Building a DIY Music Server

[mikicasellas]

I'm just waiting for the HDPLEX 800 DCATX which is supposed to arrive next week and will begin with the build...

 

That would be another journey for me when setting BIOS the right way, ONLY Euphony Stylus or Euphony Stylus Ep - ROON will be in this machine.

 

Im still deciding which PCIE USB card will be using with this server.

 

Exciting times 😊

 

 

[mikicasellas]

1 hour ago, Nenon said:

 

Nice! Excellent choice of components. Don't forget you may need a new BIOS for the Ryzen 7 3700X.

 

If I was starting a new build now, and if I did not have piles of parts I have been testing with just laying around, and if I was using USB output, and if I was not in a hurry... that's a lot of IFs... I would probably wait to see what JCAT is cooking.

 

I have been testing the JCAT Signature LAN Cable GOLD. It's really good. I am using it from my etherREGEN to my server. And it immediately became a main part of my system. It's one of these things that you put with huge disbelief (like the Stillpoints Ultra 6 under my speakers), and you realize right away that this is not going out of there. And you can't un-hear what you have heard. Damage done forever :). I have been been trying to avoid high-end LAN cables. The most expensive one I own is AudioQuest Vodka. I also have some cheaper ones - Supra, Cable Matters, etc. The AQ Vodka was better than the rest. But this JCAT is on another level. Granted, I don't have anything more expensive than the AQ Vodka, so I can't compare it with other expensive LAN cables.

 

I gave some feedback about the LAN cable to @Marcin_gps from JCAT, and he told me that he is planning to release a new USB card soon. He called it a "game changer". He also said that the existing USB card is not going anywhere.

 

But if you are in a hurry, you can't go wrong with the JCAT USB Card Femto or the PinkFaun USB Bridge with ultraOCXO clock. I've written about both of these cards before. 

 

Let see what is Marcin cooking then...

 

About the LAN GOLD from JCAT, seems out is awesome although 1000 ish USD is expensive...

 

It seems to me that you can upgrade the BIOS from ASUS, i believe it was ready since Oct-Nov 2019

 

Where i know for sure i will be playing blind, at least in the beginning is to set up BIOS the best way posible for Euphony...is there already a profile that any of these forum has gotten to be the best, or is it system dependent ?

[mikicasellas]

Guys,

 

If you only have ONE Paul Hynes SR4 (9v, 12v, 15v and 19v), what would you choose to power with it, where the SR4 would do most benefits :

 

CPU or JCAT USB FEMTO ?

 

Thanks !!

[mikicasellas]

29 minutes ago, Nenon said:

Given that you have a pretty powerful CPU, the 4A the SR4 provides might be better on the JCAT. Your CPU would benefit from a power supply with more headroom. But the SR4 specs say that it supports 20A transient... so it may work fine on the CPU as well. You will have to experiment.

 

Also, it's hard to comment on a single piece / parameter in a bubble. The power supply strategy is something that in my opinion needs to be planned before you start building the PC. It's the foundation and the single most important component of a music server. What would you be powering up the JCAT USB with if you use the SR4 for the CPU? And what would you be powering up the CPU with if you use the SR4 for the JCAT USB?

My previous configuration was MacMini + NUC so the SR4 was planned for that scenario, at the moment i can not expend so MUCH more (an SR7 would be ideal) so i have to stick (for now) with what i already have, taking in count that until now i have spent 2,100 in this server without taking in count the SR4 and the Hdplex 200 that i already had, i m just trying to accommodate things as i move forward, maybe in a few months i will invest in a more adequate and sophisticated power supply for this server, now i want to squish the best from what i have

 

...2,400 with the added Ghent cables

[mikicasellas]

1 hour ago, dctom said:

 

I have a SR4 and use it to power (19v) my NUC endpoint in a 2PC set up.

Previously I was using it directly connected to the (12v) CPU on my server and it worked fine. However as I use HQP and upsample the SR4 did get quite warm hence swapping it to the NUC.

 

 

My CPU is rated 65W, i believe my SR4 can't power it

 

What was you CPU rated power ?

 

 

[mikicasellas]

I would like to improve the quality of the power that is supplied to my server ( CPU, MOBO, JCAT XE USB, ER ), in my mind there are multiple permutations and im trying to find out where could be the sweet spot: where to put each LPS and IF it could be benefit from another one in the mix without bleeding too much $.

 

These are my actual LPSUs:

 

HDPLEX 200W

PH SR4T 19V

DXP-1A5DSC Ultra Low Noise

DXP-1A5DSC Ultra Low Noise

 

 

 My server is built as follows right now:

 

1- AMD 7 3700X processor ( powered directly from HDPLEX 200W )

2- Asus Rog Strix X470-I Mobo ( powered from HDPLEX 200W thru a HDPLEX 800 DCATX converter )
3- 8GB Apacer Industrial RAM

4- Octane M10 32 GB

5- HDPLEX H5 Fanless case

6- Ghent JSSG360 internal and external cables

7- JCAT USB XE card ( 9V from Paul Hynes SRT4-19V and then DXP 7V input and 5V output )

8- UPTONE EtherRegen ( 12V from HDPLEX and then DXP 10.5V input and 9V output )

 

 

A ) - Powering JCAT XE USB, CPU, MOBO and ER with my actual PSUs:

 

SCENARIO #1A:

HDPLEX 200W powering ER & JCAT with DXPs

HDPLEX 200W powering CPU directly 

PH SR4T "try" to power MOBO thru HDPLEX 800W DCATX

 

SCENARIO #2A:

HDPLEX 200W powering JCAT with DXP

HDPLEX 200W powering CPU directly & MOBO thru HDPLEX 800W DCATX

PH SR4T powering ER with DXPs

 

 

B ) - Powering JCAT XE USB, CPU, MOBO and ER with adding a PSU (SJ, PH, KECES to mention some):

 

SCENARIO #1B:

HDPLEX 200W or PH SR4T powering JCAT with DXP

HDPLEX 200W or PH SR4T powering ER with DXPs

HDPLEX 200W powering MOBO thru HDPLEX 800W DCATX

SEAN JACOBS, PAUL HYNES or else PSU with a 12V 5A output for the CPU

 

SCENARIO #2B:

PH SR4T powering JCAT with DXP

HDPLEX 200W powering MOBO thru HDPLEX 800W DCATX

DUAL SEAN JACOBS, PAUL HYNES or else PSU with a 12V 5A output for the CPU & ER with DXPs

 

This is so far what it comes to mind, some of you have experienced various of these combinations

 

Suggestions are welcome where to best start... it does not have to be all at once but i can start building up as my money allows until server is at its best.  I appreciate your feedback

 

Thanks and keep safe !!

 

 

[mikicasellas]

18 hours ago, Nenon said:

 

I personally don't find mixing many different power supplies to give the best results. You are mixing multiple grounds from different power supplies, and that is not necessarily a good thing. The ground plane in a power supply plays a big role. You can build two power supplies from the same schematics, for example, one with neat star grounding and one where the ground goes all over the place, and typically the one with the better grounding technique would sound better. You can imagine what happens when you mix 2, 3, or even 4 different power supplies, each with its own ground.

 

Have you considered selling all of these and getting a single multi rail LPS? PHD and SJ can do that. It would be more expensive but that would be my recommendation. 

 

If i keep only HDPLEX & PH SR4T by now, am i going into this type of issue ?

 

Do the DXPs contribute to this problem ?

 

Thanks

[mikicasellas]

27 minutes ago, Nenon said:

Sorry, I missed your question. I would not call this an "issue". But to me it's not ideal to mix multiple power supplies that all connect to the same ground eventually (i.e. the motherboard ground). 

My comment was more generic that I find the ground to be quite important and prefer not to mix the grounds from multiple power supplies. That's given all other factors are equal. If other factors are not equal, like in your case, I can't tell what's better. You would have to try for yourself. 

 

In terms of grounding, your 2A scenario looks better.

 

But I also have feeling that your 1A scenario is worth a try. In this case, you are mixing the grounds, but it could be that the SR4T is performing better on the DCATX. I don't know, because I have never compared the SR4T to the HDPlex 200W directly. 

 

When you power the CPU directly, the ATX connector typically does not need a lot of power. It needs around 30W in my case. 

It could be that the SR4T is a better LPS and that brings more than the multiple grounds take away. The important part is the final result, and only you can test and decide what sounds better in your system.

 

 

Thanks a lot for the feedback Nenon appreciate it 

 

Regards

[mikicasellas]

39 minutes ago, Nenon said:

 

I hope you can go back and forth between the modded Optane and a stock Optane and share what you're hearing. 

 

I have an Optane SSD 900P for the OS and two intel 665p in RAID0 for music storage. Have done some comparisons with music played from the NVME storage and from the Optane. To my ears and in my system, playing from the Optane sounds a little better. I have asked several Taiko Extreme users to do the same comparison and no one could hear an audible difference on the Extreme. Have been playing with some settings like the Primary NVME Idle Timeout on Windows, but there is still a gap.

 

Another test I did was comparing a couple different Optane cards, and they also sounded different. But the difference was not so big for me to spend $3K-$4K on another Optane card. 

 

You are taking these experiments to a whole new level, so I am very curious about the result of this. I was not planning to spend a lot on switches either, and look at me now with not just one but two PF Buffalo switches :)). Addictive stuff... 

 

On the Optane SSD 900P series there are different models and capacities, what is the sweet spot for OS in your experience, are you still using the Optane 32GB ?

[mikicasellas]

On 11/9/2020 at 1:00 AM, Nenon said:

 

I am using this one at the moment - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07776HSPW/

Moved to PCIe based Optane and NVME storage with the dual Xeon CPU, because I can attach them directly to the CPU of my choice, bypass the chipset, use more capacity, etc. 

The P4800X sounds better than the 900P! And the PCIe version sounds better than the M.2 version (P4801X).

I can only imagine what an externally powered PCIe P4800X with an upgraded OCXO clock could do!

Interesting...

 

That is great, I was hoping the PCie 900P would have been a better choice then the M.2 but in a regular PC like mine

 

I returned the MoBo i had to Amazon and forget to take out my Optane 32 GB hahahaha, called them but it was too late when i remembered it

 

 

[mikicasellas]

For those who are in the process of building their servers....

 

I'm not anymore using my HDPLEX 200W to power my Server and other devices like Clocks and EtherRegen among some, so i have some DC cables that works with HDPLEX LPS: 3 PIN XLR female cables that i won't be using anymore, if you are interested on any of these:

 

Please check them here:

https://audiophilestyle.com/classifieds/item/544-ghent-dc-3-pin-xlr-cables/

[mikicasellas]

1 hour ago, StreamFidelity said:

Yes, with the JCAT Optimo 3 Duo. An absolutely excellent LPS. And yet, powered by the motherboard, the Solarflare 8522 card is so much better.

 

That's right. But I think the Solarflare 8522 card have their part in that. The latency is reportedly in the very low range of less than 1μsec.

Is it the 8522 or the 8522 PLUS ?

 

The photo im getting from 8522 is this one:

[mikicasellas]

1 hour ago, Nenon said:

Taiko Audio DC-DC ATX pre-order form:

 

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=wAyHaKEU5EWxi4f_4gJE6LY6WJsC4qJJgufOWga3mOJUNlZSMDhBOEs5NVBVUDFKRENINlQzOVlZOCQlQCN0PWcu

 

Signed !

[mikicasellas]

9 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

I don't have the plus version. And I'm just noticing that this card doesn't support OnLoad at all. One less reason to switch to Linux. 😄

 

Here is an overview: 8000 Series 10/40GbE Network Adapters

 

 

I am confused when searching for the 8552 cause the PIC you uploaded with big heatsinks, is not the one that appears as the non Plus 8552, this is:

 

[mikicasellas]

@Nenon

 

Sorry for disturbing your thread 

[mikicasellas]

Good Day Gentlemen,

 

Has anyone had any trouble with Intel i7-10700k (125w TDP) or alike in a fanless case HDPLEX H5 ?

 

I built a new server with this CPU and yesterday when my SR7T arrived and connected to it, the first one hour while in BIOS, temp was very good 38 to 40 Celsius and then up to 75 to 80 C ( Red Numbers ).

 

This morning i dissemble the copper block, CPU and pipes and cleaned it very well so i could put some new Thermal paste, perhaps i put a little more on CPU and on Pipes, but it was worst, Temp when to 70 Celsius in a heartbeat, i had to turn it off.

 

I have been using the same thermal paste that i used on a NUC, and an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (65 TDP)

 

Any experience on this ?, Thanks

[mikicasellas]

47 minutes ago, bit01 said:

I have one  (i9-10900K, sorry) running in the HDplex H5 - yes if you dwell in BIOS setup more than a few minutes the CPU temp will shoot up.  The H5 passive cooling is undersized for this CPU in general applications. However for playing music (no fancy DSP, upsampling etc, in my case) the CPU heatsink/pipes remain cool to the touch - CPU core temps reported by Audiolinux are normally under 40C.

 

BTW - it sounds fantastic in my setup!

 

Hope you get it sorted & enjoy it as much as I !

 

ATB,

b

 

1 hour ago, Nenon said:

 

125W TDP might be too high for the HDplex. Its heat sinks are not the best. 

How hot is the heatsink when the CPU is 80C? If it gets really hot (i.e. you can't keep your hands on it) you might have reached the capacity of the HDplex. However, if it does not get that hot, then most likely something is not right with the rest of the components that are routing the heat to the heat sink. 

 

 

This is what Euphony is showing now !!

 

Im using a Asus Hyper M.2 PCIE card where my Optane resides but has no info on it yet, this might be elevating the heat

 

 

 

[mikicasellas]

5 minutes ago, Exocer said:

Those are some high temps. Are these idle temps? or are you doing HQPlayer upsampling?

