Building a DIY Music Server

[dminches]

The Taiko Audio Extreme is very expensive but when you start adding some of the top available power supplies for the mobo, EPS and cards, the cost of a DIY server is going to exceed 10k.  That isn't $25k but the gap continues to narrow.  I wouldn't be surprised if Nenon's dual Xeon setup will exceed 15k if he powers it with 2 Sean Jacobs DC4s.  

 

[ray-dude]

I did similar back of the envelope math before I purchased my Extreme. Of course, DIY allows you to calibrate how far you travel into the crazy pit, and to spread the pain over some period of time.  With Extreme, you are all in and liberated from decision making, but definitely at a price.  If you're willing and able to go all in, I think there is tremendous value in the Extreme (much more on that next week...).  I also tremendously appreciate the amazing work and insights folks are sharing here...there is so much to learn and to figure out!

[Aberrant-Decoder]

On 5/13/2020 at 6:54 PM, StreamFidelity said:

 

That's a good point. I think that low latencies are crucial. In a dual-PC system, data traffic must be optimized using Ethernet settings. JCAT gives its NET Card Femto a good manual.

 

There are also different ideas about the dual-PC system. Many says that the computing-intensive tasks (upsampling) are carried out in the 1st PC. The 2nd PC is only used as a low power system for rendering.

 

I'm goes the other way round. The music files and the music management (Roon Server) are in my 1st PC (Control PC). The power consumption is low and the server runs around the clock. It sends the data natively (without upsampling) to the 2nd PC (Audio PC). It runs in high power mode to give the HQPlayer enough computing power for the EC modulators and conversion to DSD. Everything else is switched off, especially the noisy SATA controller. It sounds fantastic and very analog. Just my subjective impressions.

Hi, I’ve put my music server and end point and remote control into a subset of their own, using a vigor 2920 router, but is there something more I can do to improve the Ethernet traffic / environment via configuration (without spending on cables or etherregen).

[ASRMichael]

7 hours ago, Aberrant-Decoder said:

Hi, I’ve put my music server and end point and remote control into a subset of their own, using a vigor 2920 router, but is there something more I can do to improve the Ethernet traffic / environment via configuration (without spending on cables or etherregen).

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.    

[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.

[ASRMichael]

1 minute ago, adamaley said:

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.

Yes, all setup. I'm actually using 4 VLANS, 1 for audio and 3 other for various IOT, I'm not using Roon, just Euphony. 

 

I'm working on Intervlan routing the now, I think I know what I need to do, but need to wait and see. 

[Aberrant-Decoder]

2 hours 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.    

My router has 4 output ports, each one of those is initially configured to a different subnet.  I chain that port to a netgear swtich and so all devices on that switch will be on the same subnet.  My server, endpoint and remote control are on the netgear switch and so they can only communicate with one another, or be interupted by each others traffic.

I know the router has an menu item for vlans, but im unclear as too whether this is a vlan, or just a subnet (or even what the difference between those two things is).

[ASRMichael]

50 minutes ago, Aberrant-Decoder said:

My router has 4 output ports, each one of those is initially configured to a different subnet.  I chain that port to a netgear swtich and so all devices on that switch will be on the same subnet.  My server, endpoint and remote control are on the netgear switch and so they can only communicate with one another, or be interupted by each others traffic.

I know the router has an menu item for vlans, but im unclear as too whether this is a vlan, or just a subnet (or even what the difference between those two things is).

I think that will work, however have a look at my profile and you will see my VLANs. For example;

 

I have 3 VLANS

 

VLAN 1  for audio

VLAN 10 for IOT (various items)

VLAN 12 for Normal PC and phone

 

So VLAN 1 is isolated from multi-cast/broadcasts, I use VLAN 12 for my phone, which can access VLAN 1, e.g can control Euphony Stylus, play and album then close the app. This result in less devices on my Audio VLAN, actually just my NAS & Server on VLAN. 

 

Can you post how your think your system

 

I'm no expert but this is what I've learnt in the last 3 months. 

[StreamFidelity]

13 hours ago, Aberrant-Decoder said:

but is there something more I can do to improve the Ethernet traffic / environment via configuration (without spending on cables or etherregen)

 

Look here:

 

On 5/31/2019 at 8:29 AM, AudioPhil said:

You can find the Computer Audio Best Practices Guide here: https://pdf.highend-audiopc.com/computer_audio_best_practices_guide.pdf

 

For example: Network Tuning. It's a very good guide. 👍

[Dutch]

Roon works as long as endpoint(s) and server are in the same VLAN (or subnet in a non VLAN’ed network). Control devices can be in a different VLAN but one has to manually enter the server’s IP address once in the Roon app.
 

