Building a DIY Music Server

[Kuba7777]

4 hours ago, Exocer said:

Krótka aktualizacja:

 

12 GB (zainstalowany) system Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC — en-us_windows_10_enterprise_ltsc_2021_x64_dvd_d289cf96 (kompilacja systemu operacyjnego 19044.3930)

 

Dla mnie brzmi lepiej w moim systemie niż Windows 11 Ultralight -  https://windowsxlite.com/divinity/

Have you also tested server 2022 Standard?

[MarcelNL]

I'm trying to install Daphile on one of the (identical) NVME disks I bought for the purpose of OS rolling (OCD to the max I guess), somehow the install does not get past the point where it starts looking at network connection.

I have both MB NIC's enabled assuming that daphile (basically Arch linux) should recognize them.....Windows 10 recognized them instantly and since folks have Euphony working I expect it to be a local glitch....will try a different port in the incoming router...

 

"waiting for network connection" 

 

Anyone with suggestions? 

 

 

 

 

[MarcelNL]

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[seeteeyou]

On 2/8/2024 at 4:21 PM, SK8 said:

Would you have a chance to try Windows PE or Tiny 11?

 

Dunno what kinda difficulties you're experiencing with Windows PE, while assuming that you could understand Chinese.

 

Feel free to check this out and then give it a try

 

https://inonameteam.com/thread-3412-1-1.html

https://tools241.pixnet.net/blog/post/573584384

Quote

本頁面 11PE/10PE自15063版起
皆須搭配 2024/01/29 之後 的 Seltool_T.7z 解壓縮到任一盤符 ?:\ 之下才能正常使用

• seltool_T.7z
• 22631_T(解壓密碼tools241).7z
• 22000_T(解壓密碼tools241).7z
• 26020_T(解壓密碼tools241).7z

Bypass Google Drive Download Limit

https://bustatech.com/bypass-google-drive-download-limit/

 

---

 

http://jplay.eu/forum/index.php?/topic/4410-windows-11-pe-audiophile-creation-guide/?p=58114

Quote

根据感人程度，SAW理论上可能会更自然和贴近原声。 看来SAW确实有一套。当然，还没有在WINPE下比较过，因为PE下FOOBAR会改善不少。

 

http://jplay.eu/forum/index.php?/topic/4410-windows-11-pe-audiophile-creation-guide/?p=61925

Quote

6. I have to tell you that in WinPE, Foobar sounds better than JRMC and HQP, at least in my system, versions 2.0 from beta 14 work well in Win11PE, not the previous ones. It is better to use the 64-bit ones, since this way you can eliminate SysWoW64, with the consequent saving of space, and therefore, system load time.

 

http://jplay.eu/forum/index.php?/topic/4410-windows-11-pe-audiophile-creation-guide/?p=66863

Quote

Server 2019 Core Ram and PE are just different planets. It`s so natural. so realistic. I`ve got the harmony wiyh PE. With server core ram and JPlay it was great but I was constantly trying to tweak it to sound right. Stripping PE from running services and drivers is so easy - just disable as much as you can, "less is more'' is the rule for PE but not with Server core where disabling some services could break the sound, make it harsh or unpleasand. And the second thing that shocked me is that Foobar is sounding so good with it. I refused using JPlay for now. I couldn`t believe it will ever be possible. Thank all of you leading this thread. PE  brought me peace!

 

After that, get a copy of foobar2000

 

https://www.foobar2000.org/download

https://www.videohelp.com/software/foobar2000

 

ASIO Output

 

https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_out_asio

https://www.foobar2000.org/getcomponent/df9bfd4f506e4dd8035d0ba9329cc6e7/foo_out_asio.fb2k-component

 

---

 

Finally the installation of ASIO drivers for USB DACs / DDCs should be fairly similar for everyone

 

https://www.my-hiend.com/vbb/showthread.php?13357-WinPE-的一點點筆記&p=253256#post253256

http://jplay.eu/forum/index.php?/topic/4410-windows-11-pe-audiophile-creation-guide/?p=63240

http://jplay.eu/forum/index.php?/topic/4410-windows-11-pe-audiophile-creation-guide/?p=64366

 

While it ain't exactly "Plug and Play" by any means, it's still considered reasonably straightforward since you've got something to get you started already.

