Building a DIY Music Server

[auricgoldfinger]

2 minutes ago, atxkyle said:

 

The entire NUC (including the SSD) is powered with a SR7T 19V

 

There was a time when some people were using external disk enclosures powered by a separate LPSU.  IIRC, the external enclosure was connected by USB.  Perhaps the second LPSU powering the external disk is key here.

[auricgoldfinger]

In case anyone is looking to pick up some discounted storage:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RK2SR23/?coliid=I31D3R5SE7P2SZ&colid=1O2O3N2HH23ZK&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

 

Amazon Prime Day deal

[auricgoldfinger]

6 minutes ago, Peter Avgeris said:

Without any intention to conflict your statements, it would be good to know that the choke input solution for designing power supplies is the most simple path you can follow on order to absolutely ruin the sound of your active stage. It may take you one minute, hour, day, year or whatever in order to realize that choke input design is your warranty to sound devastation. 

 

Is there a problem with your website?  The link in your signature doesn't work for me.

[auricgoldfinger]

41 minutes ago, Dev said:

 

for a regular straight cable, yes but Shunyata has some noise cancellation trick (in that cylindrical thing) up their sleeves which can't be DIY'ed. Now weather that makes a difference in your system or not is another story and unless you try you won't know.

 

 

 

 

 

I wouldn't be surprised to find magnets inside those cylinders.

[auricgoldfinger]

15 minutes ago, Nenon said:

I am extremely busy and have very little time for DIY these days. A lot of people reached out to me about the unregulated LPS.

 

Were you unable to find someone who would build the unregulated LPS for $500 labor plus parts as you had hoped at one time?

[auricgoldfinger]

@Superdad I am using these optical HDMI cables in my home theater setup and like them a lot.  They may be overkill for what you are doing, but I thought you might be interested nonetheless.  Note that one end must be plugged into a USB port to power the cable.

 

https://fibercommand.com/products/ultravision-hdmi-fiber-optic-cable

[auricgoldfinger]

I haven't seen such a big shootout in quite awhile.  :)

[auricgoldfinger]

1 hour ago, di-fi said:

I find it really frustrating that for North American market many solutions do not seem to exist, as far as I understand. GigaWatt circuit breakers are even built by Carling (USA).   Christiaan Punter on HFA, hifi-advice.com  (Netherlands) explored many interesting solutions that, again as far as I understand, only comply with European code.

 

https://www.hifi-advice.com/blog/hfa-audio-setup-snapshots/main-system-january-2022/

https://www.hifi-advice.com/blog/review/accessories-reviews/gigawatt-part-1/

 

Doepke DFS2 Audio Grade Differential Switch

 

 

GigaWatt LC-Y EVO cable, G-C16A Circuit Breaker

 

 

Siemens Sitor Cylindric Fuse Cartridge with standard silver-plated fuse for live and solid silver rod for neutral

 

 

You can buy this Gigawatt breaker for the North American market:

 

https://www.gigawatt.eu/produkt/circuit-breaker-gigawatt-g-16a-2p/

 

I think the cost is in the $350-400 range.

 

[auricgoldfinger]

The way I see it, everyone here and at WBF who is predisposed against the QSA Lanedri cables due to price, voodoo technology, or similar offenses will simply claim any new positive user reviews are a result of mass psychosis or expectation bias or whatever.  So, everyone gets to feel good about themselves for being right no matter the actual outcome!

[auricgoldfinger]

12 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

Why has nobody brought up the possibility (likelihood) that the QSA "process" is a cryogenic treatment?  
There are many variations of such and if done correctly it is highly audible and effective. Long ago I worked with a firm specializing in it. They offered their services and proprietary process (rate of cooling, final coldest temp., how long at that temp., then how long and rate of bringing back up to room temp.) to golf club manufacturers, cutting tool makers, drum kit cymbal and drum head/rim assemblies, and to audio manufacturers. It was great, but when done on cables (or capacitors) with Teflon insulation, it would double or triple the already exceedingly long time that Teflon takes to "burn-in."

 

I have had vacuum tubes treated cryogenically and used cryogenically treated wire in DC cables.  There is no question the vacuum tubes benefited from it in a positive way.  The QSA treatments are giving results on an entirely different level.  While that may be a part of the process, I believe there is more to it.

 

In regard to questions about longevity, has anyone ever heard complaints of cables treated with high voltage (such as those made by Synergistic Research, among others) losing their performance?  I have not.  I raise the question because most people (including myself) are assuming that sort of treatment is part of the QSA process.

[auricgoldfinger]

21 minutes ago, di-fi said:

I think no one who is trying to be open minded should be predisposed due to price or « voodoo » technology (or maybe let’s call it a process we do not understand right away). This would not be happening the first time in (high end) audio. Maybe one can try to understand what is going on first before jumping to conclusions?
That’s usually what’s happening here at AS I thought ;-)

 

I guess my reading comprehension skills have deteriorated because I'm not seeing much open-mindedness in this discussion.

[auricgoldfinger]

1 hour ago, di-fi said:

Since you asked the question, not sure you are interested, but for everyone else:

 

(...) I guess most are familiar with the fable of the Philosophers Stone…..essentially the tale of the ancient Alchemists’ search for a stone (ingredient) that would turn base metals into Gold. Well apparently QSA-Lanedri have found the audiophile equivalent, which I believe is worthy of some discussion. (...)

