Building a DIY Music Server

[JackJohnson316]

Hello All,

 

This is my first post in Audiophilestyle, so I'm excited to hear the responses. I'm building my first DIY server, and I ordered a motherboard (MSI B550 Tomahawk) and a ocxo clock upgrade from Pink Faun. They are replacing the chipset clock on the motherboard with the ocxo clock.

 

My question is if I should put my ethernet and usb PCIE cards on the slots connected to the chipset or the cpu? I've read that it is generally better to connect your PCIE cards on the slots linked to the cpu; but in this case I'm having the chipset clock replaced with a better ocxo clock. So should I still connected my ethernet and usb PCIE cards to the slots linked to the cpu, or the chipset, since the chipset now has the better clock?

 

Thanks for your advice!

[JackJohnson316]

I was told that the chipset clock has to be changed first, and then the cpu clock is optional. Given budget restraints I went with only upgrading the chipset clock, which is what I believe Nenon also did on his AMD build, but correct me if I am mistaken. I was also recommended this less costly MSI motherboard over an ASRock B550 by PF. I tried to look at PF 2.16 Ultra photos online to see what motherboard they are using and it looked like the one I chose… but I’m not 100% sure. PF is still modifying my motherboard, so I could always add the cpu ocxo clock, but I will probably save the money for the usb or I2S card ultra clock. Thanks for the great advice. I look forward to finding out more. 

[JackJohnson316]

Super excited for Mattijs at Farad Power Supplies for his new website, along with the new Super10 and the SuperATX. There are a lot of great options now for the DIY Music Servers. https://www.faradpowersupplies.com

[JackJohnson316]

1 hour ago, flkin said:

My Pink Faun 2.16x (2018) uses the ASRock 370x pro gaming board. I had 3 PF Ultra OCXO clocks installed. The cpu and board clocks were installed on their own boards with regulated supplies underneath the motherboard as I made a special request for them to be placed as close as possible to the original clock points. 
 

As the clock boards are discrete and self contained, they may outlast your motherboard as time goes on and you upgrade your board to something more recent. Expensive as they are, perhaps you can see consider them as a longish term investment which makes it easier to justify…😄

 

Or you could consider the more affordable Connor Winfield OH200 OCXO clocks on offer from PF (used to be, not sure now) as an alternative.
 

I have reviews for my 2.16x and the PF Ultra clocks here in AS, links are in my profile page.

Thanks for the info. Hopefully I can just update my motherboard when the new AMD cpu’s come out with the DDR5 ram, and reinstall the same Pink Faun ocxo onto the new board. It looks fairly simple to do, just making sure it’s the same frequency as the old clock. I double checked the photos online and I’m still pretty confident I chose the same motherboard used in the PF 2.16 ultra. If not then I can always update later. I’m also not sure if the 2.16 ultra uses one ocxo clock or two. Either way I figure it’s good to start out with one clock and upgrade later if need be. I’m saving the money for a better power supply… either the Taiko dc-dc atx, or the Farad superATX. 

[JackJohnson316]

18 hours ago, Johnseye said:

Has anyone tried JSSG 360 shielding on their ATX and EPC cables?

I ordered JSSG 360 shielded ATX and EPS cables from Ghent Audio. They are very well made and use great quality (OCC) materials. They offer 18 gauge on their website, but I contacted them and asked if they could do 16 gauge, and they did for a little extra. I'm not sure if they can do solid core or not, but I went with stranded. I also sent them photos of the ATX and motherboard orientations so that the molex pins match up properly on the cables. 

 

For the ATX cable, because it was so short, I ended up cutting off the 360 JSSG shielding to make it bendable enough to reach my ATX. It was very much too stiff and probably would have damaged my motherboard or ATX if I somehow did manage to get it to fit without removing the shielding. I kept the shielding on the EPS cable though. Removing the shielding was not too challenging. No glue was used. I've attached photos to show. 

[JackJohnson316]

25 minutes ago, di-fi said:

Maybe I can not see it in the picture, but any particular reason you could not align both ATX connectors by installing the Taiko Audio DC DC-ATX at the designated spot for the HD Plex-400?

Shorter ATX-  and for that matter EPS cables would have been sufficient? Probably without removing JSSG 360 on the ATX cable.

That's a good question. I would have preferred to place the ATX in the location you are mentioning, but the screw holes did not align with the Taiko ATX in that location. I haven't had the time to learn how to drill into the HD-Plex case yet, but perhaps in the future. I can tell you though, the ATX cable was double shielded and was impossible to even bend at that short of length. It was too stiff. Maybe if it had only one shield instead of two it could have worked. 

[JackJohnson316]

13 hours ago, Cazzesman said:

I have run some 'non blind test' testing today and....