 

I'll point you to other tweaks once you've got both Win11PE and foobar2000 ready to go.

[MarcelNL]

Figured out what the issue was; there were two...I had the NVME in the wrong PCI slot and was not getting connected with the remote control computer through the WIFI extender upstairs...all is well now.

 

 

[Exocer]

6 hours ago, Kuba7777 said:

Have you also tested server 2022 Standard?

Not yet. I will and will report back.

[MarcelNL]

Adding an external WIFI access point (low power, slow connection) taking care of wifi for the dedicated control ipad also makes a nice difference. highly recommended!

more dynamic, organic, prat all of those high end words..betterer

 

 

[drjimwillie]

9 hours ago, MarcelNL said:

Adding an external WIFI access point (low power, slow connection) taking care of wifi for the dedicated control ipad also makes a nice difference. highly recommended!

more dynamic, organic, prat all of those high end words..betterer

 

 

The Wi-Fi access point isn’t connected to your audio server is it?
 

Are you saying that you added a Wi-Fi access point to your home network and because the connection is better to your iPad, that the sound on your stereo is better?

 

thank you 

[MarcelNL]

7 hours ago, drjimwillie said:

The Wi-Fi access point isn’t connected to your audio server is it?
 

Are you saying that you added a Wi-Fi access point to your home network and because the connection is better to your iPad, that the sound on your stereo is better?

 

thank you 

I have added a secon router for audio, the wifi access point is connected to that in order for me to be able to control the music server which is connected via glass fiber.

[MarcelNL]

I hate that tiny edit window...

 

It's most likely the chatter inside the router CPU going down due to switching WIFI off in the router, or EMI from the WIFI circuit inside the router coming down...I already had an external wifi access point on the first router and it had the same effect there, the effect on the second router is way larger.

[Exocer]

5 hours ago, MarcelNL said:

I hate that tiny edit window...

 

It's most likely the chatter inside the router CPU going down due to switching WIFI off in the router, or EMI from the WIFI circuit inside the router coming down...I already had an external wifi access point on the first router and it had the same effect there, the effect on the second router is way larger.

Interesting- 

 

In my setup, I have my wireless AP fiber gapped between it and my Edgerouter Er-4. Music server and Etherregen are on a separate dedicated subnet (this did wonders for SQ). As for power, I’ve tried using a decent quality LPS on the wireless AP but as expected there was no audible improvement (because my streamed content never traverses the wireless AP perhaps?). I only use it to send control commands anyway. Plus, it isn’t in the same circuit as my “clean” gear.

 

The only downside to this configuration is/was that UPNP requires a ton of work run when multiple subnets are involved. If I had been able to get that to work I may have gone with the Eunhasu OS for my SOTM server (which sounded glorious with LMS, and per @MayfromSOtM sounds even better with MPD).

 

I may have to revisit that when I incorporate the SOTM server again. Just waiting for my NiC to return and that test will proceed.

[Exocer]

Brief update:

 

Ive tried 3 Windows OSs at this point:

 

Windows 11ultralight - about 3gb installed

Windows 10 Pro Tiny - @MarcelNL thanks for this one. (4gb)

Windows 10 2021 LTSC - More on this later (19044.3930)
 

The unmodified Windows 10 2021 LTSC is the winner. Windows 11 sounded smaller and more harsh, Windows 10 Pro Tiny got close to LTSC but its low end presentation wasn’t as well defined or controlled, and PRAT wasn’t as good as LTSC. Pro also wasn’t as holographic or extended in the highs as LTSC. 
 

My takeaway:

 

While running a lean OS is important, perhaps the sound signature of the OS is even more important than leanness aspect. In my tests, Windows 10 LTSC 2021 was the larger Os and used an image straight from Microsoft without mods. It has both edge and ie installed, a bunch of drivers I’ll never use and features I would be happen without yet it is still head and shoulders above the other OSs as small as 33% the size.

 

So now, my way forward is to utilize my shiny new NTLite license and try to remove thing from Windows 10 LtSC 2021. I will certainly not need the web browsers or the calculator 😂.Happy listening all! I think I’ve found the OS I’m sticking with.

 

Windows 10 always sounded better than Windows 11 on this build (diy extreme). I will probably revisit OS’s in the distant future.

 

 

[Gavin1977]

14 hours ago, Exocer said:

Interesting- 

 

In my setup, I have my wireless AP fiber gapped between it and my Edgerouter Er-4. Music server and Etherregen are on a separate dedicated subnet (this did wonders for SQ). As for power, I’ve tried using a decent quality LPS on the wireless AP but as expected there was no audible improvement (because my streamed content never traverses the wireless AP perhaps?). I only use it to send control commands anyway. Plus, it isn’t in the same circuit as my “clean” gear.

 

The only downside to this configuration is/was that UPNP requires a ton of work run when multiple subnets are involved. If I had been able to get that to work I may have gone with the Eunhasu OS for my SOTM server (which sounded glorious with LMS, and per @MayfromSOtM sounds even better with MPD).

 

I may have to revisit that when I incorporate the SOTM server again. Just waiting for my NiC to return and that test will proceed.

I had no idea that Eunhasu OS was available in x86 flavour.  Anyone else played around with this?

[MarcelNL]

first time ever I heard of Eunhasu...so it'ls a Linux distro, what differentiates it from all other Linux versions (Euphony, Audio Linux, Daphile etc....) From my brief experience the differences between Linux versions are fairly small.

 

 

https://docs.sotm-audio.com/doku.php?id=en:eunhasu:installing_x86

[Exocer]

1 hour ago, MarcelNL said:

first time ever I heard of Eunhasu...so it'ls a Linux distro, what differentiates it from all other Linux versions (Euphony, Audio Linux, Daphile etc....) From my brief experience the differences between Linux versions are fairly small.

 

 

https://docs.sotm-audio.com/doku.php?id=en:eunhasu:installing_x86

Eunhasu is cool because it gives you the option to select which renderer you want to use. It comes with a feature to install whatever it is you need at the click of a button. For example - if I didn’t need LMS I wouldn’t install it, but I could easily install it if I changed my mind. I could then disable it and enable Upnp if I wanted to, etc). 
 

There is also a nifty cpu latency enhancement feature that boosted SQ when enabled. I do not know exactly what it does.

 

Ultimately for me, the inability of Upnp to work across subnets in my setup was the dealbreaker, otherwise I would have gone with Eunhasu and mconnect as my long term solution with my SOTM build. It lost nothing to Euphony in terms of user experience (this is my subjective opinion of course). It is a bit less customizable than Euphony though, in that you don’t have the option to assign specific devices to specific cpu cores, but, I had stopped messing with that ages ago so not really loss for me.

[MayfromSOtM]

On 2/11/2024 at 12:49 AM, Exocer said:

Interesting- 

 

In my setup, I have my wireless AP fiber gapped between it and my Edgerouter Er-4. Music server and Etherregen are on a separate dedicated subnet (this did wonders for SQ). As for power, I’ve tried using a decent quality LPS on the wireless AP but as expected there was no audible improvement (because my streamed content never traverses the wireless AP perhaps?). I only use it to send control commands anyway. Plus, it isn’t in the same circuit as my “clean” gear.

 

The only downside to this configuration is/was that UPNP requires a ton of work run when multiple subnets are involved. If I had been able to get that to work I may have gone with the Eunhasu OS for my SOTM server (which sounded glorious with LMS, and per @MayfromSOtM sounds even better with MPD).

 

I may have to revisit that when I incorporate the SOTM server again. Just waiting for my NiC to return and that test will proceed.

yup, if anyone wanna try, https://docs.sotm-audio.com/doku.php?id=intalling&s[]=5, follow this instruction, it's for the installation guide for whom use the sMB-Q370. From the version no. 5.5, it has the latency tune and CPU frequency set function, it's the most powerful function to improve sound quality in the software side.

[MarcelNL]

why does it allow 'tuning' latency? I'd think that the lowest latency a CPU/RAMchipset/MB combination can handle rules...find a way to figure out what that is (a latency test) tweak your settings and stick to that.

 

just trying to understand this better.

[MayfromSOtM]

18 hours ago, MarcelNL said:

why does it allow 'tuning' latency? I'd think that the lowest latency a CPU/RAMchipset/MB combination can handle rules...find a way to figure out what that is (a latency test) tweak your settings and stick to that.

 

just trying to understand this better.

FYI, https://www.sotm-audio.com/sotmwp/english/eunhasu-v0-5-5_alpha/ please check .

[MarcelNL]

I just read it, I wonder how different this is from fixing the base frequencey and setting the CPU to that speed without slow down/power saving set? 

[kostas6a3]

I'm thinking of building a lightweight, inexpensive music player to install the Euphony Stylus.

Initial thoughts are:

1.H3 fanless HDplex chassis and 250W GaN Passive AIO ATX or 500W Hi-Fi DC-ATX power supply (which one is recommended?). 2.MSI motherboard (eg A520M-APro or B450M-A Pro Max).

3. AMD Ryzen 5 4500 processor or another one with lower TDP like AMD Ryzen 5 5500H or AMD Ryzen 5 4600GE which I can't find in the market.

4. 16 GB DDR4 RAM and 250 GB M.2 SSD. And later maybe an upgrade with a Pink Faun I2S bridge.

Any suggestion or hint would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Smackers]

Hey kostas! The hdplex dc-atx (500w 12-48vdc) is an excellent start. I have not tried the GaN but If you’d want to upgrade to linear later on go for 12v as it can power a cpu ( directly or via the dc-atx OR straight to it) 

 

Also I went down the rabbit hole of thinking lightweight was the absolute way to go, but atleast for me the opposite has won me over seeing as the ligthweight builds seems to lack…. Well weight… 

 

Asus B550 E Gaming motherboard + Ryzen 3600 cpu is probably the best bang for buck combo I’ve tried to date. The ”E” is crucial tho on the Asus due to that version’s vrms 

 

Good choice on Euphony Stylus btw!

[Smackers]

Regarding TDP I would hope to see more users here trying out fans in their builds despite the stigma. I do noctua uln and flx (none in direct physical contact) and the 10 degree C they lower my Ryzen 3900x cpu to is such a big audible difference. These fans choked with their including resistors are inaudible from my listening position 7 feet away

 

I still use Streacom heat pipes to heatsinks in this chassis but the added fans allow me to use Ryzen 3900x and stay below 53c 

[Nenon]

15 hours ago, Smackers said:

Regarding TDP I would hope to see more users here trying out fans in their builds despite the stigma. I do noctua uln and flx (none in direct physical contact) and the 10 degree C they lower my Ryzen 3900x cpu to is such a big audible difference. These fans choked with their including resistors are inaudible from my listening position 7 feet away

 

I still use Streacom heat pipes to heatsinks in this chassis but the added fans allow me to use Ryzen 3900x and stay below 53c 

 

 

It's a balancing act. Adding fans is a compromise. So is passive cooling. 

- Keeping the temperature lower has big advantages on sound quality. 

- Not having the electrical noise associated with fans also has big advantages on sound quality.

- As a general rule of thumb - never connect your fans to the motherboard. That may negate the benefits of lower temp (YMMV depending on how low the noise floor in the system is). I use a battery pack to power the fans whenever I use fans. That's much better than connecting them to the motherboard. And the of course the cooler temp is a sound quality improvement. 

 

So why not always use fans with a battery pack, then? IMO, it comes down to vibrations. Putting my server on various footers or stands makes a quite audible difference. The fan moves quite but of air and also causes some micro vibrations. In a super sensitive sensitive system, those things count. So, as I started this message - it's all a balancing act. 

[MarcelNL]

big upvote on the above on fans, passive rules BUT comes with the need to go BIG in order to keep CPU core temp low.

 

[Exocer]

On 2/9/2024 at 2:47 AM, Kuba7777 said:

Have you also tested server 2022 Standard?

Hey - @Kuba7777. I don’t think I’ll get to test this any time soon. My apologies for the false promise.

 

Have you tried Windows 10 LTSC 2021?