Design a PC/Server for ROON and HQ Player

[Marcin_gps]

On 10/25/2017 at 3:49 AM, eternaloptimist said:

Well the server has arrived and is set up!

i7-7700T,  16G RAM, 500G SSD, JCAT USB card. Streacom FC5 alpha case. Silent.  Files located on NAS (Synology 1517+).

I had the PC built by Lifefx in Sydney and added the JCAT card via a PCIE riser - took 5 minutes.

Very low power consumption.

Can upsample to DSD 512, with -2 filters in HQPlayer. Loads quickly, no glitches. CPU sits at approx. 35% when playing.

Very, very happy!

BTW... I can confirm that the T+A DAC doesn't need USB power as advised by Marcin. Was just plug and play.

(Cable management coming on the weekend....!)

 

 

 

 

Nice!

Do you use any linear PSU with the JCAT USB Card? 

[eternaloptimist]

17 hours ago, Marcin_gps said:

Nice!

Do you use any linear PSU with the JCAT USB Card? 

Thanks. Am very, very pleased.

No, no linear PSU. No 5V USB power required by the T + A DAC, so I am wondering what the benefit would be...?

[Marcin_gps]

On 10/28/2017 at 5:17 AM, eternaloptimist said:

Thanks. Am very, very pleased.

No, no linear PSU. No 5V USB power required by the T + A DAC, so I am wondering what the benefit would be...?

 

The benefit would be much better sound  

It doesn't matter if DAC requires 5V or not - if you connect 5V LPS, the card will use this as reference instead of power provided from motherboard via PCI Express lane. 

 

Best regards,
Marcin

[eternaloptimist]

22 hours ago, Marcin_gps said:

 

The benefit would be much better sound  

It doesn't matter if DAC requires 5V or not - if you connect 5V LPS, the card will use this as reference instead of power provided from motherboard via PCI Express lane. 

 

Best regards,
Marcin

Interesting. I thought the card would still use the PCI express lane for power and the LPS was just supplying power to the USB rails.

I will look into the LPS options, although my wife still thinks I am totally mad for spending $$$ on a USB card...

I may need to wait a few months...

[ChuckB777]

On 10/30/2017 at 7:35 AM, Marcin_gps said:

 

The benefit would be much better sound  

It doesn't matter if DAC requires 5V or not - if you connect 5V LPS, the card will use this as reference instead of power provided from motherboard via PCI Express lane. 

 

Best regards,
Marcin

The JCAT .pdf documentation says "The card itself does not require 5V power so for self-powered USB devices the 5V power supply is not required"    The block diagram in JCAT.pdf  also shows the external power applied ONLY to the USB ports.   So, it appears the external power is NOT used by the card itself.   Why then would sound quality be improved by adding HQ external power  source, if one's DAC does not require USB power  ?

JCAT.pdf

[eternaloptimist]

30 minutes ago, ChuckB777 said:

The JCAT .pdf documentation says "The card itself does not require 5V power so for self-powered USB devices the 5V power supply is not required"    The block diagram in JCAT.pdf  also shows the external power applied ONLY to the USB ports.   So, it appears the external power is NOT used by the card itself.   Why then would sound quality be improved by adding HQ external power  source, if one's DAC does not require USB power  ?

JCAT.pdf

This is a very good question.

[Johnseye]

2 hours ago, ChuckB777 said:

The JCAT .pdf documentation says "The card itself does not require 5V power so for self-powered USB devices the 5V power supply is not required"    The block diagram in JCAT.pdf  also shows the external power applied ONLY to the USB ports.   So, it appears the external power is NOT used by the card itself.   Why then would sound quality be improved by adding HQ external power  source, if one's DAC does not require USB power  ?

JCAT.pdf

 

I'm guessing they're stating if your dac has no 5v requirements then you don't need to give it to the card for that purpose.  The card itself should require power and linear power would be the cleanest source.  I don't own the card so can't say for sure.

[lmitche]

On 10/30/2017 at 7:35 AM, Marcin_gps said:

 

The benefit would be much better sound  

It doesn't matter if DAC requires 5V or not - if you connect 5V LPS, the card will use this as reference instead of power provided from motherboard via PCI Express lane. 

 

Best regards,
Marcin

Thanks for this.  It's good to know the board can take it's reference voltage from an external PSU. Do you know the difference in phase noise from the clock using pcie voltage vs. good lps power?

[Dev]

I have been using the JCAT USB card (with external power supply) for sometime now and the SQ has been excellent. This lead me to ditch the microRendu (powered by lps1) streamer and other USB tweak route and settle on a single PC system (w/ i7, system clock upgraded, low latency and low error ram but still running on a noisy smps) running ROCK and connected directly to PS Audio DS DAC. So far I am more than satisfied than what I had before. My next project would be to get a better quality motherboard with DC input and decent LPS for it. If you aren't up-sampling and using dsp room correction, my thinking is a single PC should be just more than sufficient.

[Johnseye]

30 minutes ago, Dev said:

I have been using the JCAT USB card (with external power supply) for sometime now and the SQ has been excellent. This lead me to ditch the microRendu (powered by lps1) streamer and other USB tweak route and settle on a single PC system (w/ i7, system clock upgraded, low latency and low error ram but still running on a noisy smps) running ROCK and connected directly to PS Audio DS DAC. So far I am more than satisfied than what I had before. My next project would be to get a better quality motherboard with DC input and decent LPS for it. If you aren't up-sampling and using dsp room correction, my thinking is a single PC should be just more than sufficient.

 

Who modified your system clock and what motherboard are you using?

[Dev]

4 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

Who modified your system clock and what motherboard are you using?

 

its an old Asus motherboard with 1150 socket/B85 chipset. I bought the 25Mhz clock from ppa and replaced in myself.

[Johnseye]

27 minutes ago, Dev said:

 

its an old Asus motherboard with 1150 socket/B85 chipset. I bought the 25Mhz clock from ppa and replaced in myself.

 

Any problems installing it yourself?  How'd you learn to do that, and is there a resource you can point me to so I can learn?

[Dev]

7 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

Any problems installing it yourself?  How'd you learn to do that, and is there a resource you can point me to so I can learn?

 

basically one needs to know soldering and the risk associated with it. depending on the motherboard, it can be challenging at times. The Asus board that I reworked didn't have any problem.

[Marcin_gps]

On 31.10.2017 at 11:15 AM, eternaloptimist said:

Interesting. I thought the card would still use the PCI express lane for power and the LPS was just supplying power to the USB rails.

I will look into the LPS options, although my wife still thinks I am totally mad for spending $$$ on a USB card...

I may need to wait a few months...

 

No, the card (chipset + clock) will use external power if applied. There are automatic switches - if external PSU is not connected, the card will switch to PCIe power. 

 

On 4.11.2017 at 10:39 AM, ChuckB777 said:

The JCAT .pdf documentation says "The card itself does not require 5V power so for self-powered USB devices the 5V power supply is not required"    The block diagram in JCAT.pdf  also shows the external power applied ONLY to the USB ports.   So, it appears the external power is NOT used by the card itself.   Why then would sound quality be improved by adding HQ external power  source, if one's DAC does not require USB power  ?

JCAT.pdf

True, the card itself does not require 5V power for self-powered devices, because the card itself will function properly on PCIe power, but it's far from optimal.

The block diagram is not accurate as it's from 1st rev. of the card. Now with the FEMTO rev., chipset and clock are powered from external PSU if applied. 

 

Now, the same situation is with JCAT NET Card - it will function properly without PSU connected, but it will sound a lot better with linear PSU applied. 

 

Best regards, 

Marcin

[Ben2300]

On 11/4/2017 at 4:03 PM, Dev said:

 

its an old Asus motherboard with 1150 socket/B85 chipset. I bought the 25Mhz clock from ppa and replaced in myself.

Yes, and this is board specific. I bought one from PP and trying to install it to me P9D Asus. but bad luck for me. this board is smd board. The end is i wasted the $150 finding out this is not easy. should have professional to do it. but i hasn't able to find one just yet.

[Ben-M]

On 11/11/2017 at 1:55 PM, Ben2300 said:

Yes, and this is board specific. I bought one from PP and trying to install it to me P9D Asus. but bad luck for me. this board is smd board. The end is i wasted the $150 finding out this is not easy. should have professional to do it. but i hasn't able to find one just yet.

Is PPA still in business? I haven't heard anything about him or new products or anything in ages.

 

I also learned this lesson, but with an Intel server board. I'd still like to switch out those clocks though... some day...

 

I'm also hoping to get some input from some peeps. I've got an older, Xeon E3 1231 v3 CPU (3.4ghz base, 3.8ghz turbo) and I'm going to start using it with HQPlayer to upsample to DSD512, full settings everywhere I can. So, is this likely to be capable, if not, should I buy a CUDA GPU for the win, or do I need to hop over to an i7 6700-8700K? What's the best route here?

[Miska]

I made some changes to my fanless server that is running HQPlayer Embedded and driving the Holo Spring DAC... Added RME HDSPe AIO for inputs. It has analog inputs (192/24 PCM), coaxial and optical S/PDIF and AES/EBU... The machine is more capable now!

 

[vortecjr]

That is very cool...an integrated digital music server with the ultimate DSP engine.

[gdpr]

3 hours ago, Miska said:

I made some changes to my fanless server that is running HQPlayer Embedded and driving the Holo Spring DAC... Added RME HDSPe AIO for inputs. It has analog inputs (192/24 PCM), coaxial and optical S/PDIF and AES/EBU... The machine is more capable now!

 

 

 

Here some pictures of my Pink Faun Streamer running Roon and HQPlayer embedded :

 

[rickca]

7 minutes ago, ddetaey said:

Here some pictures of my Pink Faun Streamer running Roon and HQPlayer embedded

Wow, that thing sure is packed with components.  Can you share your configuration?

[gdpr]

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

[Miska]

Nice new graphics card, to follow Titan V. 10x - 20x more DP FP performance than old compromised P6000 and M6000.

 

A bit expensive maybe though...

 

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12579/big-volta-comes-to-quadro-nvidia-announces-quadro-gv100

[Solstice380]

4 hours ago, Miska said:

A bit expensive maybe though...

 

Gulp!!  Definitely go the high power CPU path for HQP work.  ?

[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?  

[gdpr]

No the PF 2.16 streamer runs on Linux and has no graphics card.  

It is operated completely via webinterface for configuration.

It is setup with roon (operated via ipad) an embedded HQP

Dirk