Building a DIY Music Server

[adamaley]

Any feedback from the owner? Hope he/she is loving the musical fruits of your labor. Any idea what they had before and how it compares?

[adamaley]

Hello. I'm going to ask a very rudimentary question. One that's probably been answered in the legendary 'Improve your network audio' thread. I'm at a crossroads regarding improving upon my current Ulttarendu endpoint, which is fed by an i7 3770k 32GB normal workstation that is my Room core. All of my music is on a NAS, but I stream Tidal and Qobuz through Roon primarily. I'm curious to know what level of off-the-shelf all in one server/streamer do the current state of the art builds such as this one compete with? 

 

I work in IT and have put together multiple gaming, graphic design/3D modeling workstations in the past. I have no problem with tweaking till the cows never come home but I just want to know whether building, experimenting, tweaking, LPSing, clocking will get me to the level of, say, an Innuos Statement/Antipodes CX/EX. Or is it more in line with an Innuos Zenith 2 SE, or worse, Zenith MKIII?

 

I'm looking to determine which direction to go towards, and not look back.

[adamaley]

Thanks for the response. I am glad to hear that 

8 minutes ago, Nenon said:

 

I felt like that was an important question to answer, so I commented on this in the last paragraph of my very first post.

 

It's hard to do such comparisons without having both servers running side by side. But I think we have went quite a long way in the DIY computer world. I don't think we can compete with Taiko Extreme, which is at a completely different engineering level than anything we've done here. I have not heard the Antipodes CX/EX, and I can't comment on that. 

 

Thanks for the response and pseudo confirmation of what I was hoping for. It's good to know that the DIY approach has caught up to the upper echelon of turnkey options. Another question, and please feel free to send me packing to a different thread if you feel my line of questioning is distracting to the purpose of your thread, are there builds that accomodate Roon core and roon as a player, or is it best to go with the likes of Euphony for playback? Thanks for tolerating my inquiries. If/when I decide to dive in, this thread will be an invaluable starting point for me.

[adamaley]

@Nenon Thanks for the breakdown on Roon vis a vis customer builds and where it ranks in the hierarchy of players. If I may ask, are Euphony, AudioLinux and the like able to incorporate streaming from Tidal or Qobuz? Btw, thanks for the informative PM. I will be responding shortly.

[adamaley]

Which Pink Faun unltraOCXO clockspeed are folks selecting?

[adamaley]

I see. So once purchased and installed, you're pretty much stuck with that particular motherboard or one of the same clock speed. Thanks for the heads-up.

[adamaley]

To those like, scared of replacing clocks on their motherboards, it appears Pink Faun has a new service to do the mods for you:

 

[adamaley]

On 2/17/2020 at 4:44 PM, gererick said:

The prior digital source going into my TotalDAC D1-Direct DAC was new on 10/13/19.  So the technology being replaced is almost brand new.  It is a two-box setup built for me by a CA contributor.  Power to the prior server was an HDPlex 200-watt LPS.  I will be putting this prior setup up for sale soon. It is no longer in use, though it was quite good.

 

The prior server and endpoint were designed to sound best with lower-power-use, with the philosophy that lower power consumption means less noise which means better sound.  The prior server had an 8 core AMD Ryzen 2 processor and a mini ITX mother board.  The prior endpoint had an Intel Core i7 8650U Quad-Core processor and motherboard.  The prior endpoint was powered by my Sean Jacobs supply at 19v.  It now powers Nenon’s server’s CPU, at 12v (voltage is easily adjustable on the SJ PS)

 

For a setup with high power consumption, power supplies are ostensibly in shorter supply with longer waiting times.  I don’t think the Sean Jacobs PS is in short supply and it is very, very good especially with the dual-regulation.

 

Roon software was moved to Nenon’s server.  I had the full Euphony software on the endpoint of the prior two boxes; it was also moved to Nenon’s server.  So Nenon’s server has both Roon and Euphony, and it is simple to switch back and forth.

 

My listening comparison is mainly with Roon playing on the prior server and Euphony on its endpoint, versus Euphony Stylus playing on Nenon’s server.  My friend Bob and I also listened to Nenon’s server with Roon Core and StylusEP for an apples-to-apples comparison (same software on different hardware), which I’ll summarize later.