 

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/qsa-lanedri-and-the-audiophile-version-of-the-philosophers’-stone.36426/

 

This argument applies to every high end audio component out there.  Maybe you are not regularly exposed to them.  All of these companies routinely release the best ever, completely revolutionary product to replace their previously best-in-class offering which was the best ever, completely revolutionary product.  None of them are disclosing their IP beyond some meaningless marketing jargon.  The BOM for a typical $20K speaker cable is probably no more than $2-3K, and you are only given vague descriptions of wire, gauge, dielectric, etc.  I have been told on more than one occasion that even AWG is proprietary information.  QSA Lanedri has disclosed exactly what they are using for the Gamma series.  Not all of those cables are inexpensive.  Perhaps you should price the BJC XLRs, for example.  The Spectra series specs are protected by Sablon, but at least you know who is supplying the power cord.  In this sense, QSA Lanedri has actually disclosed more information than comparable manufacturers. 

 

As @Dev said, all the discussion about the QSA technology is baseless speculation, especially considering the most vocal critics appear to have no intention of trying a cable.  How can they accurately assess something of this nature without having any first-hand experience? 

[auricgoldfinger]

1 hour ago, drjimwillie said:

You have to love all of this excitement.  
We really are a bunch of kids and finding out that Santa Claus might really exist is exciting. 
 

finding out how this stuff works is one thing but, the other thing is finding out where you fit into it personally. 
 

I am in to DIY because I cannot afford these Uber expensive products but, overtime with a lot of sweat equity. Maybe I will get close. 
 

The comment that stuck out to me, the most was that by using the QSA LAN cable and the QSA LAN Jitter made the inexpensive product sound like the Uber expensive product. When I looked at the prices of the QSA products, I realized that they are out of my reach, except for some of the fuses and maybe the LAN cable??  But my gut feeling is that all of the other treated cables were already in the system before the LAN cable was added??  And the effect was cumulative. Thinking like a scientist, how is this even possible? I can understand power cables, and signal cables, all working toward the instantaneous supply of power to the speakers, but the LAN cable?? I do own a Sablon audio ethernet cable, so I can someone understand. 
But, what is this QSA LAN Jitter, I cannot find any information on it. 
 

Would I even know the difference if I heard it. Sometime, I don’t know if what I am hearing is confirmation bias, or if it is real. I trust all of you and I learn from your experiences and I try to replicate what you do. Sometimes I just trust.  
 

Now onto things that I can somewhat understand.  Last night I improved the grounding to my main panel, and I believe it improved the sound.

 

I have (2) 6AWG cables running 220V from a 60 amp breaker (6AWG ground in a separate conduit), to a 115 pound powersure 800 transformer which drops the 220 V down to 110V, the power from the transformer runs 5 feet to my custom plug mold with Hubble industrial outlets, which have (2) 10AWG hot and (2) 10 AWG Neutral, and a  10 AWG ground, to each duplex outlet. 
 

I have never liked the way my main electrical panel was grounded. It has a good size ground connected to the Watermain. It has a 8AWG wire, connecting to a ground rod, and then to the gas hook up.  It has always seemed undersized to me.
 

now, a slight glimpse into the psychosis of an audiophile. 
Background story: the other day my daughter dropped her earbud down the drain of the sink in the only bathroom that I have not remodeled. When I took the trap off it disintegrated. I have now been back to the plumbing store three times as each piece of plumbing I have touched has disintegrated. With a bathroom, full of tools and supplies, my wife said to me, why don’t you call a plumber, you hate plumbing. All of us DIY people know the Folly and pain of such a comment Ha ha. The bright side is that during one of my trips past the electrical supply house I bought a 10 foot copper ground rod, and some 6AWG wire. Once again, not able to continue my plumbing project because the tool I purchased to remove the drain did not fit into it, I was at a standstill. When my wife suddenly left the house to go to a dentist appointment, I grabbed my large right angle drill and drilled a hole through the foundation. I did not want to deal with the questions that would have been asked from all of that noise I was making. 
 

I hooked up the ground and went to listen to some music.

 

It sounded more immediate. The dynamics sounded better. The base sounded more dimensional. Was I imagining it? Was it confirmation bias? I don’t know. I was excited and I liked it. 
This brings me back to the point I made earlier, where I’ll trust all of you. Because I am not sure if I can trust my own ears.

 

I could go back to the panel and disconnect the ground, but it was a bit difficult to install, and I am not sure if what ever nasty’s were dissipated would immediately accumulate again?

 

I will run another ground cable out to the existing ground rod. I am not sure if I should hook the two ground rods together? Or if I should daisychain another ground rod to the new one I put in?

 

I have to trust my own ears, because I do not have any friends to give a rats ass about my stereo system.  It is a bit of a quandary.
 

this brings me back to the QSA, I bought one of their fuses and I liked it over my stock fuse. I trust what the others here are hearing in their systems. 
 

I don’t want to be product bashing with this next question, but where I start to lose some of my confidence in QSA is when they put jewels on the outside of their receptacles. 
Does anyone have any idea how these jewels could be contributing to the product?

 

 

If possible, use 0 AWG wire to your main ground rod.  Also, the thicker the ground rod, the better (at least 3/4").  You might want to consult an electrician before connecting your existing ground rods to be sure you are code compliant and are not creating an electrical hazard.  That said, you can improve grounding performance by connecting multiple ground rods.  They have to be something like 5' or 6' apart from each other (at a minimum).  I'm sure you can find some good resources online.  I don't have any handy.

 

The QSA jewels tune the sound.  Synergistic Research has a similar product (https://www.synergisticresearch.com/isolation/accessories/carbon-tuning-disks/)  It sounds hokey, but people can hear a difference when used in the right places (which varies by system and component).  I have no idea how or why they work.

 

[auricgoldfinger]

If anyone is looking for some good cables, see my listings here: