Building a DIY Music Server

[JonD]

On 1/8/2021 at 1:00 AM, Ianderson said:

In the grand scream of things a higher priced case of a) better quality b) more room is universally advantageous. If one is shooting for great SQ, the price is secondary. Besides, the case is chump change compared to the rest of the BoM. (particularly the LPS’s)

 

As an aside I heard a rumour that Innuos was going to release a audio grade Network Switch for around $3k. Not sure how valid that might be.

 

I have heard they are looking at their ethernet boards, yes. Waiting to see what they have planned. Ethernet version of the Phoenix or an update to the Zenith etc.

[JonD]

I recently joined up on AS, but i have been building computers and into audio for many years now. My journey has really been focused on building headphone systems and at the moment i am lucky enough to own a dCS Bartok and  Rossini Master Clock which i use to drive Hifiman HE1000SE and also Focal Stellia's.

 

My music sits on a QNAP NAS, powered by a Teradak and my DAC, clock, NAS and EE 8 Switch are all plugged into an AQ Niagara 3000. The Niagara has an AQ Hurricane power cable and the Bartok and clock are using Chord Signature power cables

 

So my journey has taken my quite a long way and i have been interested in seeing what a decent music server can do. A friend of mine has just trialled an Innuos Zenith with his Chord DAVE and was very impressed with the results. He also has a Phoenix on order.

 

Although tempted to go down this route as well, I do like building my own PCs, so hey we are in lockdown and i need a project to research and execute on... Keep me busy after work :D

 

So this thread has been great... A lot less than 700 pages long, but full of really interesting information and experiences. I started taking notes on the combinations of hardware that people had been trying and thought i would have a decent idea pretty quickly; although the power side of things seems like it can get expensive :O

 

But when i got the the final 10 pages the revelation about the Taiko DIY project really caught my eye. I have of course heard about the Taiko Extreme and its high price point, its up there with the Vivaldi DAC. But to be able to get to say 80+% of the Extreme with a Taiko DIY project, sounds pretty amazing. 

 

Only thing I am wondering about is the fact that alot of what i read is about feeding the DAC via USB... Well that isnt recommended for any of the dCS DACs. They are designed to sound best using ethernet. I heard a big improvement in my system just by adding the English Electric 8 Switch in between the NAS and the DAC.

 

Do you think i can expect similar sonic improvements from one of these custom music servers (I am thinking of similar to what Nenon has been building) using ethernet (PCIE card like JCAT)?

 

I dont need a server that can upsample at the moment, the Bartok handles that extremely well. Its got a lot of headroom for future firmware improvements as well. So I am looking at feeding my DAC direct from a music server from local storage and also streaming via Tidal...

 

The Bartok also handles streaming duties, but this is more optional with the Bartok... 

 

Anyway, I will keep following this thread, its been great to learn so much and also that some of the top power supply designers are based here in the UK or just over the channel in nearby Europe :)

 

 

 

[JonD]

@nenon and @matthias thanks for your comments. I will go over and do some additional research 🙂

[JonD]

A bit of reading and it seems that both USB and Ethernet are an option for using with the dCS DACs, which is good to know.

 

Looking around at these ASUS Sage motherboards and the Intel Silver CPUs, they come up second hand quite a bit, so with a little patience two CPUs and a mobo can be bought at quite a discount... Something to think about.

[JonD]

52 minutes ago, Nenon said:

Taiko Audio DC-DC ATX pre-order form:

 

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

 

 

I have also registered my interest... 👍

[JonD]

@Nenon Just a thought on the size of the case... If you do go with the bigger case then something like my Atacama rack, which is 600mm x 400mm, wouldn't quite be deep enough. However, I do have space for a component to overhang at the back.

 

But in order to do that safely then the feet of the component need to be inside the 600x400 footprint of the shelf.

 

So a few options on where to place the feet of the case on the chassis would be useful to some.

 🙂

 

and i don't know about the rest of you but I am already building up my server funds so i am ready when the DIY kit becomes available.

[JonD]

I am starting to source the parts for the 4114/Sage build at the moment. CPUs and Motherboard are easy to get hold of, I will wait and see what Taiko make available in terms of case and ATX DC-DC (registered interest).

 

Ram is more of a challenge. Can anyone recommend a European seller of the Apacer ECC ram?

 

Thanks 

[JonD]

Many thanks to all of you for the replies, much appreciated 🙂

[JonD]

So I have a 4114 source already. Do i need to stick to another 4114 or can i also pick up a 4210. Looks to be almost the same chip and there are plenty of Intel chips around where the difference in the model number is more about binning than a change in CPU.

[JonD]

I have managed to pick up a couple of Intel 4114 on the cheap from eBay, just by being patient. Bit of a result. So will be waiting to see how things develop with this exciting DIY project over the coming months.

 

Whilst this project matures, I have been looking at my network setup and making a few changes, so will see how my dCS Bartok likes them :)

[JonD]

1 hour ago, MarcelNL said:

 

Whar range do you coonsider cheap? I have been looking around but do not yet have a feel for the price range, anything between 360 and 700-800 goes

 

One processor was 305 and the other was 275... So quite pleased with that.

[JonD]

On 1/27/2021 at 9:20 AM, Nenon said:

P.S. A note to myself - learn what a short reply means! 

 

I reckon a lot of people, like myself, are learning an awful lot from people like you @Nenon who have the time and patience to write down their thoughts about topics that they really enjoy and find interesting...

 

Don't apologise for educating so many of us 🙂

[JonD]

9 minutes ago, lmitche said:

Darryl,

 

I agree, ethernet is the root cause of many of the evils in computer audio. My suspicion is that it is the physical layer that causes most of the problems. USB has it's own problems, but we know more about taming them.

 

Lately, I have been thinking about building a switch using USB 3 instead of ethernet connections for the device end. This would be rather like an OTG connection for android devices. Of course there would need to be traditional wired or wireless connection to a router.

 

Larry

 

 

 

 

Well dCS would not agree with this statement. Their entire product range of DACs etc is designed to use Ethernet as the best choice for SQ. This is from the Bartok, right up to the Vivaldi.

 

I guess it all comes down the implementations.

 

[JonD]

10 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

@Nenon I appreciate they’re better cables out there, but at what cost? The Furutech ncf range is great quality for its price. Especially compared to some of over priced cables out there and mediocre at best. 
 

For £1000 I don’t think there’s a better cable set out there. 

 

Deal on at the moment to get the full kit (incl SR Orange) for £900...