 

The comparison was not a quick A/B, because the Nenon’s server and power supply needed break-in, as did all of the cables.  They probably have 300 hours+ of burn-in now.  The Pink Faun USB card with the ultra OCXO clock has considerably less break-in than this, as it had a soldering issue near the DC jack that Nenon easily fixed.

 

The comparison is not a straight two-box to one-box comparison.  For example, Nenon’s server has Mundorf silver/gold wire inside the server, in the DC cables, and in Nenon’s power supply, built from Sean-Jacobs-supplied components.  Nenon’s server has six DC inputs and wires, five coming from

Sean Jacobs / Nenon equipment, and they were all JSSG360’d, while the prior server was supplied by an HDPlex via stock DC cables, not JSSG360’d.  I don’t think the HDPlex PS is dual regulated (not sure), but the four outputs from Nenon’s / Sean Jacobs PS are dual regulated, as is the SJ PS that powered my endpoint which is now powering the Intel i9-9900K.  My network card is powered by an LPS 1.2.

 

My prior server had a 19v input, plus a 12v input for the CPU.  The 19v input went inside the prior server to the HDPlex DC-ATX, which then converted the 19v to 3.3, 5 and 12v, I believe.  This converter is a $62.50 part.  Soon after the prior server was installed, I contacted Nenon about his surplus power supply that he’d built from SJ components (he had advertised it for sale), because I thought it made more sense to have the conversion done outside of the server, which then led me even further than that to having Nenon replace everything I had just bought.  Crazy stuff, but it worked out extraordinarily well in the end, and I am extraordinarily pleased with the final result.

 

Between my two prior boxes, I had a long run of Cardas ethernet cable.  That is gone in a one-box setup.  Between the prior endpoint and my DAC, I had two Lush^2 cables, an Uptone adapter, an ISO Regen, and an upgraded SOTM Tx-USB Ultra (and two LPS 1.2’s).  The SOTM was being master clocked by a Mutec Ref 10.  Now the only thing between my server and DAC is a 0.3 meter Lush^2.

 

With Nenon’s server, the Pink Faun USB card with the ultra OCXO clock and the SJ PS makes the aforementioned unnecessary, and I will be selling all but one of the two Lush^2 cables.

 

I am somewhat hearing impaired, so I can’t hear high frequencies well.  I asked my friend Bob over, so the below is mainly his description that I agree with.  We heard the same things, but it seems appropriate to have a second pair of ears given my hearing.

 

When Bob listened a few weeks ago, he said the system now sounded like vinyl but maybe needed to burn in as it was lacking in the bass region (which I agreed with).  It turned out to indeed need to burn in.

 

Yesterday, Bob and I listened again.  We didn’t listen for long, and only listened to two parts of two tracks.  The first was the first couple of minutes of Hotel California on Hell Freezes Over (live) with much of the listening focus on the bass drums.  The second was Warren Zevon’s Please Stay, from his last album/CD, The Wind.

 

These were Bob’s words, to the extent I could keep up with my pen.

 

Sounds really nice.

Really sounds lovely.

Sounds more fleshed out. 

More micro detail.

More decay.

More texture of the drums.

More accurate.

More natural.

Very organic.

Very natural.

Non-digital.  You do not get that flatness.  It sounds like real, live music.

I mean, you got a winner.

The bass does not have as much weight or emphasis, but it sounds more accurate.

 

Then we played the same portion of the same track using Roon Core + StylusEP.  Again, Bob’s words, and again, which I again agree with.

 

More digital / harsher / more etched.

With Euphony Stylus, it sounds like somebody singing.

With Euphony Stylus, you were just listening, you weren’t coming up with stuff.

Roon is a little more forward with the bass drums.

The drums are louder, and heavier, but you are losing the micro detail.

Roon does have a little bit more of an impact.

But it doesn’t have the same depth, resonance or decay.

Roon is flatter, it doesn’t have the fullness.  It’s flatter sounding.

