star-power supply design.
• Separate powered OCXO clock for the motherboard chipset (upgrade).
• Separate powered OCXO clock for the processor (upgrade).
• Separate powered OCXO clock for the digital output card (upgrade).

 Hardware

• Full size ATX motherboard with optimized BIOS settings.
• 8-core processor, passive cooled with eight heat pipes cooling system, no moving parts inside.
• Low-latency DDR4 memory.
• Samsung 250GB Pro SSD for operating system and playback software, additional music storage up to 12 GB SSD.

Software

• Custom Arch Linux ultra-low latency operating system.
• Roon Core server.
• HQPlayer high quality bit-perfect multichannel audio player (PCM en DSD).
• Tidal high-res streaming (Tidal subscription not included).
• Including professional remote support.

¹  A registered Roon Labs Lifetime Membership is included with Streamer 2.16. If you already own a Roon Labs (lifetime) membership the membership will be deducted from the invoice

²  A full registered HQPlayer Embedded license is included with the Streamer 2.16

 

 

You are able to see the full configuration at the Pink Faun website :

https://www.pinkfaun.com/index.php/products/streaming-audio/pink-faun-streamer-2-16.html

 

 

The applied processor today is an AMD Ryzen 7, but this is replaceable/upgradable if desired.

 

Dirk

Hi Dirk, does your PF 2.16 streamer has a graphics card as the ryzen 7 processors have no graphics?  

[PieterP]

Hi Guys, I am trying to make an ‘as silent as possible’ PC Music streamer for HQ-player (under linux) (with fans After my current audio) in a DIY chassis (Modushop slimline 4U). Can I ask for your feedback? Starting point is my chassis (see pics) and my questions for now concern an ‘as silent as possible’ power supply and a as-silent-as-possible air/water cooling system. That is because I need to decide on the PSU and CPU cooler first as I will have Front Panel Express Berlin do most of my metal works (caveties, drilling, engravings) that I need to accommodate/mount the main components. My chassis has enough space to accommodate an ATX mobo, most ATX PSU’s and liquid cooling radiators up to 3 fans (max 315mm radiator lenght). Only the available height above the processor (for an air cooler) is 140mm which limits me to the use of top flow coolers or the smaller upright coolers. My Slimline chassis has top and bottom plates with full ventilation holes.

 

PSU: From specs/reviews on internet I found that the Be Quiet Dark pro 11 650W could be a good candidate with very low noise levels (lowest noise PSU with fan?) and good voltage stability and ripple specs and we have the Corsair RM650x which is also said to be very quiet and other good specs. The advantage of the Be Quiet (BQ) compared to the semi-passive Corsair RM650x is that the quiet fan is always on (at very low rpm) which gives a better cooling during low power demand. The Corsair RM switches off the fan at low power demand (semi-passive), but then there will be heatspots and those will add some heat into the chassis which is undesirable. The ‘only’ disadvantage of the BQ is its price.

-          What do you think about this PSU and about alternatives to consider?

-          Is it right that 650 W gives me enough headroom for most current and future processors (65-95W TDP), OC possibility and a videocard (if really needed)?

-          I am thinking of mounting the PSU on its side (with its width of 86mm it will fit next to an ATX mobo of 305mm) with the fan on the inside of my chassis. I can also make the fan inlet on the left outside of the chassis. Any feed back on that?  

 

Cooling: I have been looking at quiet air coolers and quiet liquid cooling (AIO). From specs/reviews on the internet (hardware.info) I found that the Be Quiet Dark Rock TF (top flow) can keep a 125W processor at about 45 degrees Celcius within 30dB. I couldn’t find a better quieter TF air cooler. The Noctua NHL12 can keep 130W at 61 degrees celcius within 30DB. It is 14 euro’s cheaper.

 

About (AIO) liquid cooling, I saw the Fractal Design Celcius S24 with good reviews about its low noise and good cooling performance ( https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fractal-design-celsius-s24-cooler,5058-2.html). 

I wonder whether this AIO liquid cooler (pump + radiator fans) will be less noisy than the BQ Dark rock TF? Any thought /experiences on that?

 

How would you guys value the advantage of an AIO liquid cooler that pushes the heat directly out of the chassis compared to an TF air cooler that injects the heat inside the chassis and you probably need additional chassis fans?

 

When I use a TF air cooler, I probably need chassis fans to get the heat out of my chassis? Anyone has experience with fan speed controllers likes this one: https://www.quietpc.com/gelid-speedtouch6

 

Ps 1. I got the ATX I/O panel with laserhive in the UK. PS 2. The reason why I choose this Modushop chassis is because I really like my PC streamer to match with my DIY AMB Beta24 power amplifier which I recently completed (I add 2 photo's of my B24 here). Ps3: I already have a PC audio streamer / server which is described here: 

[PieterP]

Thanks for your valuable response! I have also been looking into fanless. But I found that Streacom and HDPLEX seem to be somewhat less flexible. You have a power limit of less than 95w TDP (because of the relatively small heatsink and limited number of heatpipes compared to SGM/Pink faun), little room for additional cards and you are more or less tied to their heatpipe system.