Only Roon + Euphony Stylus Ep

 

Apparently these temps are with PC on idle, so yes

[mikicasellas]

20 minutes ago, Dev said:

something is seriously broken or mis-configured in your system. You are almost reaching to a thermal shutdown point where the case won't be able to keep up with the cooling and the temps will rise slowly.

 

I run i9-10900K in HDplex case. The case is not optimal for anything greater than 65C TDP Processor. There is a bunch of Bios optimization that I had to do and run the clock at 4.2GHz given the power supply I have. I now run Win10Pro now and my temps are in the range 46-48C.

 

Earlier when I ran Euphony the temps were high ~60C but not that high at yours. One thing to note that Euphony Linux kernel is very old (not sure if they updated it recently) and lot of recent Intel/x86 optimization and bug fixes are missing. Later I tried a bunch of other distros, including AudioLinux which bought the temps back in ~50C. Audiolinux also sounded fantastic. In my system, I find Euphony to be bloated and after much experimentation I realized that Euphony is good for lean systems. For system which are already on the fuller side and neutral, you are better off with other OS.

 

Try resetting the Bios to "Load Optimized defaults". Disabling hyper-threading and Turbo and slowly go from there. I would also advice either AudioLinux or Windows for 10th gen and above Intel proc.

 

Im working on it as im writing this, let me finish and i will be back

 

Thanks for the support guys !!

[mikicasellas]

Looking for a replacement:

 

I just putted an Intel i7-10700K + Asus Rog Strix Z490-E but the ASUS MoBo was damaged so i returned to AMAZON.

 

I have been looking at several MoBo from Gigabyte and ASUS with characteristics like number of power phases and PCIE slots & m.2 from CPU:

 

GIGABYTE AORUS Master Z490

GIGABYTE AORUS master Z590

GIGABYTE Vision G & D in both Z490 - Z590

to name some...

 

Has anyone experienced any of these with Intel 10th generation ? i wonder how do they stack against the ASUS ROG STRIX Z490-E

 

Great week everyone !!

[mikicasellas]

3 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

Based on a few posts above the Aorus is certainly an option. Read last few pages of this thread. 

Thanks

 

It seems AORUS has more to give to AMD processors

[mikicasellas]

2 hours ago, kelvinwsy said:

I hv the Aorus Ultra Z490 with the 10700k ! Overclockong is a breeze! You need to feed the MB VRMS with a ATX PSU of at least 850watt.. SQ with Hqplayer 4.13?? gives thumping bass, Soaring clean highs and very prominent Mids.. Great PRAT! Though wished i had paid more for tge Aorus Master with better VRMS! 

The Z590 Aorus Master & VISION D uses 2 PCIE  Express x8 from CPU & 1 - M.2 from CPU too, looks appealing it seems better than the Z490 that lacks of M.2 from CPU, Z590 it claims to be compatible with 10th GEN too, but not so sure if those characteristics are 100% for the 10th or only for 11Th generation:

 

 

 

 

[mikicasellas]

The Aorus Ultra Z590 over the Z490 has also the advantage of the M.2 from CPU too:

 

 

[mikicasellas]

17 hours ago, kelvinwsy said:

The problem that I have with the Aorus Ultra Z490 is that ONLY the lowest PCIe slot is compatible wiht 1x4 Audiophile USB PCIE plug in cards. I thought it was a driver issue or something similar. But with both of my SHAAR USB 3.0 and Matrix Elements  PCie cards, only the lowest slot will have the OS be able to identify the presence of the USB PCIE plug in card.

 

So for me it is not whether the PCIe card is linked to the CPU directly; first and foremost the USB PCIe card Must work. I have tried PCie riser cables, PCIe plug in extension cards etc etc... Only the lowest slot works. 

I tried it with the Ethernet plug in card TPLink Gigabit Pcie card - same result only works in the lowest slot. 

I see that the higher range ASUS ROG MB has a dedicated 1x4 PCIE slot. That will be what I would upgrade to for my next 11th Gen Intel PC. or a AMD 5900 PC...

 

 

So, what did GIGABYTE respond to this ?

[mikicasellas]

With the i7-10700K and having returned the Rog Strix Z490-E, im towards the Z590 which are compatible with my actual CPU and easier to upgrade to Gen 11th, so far these are the ones that im trying to decide.

 

- Asus Motherboard Intel Z590, ROG Maximus XIII Hero.....$499.99

- Gigabyte Z590 AORUS Master...........................................$409.00

- Asus Motherboard Intel Z590, ROG Strix Z590-E..............$379.00

- Gigabyte Z590 AORUS Ultra...............................................$319.00

 

Much of the differences that i have read is about more connectivity, internal audio, VRM and fans on the costlier ones, im willing to get any of these ($$) if they really have something to add in the final performance of the audio signal.

 

Any suggestions ?

 

Thanks !!