I have it set up this way (using a modded Buffalo BS-GS2016 switch in L3 mode) and this works just fine as long as one creates the right routes everywhere they’re needed (all routers) so inter VLAN traffic is still possible and the Internet can be reached. This network segregation dramatically lowers the amount of multi- and broadcast traffic received by the devices on the separate VLAN. The bigger your network, the greater the reduction.

 

Only after I set it up this way I remembered Apple Airplay relies on multicast protocols (mDNS etc.) as well so I now no longer can stream to my iPad (it’s in a different VLAN as are all other Wifi devices) from my Roon server. No biggie in my case but perhaps good to note here. But even if it wasn’t because of the protocols used by Apple Airplay, Roon still doesn’t allow it. Many have requested this limitation (=endpoints and server need to be in the same subnet/VLAN) be dealt with by Roon but AFAIK they have not yet indicated they will address this some day.

[ray-dude]

1 hour ago, Dutch said:

Roon works as long as endpoint(s) and server are in the same VLAN (or subnet in a non VLAN’ed network). Control devices can be in a different VLAN but one has to manually enter the server’s IP address once in the Roon app.

 

@Dutch can you please speak more about this?  I'm experimenting with this currently (my Roon server on 192.168.4.x, my laptop and the rest of my home network on 192.168.3.x).  I ended up having to setup port forwarding for UDP 9003 to see the Roon server from my home network, and TCP 9100-9200 to actually be able to connect to it.

 

Looking at the Roon config screens, I'm not seeing anywhere obvious where one can manually enter a server's IP address?

 

I have not looked to setting up routing between networks (I have an EdgeRouter X).  I have a similar goal is to isolate the Roon server as much as possible from other network traffic

 

[Dutch]

@ray-dude,  There’s a “help” text you can press on the Choose your Core screen and then the option for manually inputting the Core IP address becomes available.

 

For isolation I’d go for the routed/VLAN approach. Port forwarding may perhaps work but is usually there for hosts you ‘hide’ behind NAT addresses so e.g. for forwarding traffic initially directed to a public Internet IP address+port to a private IP+port on your LAN. This is typically done by firewalls.

 

Unfortunately I’m not familiar with the EdgeRouter and it’s really really hard to help remotely in these type of cases as I don’t know what your network looks like and there’s just too many dependencies plus stuff to configure.
 

(I did not mention in my earlier post that you’d also need a DHCP server on each VLAN, a multihomed DHCP server/DHCP helpers in your router or work with static IP’s on each host.)

[Aberrant-Decoder]

2 hours ago, Dutch said:

@ray-dude,  There’s a “help” text you can press on the Choose your Core screen and then the option for manually inputting the Core IP address becomes available.

 

For isolation I’d go for the routed/VLAN approach. Port forwarding may perhaps work but is usually there for hosts you ‘hide’ behind NAT addresses so e.g. for forwarding traffic initially directed to a public Internet IP address+port to a private IP+port on your LAN. This is typically done by firewalls.

 

Unfortunately I’m not familiar with the EdgeRouter and it’s really really hard to help remotely in these type of cases as I don’t know what your network looks like and there’s just too many dependencies plus stuff to configure.
 

(I did not mention in my earlier post that you’d also need a DHCP server on each VLAN, a multihomed DHCP server/DHCP helpers in your router or work with static IP’s on each host.)

The “help” label only shows whenever no roon server is found.

i gave it a go but I wasn’t able to see the roon server from the iPhone remote as the roon server was on a separate subnet. So I presume I still need to configure the router to allow my iPhone to participate in both its default subnet but also the roon subnet.

[Dutch]

11 hours ago, Aberrant-Decoder said:

The “help” label only shows whenever no roon server is found.

i gave it a go but I wasn’t able to see the roon server from the iPhone remote as the roon server was on a separate subnet. So I presume I still need to configure the router to allow my iPhone to participate in both its default subnet but also the roon subnet.

That’s correct. Ray-dude also initially didn’t see the help label as his Roon server was found (he told me in a PM to not clutter this thread).

 

With routing (or layer 3 switching) the router forwards the traffic to the destiny VLAN so yes the router needs to know where it can find it. The router needs to become the default gateway for all hosts in your network and it itself needs a default gateway to the Internet/your Internet router. My Internet modem/router also needed a static route for the ‘music’ VLAN (pointing to the interface IP of the router in the music VLAN) as it itself is not a part of it.

[OAudio]

On ‎5‎/‎14‎/‎2020 at 10:47 PM, dminches said:

The Taiko Audio Extreme is very expensive but when you start adding some of the top available power supplies for the mobo, EPS and cards, the cost of a DIY server is going to exceed 10k.  That isn't $25k but the gap continues to narrow.  I wouldn't be surprised if Nenon's dual Xeon setup will exceed 15k if he powers it with 2 Sean Jacobs DC4s.  

 

 

I have been working on a C621 intel scalable processor system for about 3 years now.

This is emphatically not a

[OAudio]

Apologies for the post above, hit return before it was completed.

This is the post as intended.

 

 

 

These costs and the price of this server make me smile. I say this with real insight in the area, I have been developing a C621 Intel scalable processor system >3 years now (actually 7 years if you include the research on other audio servers that lead up to this c621 development).

 

The C621 server development has taken a long time because the decision was taken to research and develop key components from scratch where I wasn't happy with the design / sound quality performance purchased components. These are now fully developed PCB based designs. The process consumed literally 1000s of hours of design time and listening tests. Nothing was out of scope of examination and experimentation, there is real innovations in the build now. Interestingly this includes stuff that Taiko said they could not make work to give the highest level of sound quality performance. Here a particular component is developed and integrated into the server, done correctly it turns out to be exceptionally important to sound quality in c621 systems !

 

So is 29k necessary to obtain a c621 music server capable of top level sound quality, simple answer is no. I can say with confidence it really doesn't require the tick list of expensive unobtanium parts or casework that a tank could be parked on to achieve supreme sound quality. These items might be comforting to potential customers but with different design not needed for ultimate sound quality.

 

Back to the theme of the tread, its really good to see people getting round to using the c621 architecture as a base. Yes the costs are higher than other PC platforms but the they have absolutely magical sound quality potential. More people should consider jumping in.

 

OAudio

[Downtheline]

3 hours ago, OAudio said:

The C621 server development has taken a long time because the decision was taken to research and develop key components from scratch where I wasn't happy with the design / sound quality performance purchased components.

Are you selling something, or planning to? 

[Dev]

Has anyone built a system using the X570 yet ? All the motherboard seems to have the chipset fan except possibly the Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme which is quiet expensive. Wondering how much annoyance the fan is and how much it deter the sound quality ? Does the Bios has an option to turn it off ?

[rickca]

54 minutes ago, Dev said:

Does the Bios has an option to turn it off ?

The Asrock X570 Taichi BIOS revision 2.80 introduces 'optimize chipset fan curve'.

 

Although only the Aorus Xtreme has a passively cooled chipset heatsink, the other Aorus X570 boards apparently have built-in chipset fan profiles in the BIOS.  From Gigabyte:

In this BIOS you will find 3 profiles - Silent, Balance (default) and Performance. Balance and Performance will almost always have the fan spin, even at idle, without additional cooling directed at the PCH. If you have good airflow, or even a fan aimed at the PCH it's possible to cool the PCH to a level where the fan will stop. If you want the fan to be off during idle use the silent profile. Of course this is all dependent on airflow and ambient temperature.

 

There are probably X570 motherboards from other manufacturers with similar capabilities since this is a very common concern.  I'd just check with the vendor's support line if you have a specific motherboard in mind.

 

Any reason why you wouldn't consider an X470 board instead?

[Dev]

3 minutes ago, rickca said:

The Asrock X570 Taichi BIOS revision 2.80 introduces 'optimize chipset fan curve'.

 

Although only the Aorus Xtreme has a passively cooled chipset heatsink, the other Aorus X570 boards apparently have built-in chipset fan profiles in the BIOS.  From Gigabyte:

In this BIOS you will find 3 profiles - Silent, Balance (default) and Performance. Balance and Performance will almost always have the fan spin, even at idle, without additional cooling directed at the PCH. If you have good airflow, or even a fan aimed at the PCH it's possible to cool the PCH to a level where the fan will stop. If you want the fan to be off during idle use the silent profile. Of course this is all dependent on airflow and ambient temperature.

 

 

In our audio application the chipset/PCH is actually doing nothing, if you are using a JCAT net card and USB card on a direct CPU slot. There is no fan to be connected to any of the fan header, there is no sata drives, on board audio can be turned off, etc. So in reality and in our application, the chipset is redundant - offcoarse it does the primary boot up initialization but that's about it. The X570 power consumption is ~15watts as far as I remember but I am not sure if this is with the peripherals loaded or not. I just wished they had a way to turn the fan off when most of the sub-blocks are off.

 

10 minutes ago, rickca said:

There are probably X570 motherboards from other manufacturers with similar capabilities since this is a very common concern.  I'd just check with the vendor's support line if you have a specific motherboard in mind.