 

It is my understanding, in speaking with Nenon, that Euphony Stylus performs better in a high-power situation, i.e. a processor that uses a lot of power.  I have read some posts where listeners like the way Stylus sounds, but they stick with Roon because it is a better user interface.  On Nenon’s server, you can throw the ‘user interface’ preference wherever.  It just sounds far better on Euphony Stylus, far far better.  It is not close.  

 

Then we listened to Please Stay, as discussed above.  Again Bob’s words, which again I agree with.

 

Very natural. 

Everything sounds natural especially the voices.

 

I then discussed the parts of the song when Emmylou Harris comes in to join Warren for the chorus.  On the prior setup, it was still mostly Warren singing those parts; you could barely make out Emmylou’s voice even being present.  Now, her presence is not only distinct from his, it is just as loud as his – there is no difficulty hearing her whatsoever.  And it makes the song much more beautiful (not just that item, but that item really stood out versus the prior setup).  This was my observation, with Bob agreeing with me.  Bob replied that before, you could barely distinguish the background singer, now there is a distinct female background singer.  It sounds totally different, much more like it should sound.

 

I live in the NY area between the Bronx and Connecticut, and have hosted a couple of Westchester Audiophile Society gatherings.  Perhaps in connection with one of those, I can do another hosting which would include some folks from this site.  I am not sure how to do that safely (strangers and all), but feel free to PM me if you might be interested.  I am close to an I95 exit.

 

Below is a picture of my setup.  Nenon's builds are shoved toward the back of the rack because the DC cables are short.  The Sean Jacobs power supply for the CPU is next to Nenon's server on the second shelf with the blue light.  Both Sean Jacobs power supplies are plugged into a Topaz isolation transformer with .0005 pf interwinding capacitance, and that isolation transformer is plugged into a long Tripp Lite power strip that everything else is plugged into, and that power strip draws power from another .0005 pf Elgin transformer.  As I understand it from the mains isolation transformer thread, each of these has 146 dB of common mode noise reduction, so the SJ power supplies are getting clean power, and they cost only a few hundred (or less) on eBay.  The Tripp Lite also has a High Fidelity Cables MC-1 Pro Helix Plus plugged into it, and a Prana Wire Ruby grounding plane hard wired to it..   

 

I may have missed it, but did you expand on what the rest of your system is? Amplifiers, speakers?

[adamaley]

On 2/8/2020 at 4:06 PM, Volfram said:

Great minds think alike 😉

See my current build in attached picture.

Cheers

Did you also have the issue where the copper pipes didn't make it through the entirety of the heatsink of the CPU? How have you compensated for that? Which CPU are you using, and has it not been an issue thus far?

[adamaley]

For those using the H5 case and Pink Faun USB bridge card, which bracket height of the card did you purchase- 7.4 inches (120mm) or 3.118 inches (79.2mm)?

[adamaley]

Would that apply to the Pink Faun card as well?

 

[adamaley]

16 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

 

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/jcat-signature-gold-lan-cable.29888/#post-634557

 

$2,995

https://www.synergisticresearch.com/cables/galileo-sx/galileo-sx-digital/galileo-sx-ethernet/

 

€1,100
https://jcat.eu/product/signature-lan-cable/

I'd be interested in a comparison of these against the Goebel Ethernet cable and the Sablon Audio Ethernet cable. 

[adamaley]

10 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

IMHO a comparison between USB cables and Ethernet cables would be quite a challenge.

You beat me to the punch

[adamaley]

1 hour ago, matthias said:

 

Congratulations,

you are in good company with others like @romaz who found the same.

 

When you have an excellent server this "endpoint" concept comes to an end. It is very enlightening to read the Taiko Extreme thread on WBF. When you combine the Extreme with an endpoint the SQ is inferior to the Extreme alone. The same when the Extreme itself is an endpoint and has another server as source. 

 

For me endpoints do not make any sense at all, the best is to have an UHQ server with excellent USB output into an DAC.

 

Enjoy:-)

 

Matt

 

I wholly agree. After building Nenon's Ryzen 3700X / ASUS ROG Crosshair VII build from this forum, I was surprised by the delta with which it overtook the ultraRendu in my system. Mind you, this is even with a run of the mill ATX power supply powering CPU, motherboard, and all PCIE cards. The ultraRendu was being powered by a Farad Super3 - I was flabbergasted. 

[adamaley]

Well, the cost differential between the ultraRendu and the new server is quite significant to not support a fair comparison, tbh. I do love my etherRegen though 🙂

[adamaley]

14 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

When you say you put onto different subnet, did you do via VLANS?, if going down the VLAN route, Roon needs Intervlan routing, IGMP snooping for Multicast/broadcast support. I'm no techie by profession but learnt how to do VLANs on my Edge Router via google search. 

 

Will this bring sq benefits? who knows, but certainly keeps my mind occupied.    

Can you clarify whether you have implemented vlans yet for your setup? It's a little ambiguous in your post. I just received my SFP Edgerouter yesterday and only have it set up as a layer 2 switch currently. I'll love to try implementing vlans to see if there are sonic benefits.

[adamaley]

Good stuff. Thanks for sharing.

[adamaley]

You can sign me up for a group buy. Definitely interested.

[adamaley]

Hi Peter. Thanks for letting us know of your really valued skillset, and we are thankful you are willing to help a couple of interested folks here out. Just so you don't run afoul of the powers that be here, be sure to disclose your commercial standing, IF ANY. I would hate for things to go sour down the road due to that. 

 

Again, thanks for making yourself available to assist in our DIY efforts here.

 

 

[adamaley]

3 hours ago, Downtheline said:

I did try, no response. I tried getting their ram from 2 distributors, was unsuccessful. One of them was in communication with apacer, I posted that information when I got it. To be fair it has been a few months now. Perhaps something changed. 

Have you tried Mouser. The extra set I ordered 5 months ago just got mailed out to me after being on backorder.

[adamaley]

On 10/12/2020 at 3:49 PM, Nenon said:

Just so everyone is aware - I am now officially affiliated with Sean Jacobs.

 

Per the forum rules:

1. My signature clearly displays that.

2. I will not promote his products but can answer any questions you have.

 

That is actually good news for the DIY community here, because:

a) I am not doing any of that to pay my bills. Any work I do with Sean is planned to be invested back in my hobby!

b) I will have access to as many of his DC4 rails as I need for my personal experiments. And that is very exciting news.

So what can I do with some extra cash for my DIY experiments and a number of DC4 rails available? Hmmm, I can think of A LOT OF THINGS! And I hope I have the time to do all of them. 

 

You can expect me to continue to share any successful DIY experiments as I always have. I understand if you take my words with a grain of salt from now on. And you should! But my only goal and agenda remains to advance the level of my system.

 

I may sound like a broken record here but I'd like to thank @Nenon for all the help he has given the community in the realm of digital audio. Personally, he has provided advice and guidance on so many aspects of my current system. I never dreamt my system could attain these heights, and I'm in awe of what I hear every day. 

 

Congratulations on your affiliation with Sean. It's all due to your hard work. I look forward to what you guys come up with as a team in the future.

[adamaley]

13 hours ago, Soul Analogue said:

Last weekend, I brought my EPYC server to my friend's place for audition

It was used as server, while Memory Player output coaxial by Lynx AES as endpoint

Had some problem logging in with Roon on ipad, which was my friend's preferred player, until full update of Winserver 2019 OS and reinstall of Roon server

The sound, without OS optimization, was really promising. Very good soundstage, solid musical notes, satisfying tone and vocal...the sound outcome had exceeded my initial expectation....had a feeling of forgetting Hifi and just indulge in the music 

This fanless EPYC and Full LPS approach is definitely a way to go!

 

Which Zellaton speakers are those?

[adamaley]

On 12/12/2020 at 1:13 PM, bobfa said:

From your chart you are missing an important variable.  The cost of time, building, tuning, adjusting.  That could double the cost.  Many in the hobby discount that because they feel that their labor is at no cost.  I disagree rather vehemently. Do some rough numbers since you built recently.  How much time in Research, development and acquisition and finally production?    

 

I'm not sure I can categorize the time spent tweaking, researching, and tuning as a cost. For me, this is a hobby - all that time is fun and reveals more of the vast landscape the hobby has to offer me. If I wasn't researching, tuning to directly benefit my system, I would be spending that time reading audio blogs and rabbit holing for no concrete benefit but it will still be as enjoyable.