Building a DIY Music Server

[MarcelNL]

At least the heat pipes I have are filled with fluid ( I assume water) and are sealed, filling with sand is no option yet the copper is very soft ( and I assume pretty pure  based on that and its color)

Will try bending them around a core for a coil I'm making good to hear how others managed!

 

 

I now have 2 300W heatsinks waiting to be mounted , next step will be my PSU...there are some plans for an unregulated Choke filtered design to provide 12V...the tricky bit is going to be keeping the voltage stable under peak load.

 

From what I hear that first cap before the choke is equally important for sound as the choke, well everything matters as mentioned before by others.

 

 

 

 

[MarcelNL]

is it not just a matter of flashing the previous version again?

 

Did you check your bios settings? usually a new bios means starting from scratch with all the tweaking of settings for SQ.

[MarcelNL]

Now THAT are chokes. Hum can often be cured by ; seriously overdesigning a choke, getting rid of input DC, clamping the core, vacuum coating with lacquer/resin (that last one is quite a chore)

[MarcelNL]

I don't think 3 grand is crazy, is spending well north of 5 K for an audio server crazy? depends on who you ask IMO.

BTW, did you ever try making a cable? FAR cheaper, lots of fun and it will bring insight for free. In the end it's metal thread, insulation, cable geometry and shielding (or not), not that many variables to play with,

[MarcelNL]

I agree, I found some better than the usual IT department free USB cables crappy USB connectors...will see if I can trace where I bought them.

I left USB for I2S, for me in regard to sound quality a better goal to pursue, but I had some good results with the few USB cables I made.

 

it IS a bit finicky though...

[MarcelNL]

All I was trying to say was that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or whatever tickles one... ;-)

 

I have recently compared one of my analog interlinks to those by the late but most reputable Yamamura, all I can say that DIY is surely doable. 

[MarcelNL]

I think I bought the USB connectors off Ali after using some from a local IT parts suppliers, the best thing they had going for them was that soldering was doable...they had gold plated connectors, I'd have preferred solid pure copper and a screw connection....I do not think that does exist, yet,

[MarcelNL]

2 minutes ago, Dev said:

 

Off-coarse it depends on who you ask. A guy with half million $ system will definitely think it's way cheaper than his $23,000 1M RCA interconnect but this is a DIY thread 😬

indeed, hence my question about DIYing a USB cable as I dare say that building a USB cable that can hold its water against a 500 dollar cable is certainly doable ;-)

[MarcelNL]

oops not Ali, Ebay, I used those...

 

https://www.ebay.nl/itm/131731816180

[MarcelNL]

True, they did add a bulge that might contain something...you are referring to the 'transverse axial polarizer'? I indeed did not include one of those as stock ran out at Mouser. I'll say 'cable geometry matters as much as the actual wire and insulation' and will leave it at that.

 

 

 

 

[MarcelNL]

Transverse Axial Polarizers,

Transverse Axial Polarizer is a device that interacts with the electromagnetic field generated by the signal traveling along the signal cable. ‌‌TAP affects the behavior of the electromagnetic wave that surrounds the signal cable. In effect, the ‌‌TAP blocks longitudinal-oriented waves while allowing transverse-oriented waves. The effect in sonic terms is like using polarized sunglasses to reduce reflected sunlight. Correcting polarization micro-distortion reduces what some call sonic glare.

 

apparently to do something with or against the magnetical field around the cable, any negative effects caused by interference caused by that effect which is always present should be taken care of throughout the cable by the geometry of the wires etc, not in a 10cm stretch at two ends of a cable.

 

 

 

 

[MarcelNL]

I stopped tinkering with USB as I left it preferring I2S, all I can say is that a simple twisted pair made of solid UP OCC insulated with a mix of paper and silk does a great job already especially when shielded for EMI (yet not with metal mesh).

I did not get to go wild with other geometries, but the playground is open!

 

O eeh,  and leaving out the power wires, or at least shielding those separately

 

 

 

 

[MarcelNL]

Quick question (looks great BTW!) does that Taiko ATX need cooling surface too or is it good to go as is?

I'm still on the fence buying it, but am going to build a prototype wooden case next week or so.

 

 

[MarcelNL]

OK , OK , I'll put the order in tomorrow, have been tossing around many ideas for a full linear PSU but I figure I better start with this and then I can compare against something better than the Corsair AX1200i I'm now using....I can say that the sound at this moment is stupid good, a couple of weeks ago I had a small audio gathering and some attendees that are heavy into seriously good Vinyl systems were baffled at how much mid range and top end detail there is... the bass definition, control and range simply blew them away.

At the same note; I;ve been listening to some really good Vinyl recently and am finally caving in....I want to be able to play first pressing mono stuff and some first pressing stereo stuff...it has something to it that is uncanny.

 

[MarcelNL]

@ASRMichael Did you bend them (heatpipes) around something round or simply free hand? I am planning to push them over something round with my fingers, hoping to keep the inside diameter intact.

 

[MarcelNL]

I recently went from 1 to 2 8pin EPS cables and it's well worth it, DIY-ing EPC cables is easy enough, the ATX is a pain!

[MarcelNL]

higher speed? Believe mine are 2666 those are 3200 

I'm not clear if higher mem speed does anything for SQ, 

[MarcelNL]

I suspect that the CPU temperature is more important to know, if the case only gets a tiny percentage of the heat produced by the CPU the CPU may run blistering hot while the case stays cool. (not saying that is the fact as I have plenty of faith in Taiko).

Or am I missing something in that theory?

[MarcelNL]

yeah I get that! I was just curious, perhaps the CPU temp can be read through the software, Daphile shows me the Xilinx card temperature, the CPU temp and some other temp readouts I always forget what they are.

[MarcelNL]

@Dev I read the pecs for the H5 2nd gen hdplex case as 95TDP, which in my case is not enough anyhow, is that 65W from a previous iteration perhaps?

[MarcelNL]

perhaps we can put some numbers to the discussion about heat;

 

I'm running a Ryzen 9 3900X on a bog standard heat sink with fan, using a manual fan scheme to keep RPM down, CPU at max speed Normal voltages, CPU temp is hovering around 60'C. (No discernable bad effect from that temperature although going over 60'C seems to affect sound quality with things going a bit mushy)

 

Hoping to know more about what passive cooling does, and at what temp I end up later this week.

 

 

[MarcelNL]

HIGHLY appreciated! Muchos Gracias!

 

I am going to test fly one heatsink first, rated @ 300W, first finding me a router bit to make a nice 6mm groove in it....MB will be mounted on a wooden board for POC to see if I need one or both heatsinks. 

 

 

[MarcelNL]

I don't think that is installed in the Extreme W LTSC build, and I can easily see anyone with that machine to be hesitant to go install third party stuff on it.

[MarcelNL]

@ASRMichael You need convection for those heatsinks to properly function, did you try without the fan but with no shelves under and over the computer case, like putting it on 5 cm or so feet/cones?

 

I manipulated some gear inside my current computer case and it makes 5'C of a difference already, just trying to create a logical unimpaired pathway for the air to rise up.

[MarcelNL]

So far everything what I read/see Taiko doing makes perfect sense, to me the best way to assess changes is a minimalist approach that allows isolating the effect of the change just made. For me the answer is;  'full paranoia (or OCD) options 'on'!

 

(which causes the problem you are surely familiar with, getting inundated with iterations, and ending up with truckloads of material)