 

I have also examined the SGM and Pink Faun (2.16) fanless streamers for they use a chassis with heatsinks that look quite similar to the Modushop dissipante chassis which was another option for me. The drawbacks are that the heatpipe system and especially the adapter/socket (with room for six to eight heatpipes) that fits on the processor isn't easy to find/buy on internet, and if you find and buy one for AM4 now, and you want to change into e.g. intel 1151, you'll need a different adapter/socket and maybe change the heatpipes as well. This does not make this type of cooling system very flexible in contrast to the much higher flexilbility given by TF coolers and AIO. In addition,  I noticed that Pink Faun (with a special alu subchassis, 40cm deep heatsink) and SGM (special copper heatsink only on the processor side) had to modify their chassis heavily to provide for enough fanless cooling capacity for their max 95W TDP processors running roon/HQP. My guess now is that it is cheaper, and also gives me more flexilibity in future CPU/Mobo/PCIE card choices, to invest in a most quiet PSU and CPU cooler instead of going fully fanless.   

[PieterP]

17 hours ago, lmitche said:

Look at the new Seasonic fanless atx power supply. Also a noctua fan cooler with LNA installed and an Efidelity fan filter on the DC side is noiseless here.

Thanks! The 600W prime titanium fanless is a good candidate. 

 

Can I ask, which Noctua cooler do you have and what processor does it cool?     

[PieterP]

Thanks for your feed back! the NHC14S fits my chassis. Good to know you can set it up to run noiseless.

 

Do you use case fans? If so, which ones? Controlled by bios?

 

Do you know fan speed controllers such as https://www.quietpc.com/gelid-speedtouch6  and are they usefull with case fans?  

 

   

[PieterP]

I am building a hqplayer streamer now. I bought an asus rog strix x470-f gaming because of recommendations for the high quality bios and power supply (digi+ vrm).

[PieterP]

X1 Digital Music Streamer (DIY)

I wanted to share with you my recently finished X1 Digital Music Streamer with HQPe player in a custom DIY chassis. Currently, I use it to stream DSD 256 to my RME Adi-2 dac (which is a great dac!).

 

Design philosophy

1)      Big Sister: my streamer is based on a Modushop slimline chassis because I wanted this beauty to fit her muscular big brother, an AMB Beta 24 power amplifier (see last photo). This way, I can connect my streamer directly to my dac and now I don’t need a network connection and a NAA.

2)      Heat pipes: I didn’t want to make a passively cooled system with heat pipes and a large heat sink (like Pink Faun or SGM) as I regard this heat pipe system less flexible for future changes in CPU/Mobo/GPU combinations.

3)      65W TDP CPU: my streamer currently uses a 65W CPU Ryzen 5 1600 (6 core, max 3.6 Ghz). In a few months, I may upgrade to Ryzen 5 3600 (8 core, max 4.4Ghz, at 65W).

4)      Fan of Fans: I am like many of you not a fan of fans, but if they are not audible, why not? I use a Be quiet Dark Rock TF CPU cooler which fits into my chassis and is one of the most quiet and best topflow coolers (PWN). In addition, I use four 92 mm Noctua chassis fans operated by a manual fan controller to keep noise in control.

5)      NoNo: at 4 meters distance No Noise, you really can’t hear the streamer (when upsampling red book to dsd256). If you lay your ear at 20 cm from the streamer, you will hear the fans whisper very quietly. But at 20 cm distance, one will also hear the toroidal transformer of your power amplifier.

6)      USB 3.1 gen2: at first, I had two AMB Sigma Linear PSU’s (at 5V) to separately power a Paul Pang v2 USB card and the SSD. However, the Paul Pang v2 USB card couldn’t process DSD 256. I get best results with the USB 3.1 gen2 ports on my  Asus X470 mobo. Also, with the RME Adi-2 dac, the Paul Pang card doesn’t bring any advantage at lower upsampling rates.  

 

Tech specs chassis:

·       Modushop Slimline chassis 3U (1NSLA03350B), with full vented bottom and top plate;

·       ATX I/O 7 slot PCIe rear panel by laserhive / David Chugg UK;

·       Bitumen anti thump plates to reduce vibration noise by the chassis;

·       Front panel express engraving by Schaeffer AG Berlin;

 

Tech specs computer:

·       Asus Rog Strix X470-F Gaming;

·       Ryzen 5 1600;

·       Corsair 16GB 3000mhz (CMK16GX4M2B3000C15);

·       Samsung EVO 860 256GB;

·       Seasonic Prime Titanium 600W (fanless) + rubber vibration absorber;

·       Asus GForce GT710-SL (simple passive cooled videocard);

·       Be Quiet Dark Rock TF (CPU Cooler);

·       Lamptron CP436 fan controller (4x) + Noctua NF-A9 FLX (4x) + rubber vibration absorbers (4x).

 

[PieterP]

Diy chassis is cool anyway! Congrats and happy listening. Picture of the front is missing? Where did you get the heat pipes and copper plate?

[PieterP]

I stopped using linear power supplies (LPS) on my first pc-streamer (AS rock J1900-itx with daphile). I tried A/B with a switching supply and I could not hear any difference in SQ using the RME Adi-2 dac. Next, I built a second more powerful streamer (with HQP) with the Seasonic prime titanium fanless 600W. That is enough power for a big CPU and a graphics card.    

 

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