Design a PC/Server for ROON and HQ Player

[sgr]

Hi,

I hope Software is the correct place for this question as I want to build a PC to run the combo of HQ Player and ROON. Software drives the hardware, right?

I want to upgrade my Server so it can easily handle the upcoming ROON/HQ Player combination. I have an Audio PC (i7, lpsu, fanless, etc) which connects my Big7 DAC via jPlay. I believe I'm in great shape there.

 

Right now I'm using an AMD Athalon PC as my control PC in jPlay streamer mode. I once used it just as a server with my music files, but when jPlay streamer became available I had to try it. Better sound. Then I decided to try jplay dual PC mode and use it as my control PC as well. Again much better sound then before.

 

Software Used on both Audio and Control PC: jRiver, Windows Server 2012 v2, jPlay, AudiophileOptimizer, Fidelizer 6, dbpoweramp, etc.

 

Future Software: Windows 10?, ROON, HQ Player

 

Its time to update the Server/Control PC.

In place now: Seasonic Fanless power supply, Corsair ATX Tower,

 

CPU: Xeon or i7? Which one? Which model? Needs to be less than 95 watts.

MOBO?

RAM: 16Gb What brand and type? Is ECC needed?

SSD: Samsung 850 Pro?

 

Or maybe I'd be better off buying a CAPS Pipeline to use as a control PC? Thus keeping the server separate from the audio and control PC?

 

Thanks for your informed suggestions.

[sgr]

You haven't said what your I7 is but do you need to upgrade the control server or even run a 2 server set up for Roon with HQPlayer? If you have a fanless linear I7 etc. you may find that is enough for your needs. The 2 server set up may have sounded better with Jplay (it's what I use as well) but may not be the case with your new intended configuration.

 

PC 1:Current fanless (jplay Audio) PC. i7 3790, 16gb ram, SSD, Windows Server 2012, Fidelizer, AudiophileOptimizer. HD Plex Linear Power Supply, various Elfidelity tweaks, Paul pang USB 3

 

PC 2: ATX tower, AMD Athalon 3200, 8gb ram, Seasonic Psu, SSD, 8 Tb music files, Windows Server 2012, jPlay Control PC, Audiophile Optimizer,

This PC is currently my Server and the jplay Control PC in 2 PC setup.

 

I won't use DSD as I'll be using the Legacy Audio Wavelet to provide DSP for my speakers. Since my Lampi Big 7 will do DSD or PCM I'd like to use HQ Player to try converting everything to 4 x DSD.

 

You could maybe swap the audio to the control server and build something for the forthcoming Roon Server (Roon Speakers - headless). If you go with 1 server you may be fine with what you have, post more details of what you do e.g. room correction, upsampling etc. as pcm to dsd 256 in HQPlayer is fine with a Xeon 1240l and 4GB of ECC ram when I tried it during testing with EuroDriver's Exasound dac.

 

My ultimate plan was always to use the jPlay dual PC setup.

 

I could switch PC1 into the ROON Control Server and point ROON to PC 2 where my music files reside. In that cnfiguration if I didn't want another PC it could host ROON and be connected to my DAC. I'd use my iPad Air 2 to access my music. In this model I would not use the jplay dual PC setup, just Single PC and jPlay streamer.

 

If I want to still implement jPlay Dual PC mode, I could build a headless PC to serve as the Audio PC and connect my DAC to it.

 

In that case, my Paul Pang USB 3 would have to be installed in it. It would need to be fanless, lpsu, SSD, etc.

I'm not sure how powerful the audio PC would have to be if I built one.

So what would be a good build for the headless audio PC?

 

Hope this helps.

Thanks!

[sgr]

The new Skylake i7-6700K gives plenty of processing power at 95W TDP.

 

 

 

Something with 10x series chipset is needed. For example Gigabyte's UD-series (UltraDurable) or ASUS TUF 24/7 -series.

 

 

 

For the Skylake, suitable DDR4. I prefer Kingston and Crucial.

 

Thanks Miska. So you'd recommend updating my server PC or building a new PC to be the control or audio PC?

 

Steven

[sgr]

Hi Steve...

 

Hi Norman!