 

I will dig up some of the manual on Gigabyte and Asus which I am primarily interested in. I was hoping someone here has one of these to play with and can comment. Wishing thinking perhaps 🙂

[OAudio]

4 hours ago, Dev said:

 

In our audio application the chipset/PCH is actually doing nothing, if you are using a JCAT net card and USB card on a direct CPU slot. There is no fan to be connected to any of the fan header, there is no sata drives, on board audio can be turned off, etc. So in reality and in our application, the chipset is redundant -

 

 

 

I think this may be a misleading assumption about the role of the PCH.

 

What the PCH does is essential for sound quality and one of the key limiting / enabling factors in the quality of audio achieved by an Audio Server. This is regardless of the route chosen for USB and network connections (eg by On chip PCH or by PCIe expansion cards). 

 

To illustrate the point, I would suggest that pretty much one of the first sub-systems to look at when selecting a motherboard is the clock subsystem of motherboards PCH architecture. In most of the more recent PCH designs for, Intel at least, from the X99 PCH onwards, the clock generation for key the sub systems CPU, PCIe, Sata, CPU to PCH HSSI channels and in some cases USB and network connections are all generated and distributed across the motherboard by the PCH chip. This remains critically important to sound quality even if USB and network are handled by expansion cards.

 

I have highlighted clock subsystem above as one example of why the PCH matters but there are many more benefits for sound quality that PCH designs can deliver. As mentioned earlier at the moment the c621 architecture is in my opinion, by a large margin, the best available right now.

 

OAudio

 

Having said this, research and direct experience here is limited to Intel Chipsets so its not sure if AMD PCHs (X570) behave differently. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Downtheline]

2 hours ago, OAudio said:

As mentioned earlier at the moment the c621 architecture is in my opinion, by a large margin, the best available 

 

Have you compared the c621 to the c622 for audio quality?

[Dev]

2 hours ago, OAudio said:

 

 

I think this may be a misleading assumption about the role of the PCH.

 

What the PCH does is essential for sound quality and one of the key limiting / enabling factors in the quality of audio achieved by an Audio Server. This is regardless of the route chosen for USB and network connections (eg by On chip PCH or by PCIe expansion cards). 

 

To illustrate the point, I would suggest that pretty much one of the first sub-systems to look at when selecting a motherboard is the clock subsystem of motherboards PCH architecture. In most of the more recent PCH designs for, Intel at least, from the X99 PCH onwards, the clock generation for key the sub systems CPU, PCIe, Sata, CPU to PCH HSSI channels and in some cases USB and network connections are all generated and distributed across the motherboard by the PCH chip. This remains critically important to sound quality even if USB and network are handled by expansion cards.

 

I have highlighted clock subsystem above as one example of why the PCH matters but there are many more benefits for sound quality that PCH designs can deliver. As mentioned earlier at the moment the c621 architecture is in my opinion, by a large margin, the best available right now.

 

OAudio

 

Having said this, research and direct experience here is limited to Intel Chipsets so its not sure if AMD PCHs (X570) behave differently. 

 

 

 

 

 

You are actually correct in terms of operating environment. As I also hinted (without going into details) that it does primary boot up initialization but did not clarify it further. It indeed plays a key role, not only in terms of audio but also as in a x86 architecture. My concern was primarily on the power consumption side when it comes to audio application and the use of fan which creates adverse effect on audio quality. I assume one of the reason for heavy power consumption of X570 comes from the fact that it has several PCIe Gen 4 lanes. The more the speed the more it consumes.

[lmitche]

3 hours ago, OAudio said:

Having said this, research and direct experience here is limited to Intel Chipsets so its not sure if AMD PCHs (X570) behave differently.

Here is a two year old article discussing the difference between the Intel and AMD clock implementations.

 

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12678/a-timely-discovery-examining-amd-2nd-gen-ryzen-results

 

It is clear that the OS and BIOS configs have a big role in determining which clock is used. It looks like the industry is moving to TSC clocks onboard the processor chip.

 

My AMD motherboard running Audiolinux shows the TSC clock is used, which is a clock onboard the Ryzen 7 2700 processor chip, so the PCH is not used. In my case the PCH is disabled.

 

#cat /sys/devices/system/clocksource/clocksource0/current_clocksource
tsc

 

 

 

[OAudio]

2 hours ago, Downtheline said:

Have you compared the c621 to the c622 for audio quality?

 

 

I looked at specs of the versions of the c620 series at the time the platform was released. I tend to go with the principle that it good not to add things you don't need. The attached table summarises the differences in the family moving from the C621 to C629. The going from c621 to 622 adds 2x10G network and 8x PCIe uplink to the C621 capability, but I don’t need them so C621 was selected to avoid unused PCH complexity. As a side point I have also not had good SQ experience with 10G network cards for various reasons so this was another reason for going with the c621.

 

Having said all this I haven't physically tried the c622 so it may sound better but I am more than happy with the c621 performance.