 

The Taiko DC-ATX powering the JCat XE usb card internally adds more SQ weight and gravitas than the Gieseler Audio

Kraftwerk II 5v/2amp LPS powering it externally.   

 

I'm guessing this is a simple situation of 'You get what you pay for' i.e the GA LPS is solid but has nowhere near the research and quality parts and architecture the Taiko has.

 

Regards Cazzesman 

I had a similar master plan to power my two pcie cards with an external Sean Jacobs linear power supply, and then power my chipset ocxo clock with the Taiko atx 5v Sata always on connector. Last week I connected my chipset ocxo clock to the Taiko atx and powered on the Taiko atx and immediately got a loud high pitch humming noise. I turned off everything and tried again with the same results. I contacted Taiko who told me there's likely significant 20/24/25MHz frequencies present on the powerlines which are typically not a problem for a linear regulator as they don't have that bandwidth and it just passes through, but those frequencies can cause  a problem for the GaN fets and/or controller regulation and cause it to oscillate. So it sounds like the GAN atx is not able to power a 20/24/25MHz clock. I did hook up one of my pcie cards to the Taiko atx Sata 5v and it works great. Not sure if it’s as good as powering it by an external Sean Jacobs Linear power supply, but it sounds good. I’ll try to compare when I have time to change out the dc barrel connectors. 

[JackJohnson316]

3 hours ago, JBL said:

Has anyone tried out HDPlex's Gan ATX power supply on their music server?

I have one for sale $115 plus shipping on Audiogon if anyone interested. I bought it but never got around to using it. 

[JackJohnson316]

I have a question about buffering and playing streamed files from RAM. If I buffer my music (streamed or local files) to ram in Euphony Stylus V4, do I need to invest in an OCXO network switch? The reason I ask is my previous streamer did not allow buffering to ram, and the network switch made a noticeable difference. I tried many different high end switches and they all sounded different. But now that my current streamer offers buffer to ram, I personally cannot hear a difference in network switches, so I sold my Etherregen and NA Eno network switch. I currently use a Jcat netcard XE with a Pink Faun LAN Isolator connected to a basic model Buffalo network switch, but the Etherregen and NA Eno didn’t make a difference IMO. Does the buffering to ram negate the need for a high end network switch? Thanks for helping me to understand.

[JackJohnson316]

Is there somebody that is good with CAD that could design a riser for the lid of the HDPlex H5 PC case, and also make the backplate taller, to accommodate the Taiko USB card and the Taiko Dac in the HDplex case? Maybe send the CAD design to Modushop to make it? Is that even possible? It would be great to have the backplate accommodate a few full height cards and a few low profile cards vertically. The attached photos show the idea (minus the terrible drawn in lines).

[JackJohnson316]

On 2/8/2023 at 12:28 PM, Dev said:

AFAIK from several discussions with Larry that hdplex is coming up with a full height chassis. Timeline is not yet known.

Thanks for the heads up. It looks like this is the route I will be going. The full height HDPlex PC chassis hopefully will be ready before the Taiko products are released to the public. Larry was very kind to reply to my email quickly as well. The new HDPlex case can support 4 full height pcie cards...if nothing changes. Usually most pcie cards, like Jcat, Pink Faun, etc., also provide both full sized brackets and low profile brackets. So hopefully I can still use those cards on a full height pc chassis if need be. 

[JackJohnson316]

I have some questions about ram. Since I run my OS (Euphony Stylus) on ramroot, and my music is played from ramroot, I'm wondering if tinkering with my ram will make a sound quality improvement? I currently use Apacer industrial ECC ram. 

 

-Do ram coolers heat sink products make a difference? (heat, vibrations, etc)

 

-Does adjusting the ram speed make a difference? (is faster, slower, or matching the cpu speed better?)

 

-Does adjusting the ram voltage make a difference? (better lower or higher voltages?)

 

-Do I need to fill all of my ram slots in my motherboard for optimal playback? I currently have two of the four ram slots filled.

 

Thanks

[JackJohnson316]

10 hours ago, ray-dude said:

My training is in electrical engineering/semiconductor physics/quantum effect electronics so this is particularly frustrating for me (I don't even have speculation to offer or hypotheses to test at this point)

From a DIY perspective do you think cryogenic treatment while degaussing at the same time could lead to a similar improvement on copper conductors? It seems the US Navy has been degaussing their copper cables/conductors for years to improve efficiency by up to 90%. The attached article even gives a blueprint for building such a machine to perform this treatment on cables: 

 

I ask in hopes that someday the DIY community could improve our own cables and devices for the advancement of music enjoyment. 

[JackJohnson316]

The link in my previous post didn’t work. Try this link for an article on cryogenic treatment and degaussing copper cables by the US Navy: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/1.2908558

[JackJohnson316]

I’m selling my Sean Jacobs linear power supply DC3/4 with DC4 regulator modules, DC4 recaps, and Mundorf silver gold internal wiring. Two legs both 5v that I used to power my Jcat and Pink Faun pcie cards in my DIY server. It’s a terrific, at the top of the list, LPS for anyone looking to build a DIY server. Thanks 

 

[JackJohnson316]

Hi everyone, I'm selling my DIY server to fund some other projects and rabbit holes (I'm sure I'll be back soon), but for now I'm selling my server as a whole or in pieces. Check out my advertisement, ask any question, or feel free to ask some DIY server questions that I may be of assistance with. Thanks! 

 

[JackJohnson316]

Selling my Sean Jacobs ULPS that powers the Taiko ATX if anyone interested. Thanks for looking! 

 

[JackJohnson316]

Hi,

 

I'm starting to gather material for an Extreme DIY clone.

 

I plan to purchase the Asus WS C621E Sage motherboard, 12 sticks of D51.23184S.001 Apacer DRAM REG DDR4-2666 DIMM 4GB CL19 WT ram, and two Xeon 4210 cpus.

 

I'll purchase the case and heatsinks later (Waiting for the HDPlex EATX full size case quarter 2 2024 hopefully).

 

Here are my questions if anyone has experience or can help:

 

1. What operating system can I install of the Sage motherboard? I read somewhere this motherboard is so old that it no longer supports some operating systems. Is this correct? I'm planning on trying Euphony V4 to see if it will run. Maybe even two copies of Euphony, one on each cpu. 

 

2. Can the Asus WS C621E Sage motherboard support a NVME Intel Optane SSD 800P? I plan to run the operating system off of this card.

 

3. Are the D51.23184S.001 Apacer DRAM REG DDR4-2666 DIMM 4GB CL19 WT ram sticks the correct ram to purchase? 

 

I already have a Sean Jacobs ULPS, a Taiko Audio atx, a jcat ethernet card xe, and most of the cabling I need. So I mainly need a motherboard, case, ram, 2 cpu's, and a good operating system to start my project. 

 

Thanks for any input! 

[JackJohnson316]

30 minutes ago, NewOldman said:

"HDPlex EATX full size case " ?

is this some new product,

any more info 

 

 

I emailed Larry last week and he told me it will be available more like 2nd quarter 2024 supporting EATX motherboards. That’s all I know. 

[JackJohnson316]

13 minutes ago, NewOldman said:

You can use any windows  OS from SRV2012 to SRV2022 or W10/W11

or Euphony V3/V4

Optane 800P will work or any other NVME

Where do you place the nvme drive on the Sage motherboard? I looked everywhere on it and can’t find where to place it from the pictures. My previous motherboard had a slot and screw to secure it. Thanks 

[JackJohnson316]

29 minutes ago, NewOldman said:

behind Pci-E slot 7

on the side of motherboard

or look in the manual

WS C621E SAGE｜Motherboards｜ASUS Global

 

Okay thanks. It was called a NGFF1 connector in the manual that was throwing me off. I was looking for NVME, which apparently is the newer name for NGFF1. I'm still learning the lingo. Thanks

 

 

 

[JackJohnson316]

Thanks for all the advice and help with an Extreme DIY project. In terms of Ram, I assumed that Apacer was the way to go, but now that I'm looking at the Extreme it looks like that it is using ATP ram, most likely industrial grade, 2400mhz. Anybody know where I can purchase this?

Digikey and Mouser seem to offer the newest version, 3200mhz, but the Sage motherboard only supports 2933/266/2400/2133 mhz. Will 3200 mhz even work or cause stability issues?

Thanks for the help.

[JackJohnson316]

Anybody know the model number of the ATP ram that Taiko uses? I tried to research it but came up empty so far. I thought it was ATP A4B04QG8BLPBSE , but that is speed 2133 mhz, and others have suggested Taiko uses speed 2400 mhz.

 

So far I know it's ATP ram, VLP (Very low profile) RDIMM, DDR4, and 4 GB size. I'm not sure of the model number, if it's high temperature or not, and the speed. 

 

Thanks for any help! 

[JackJohnson316]

33 minutes ago, MarcelNL said:

atp 4gb ecc 96d4i-4g2400r-atl

 

coming my way to complement the other set I have

Perfect! I'll see if I can find them anywhere for sale now:) Are these the ones that Taiko uses then? Thanks again. 

[JackJohnson316]

13 minutes ago, littlej0e said:

Lastly, I'm still looking for a Taiko USB card if anyone has one to sell;- ) Mr. Bok, please...I beg you lol! 

Will the Taiko USB card work in a DIY Extreme clone? If so I'm interested too. I thought I read Taiko had to make custom drivers for every dac, so if my dac isn't on the driver list I'm not sure it would work.