Building a DIY Music Server

[MarcelNL]

6 hours ago, tiggerkater55 said:

ps: one appendix: do you use "normal" ssds via sata port, or is it better to use ssd via pci-e port?
thanks!

NVME is much better than SSD, and direct into the CPU. I can only recommend reading this whole (monster) thread as it contains a load of information!

 

[MarcelNL]

You likely want to use the highest power spec motherboard, and those high end gamer motherboards usually have the maximum nr of direct memory lanes. I upgraded the motherboard in my project three times, all with the same chipset and CPU and each upgrade in direct power phases resulted in a nice uptick in SQ. (of course there are other differences too, so no guarantee it's the power phases)

[MarcelNL]

issue is that it all matters, personally I'd rank it as following but that makes it n=1

 

CPU (more cores are better)

Direct power phases

RAM

Disk connection 

 

The good part is that gamers upgrade frequently so the market is pretty good for used high end motherboards and CPU's and you can cycle through them at low cost as you should be able to sell of the previous version. Or, and that is probably faster, buy once cry once and aim for the top end of what is in your price range (new or used).

 

 

[MarcelNL]

and it may help if you describe the setup ;-)

 

better power

using a second NVME, pref Optane for the OS then switch off SATA in BIOS

connecting all EPS connectors (unable to see if your Aorus board has a 4 or 8pin EPS)

Apacer ECC industrial RAM, for now try adding two sticks (somehow my MB liked 4 sticks better)

 

[MarcelNL]

4 minutes ago, VaG said:

Hello, I have 2. Kingstons as Nvme. I already have OS on one of them. I asume Optane is better? I use WD HDD 8T for music libary but is unfortanetly SATA. Few days ago, I've made AB test listening between music on WD HDD SATA and SSD NvMe. There was no audible diference. What should I use then for libary?

Which EPS connectors do you mean? Connect to what? 

 

Thx for reply. 

From recollection;  the Aorus Elite has a 4 pin power cable to the CPU (12V) that is the EPS, higher spec motherboards have more parallel wires like 2 4 pin EPS connectors.

 

NVME sounded better in my system when I was using the Aorus Elite, but the difference gets more clear when you shut down the SATA controller in BIOS.

Using an external linear PSU for the SSD helps, but NVME in a direct to memory M.2 slot sounds better, with SATA shut down.

 

 

[MarcelNL]

is it just me or is there a lot of room for improvement in that piece of kit?

 

[MarcelNL]

1 minute ago, Nenon said:

 

See my previous post. Reading your question was a trigger to write it. 

 

Imagine my friend's system that is completely off-the-grid and it's likely picking up some RF noise that impacts it and his TriPoint is helping dissipate that. I bet moving his system in the other room would have completely different RF problems to deal with. Move it to another block in the street, another neighbourhood, another city, another state, another country - it will be a lot different. No one can predict your environment. No one can answer your question accurately unless he or she comes to your room and try listening to your system with these cables plugged in or unplugged. A cable plugged on one end and loose on the other will act like antena. Will that be a problem for your system in your room? It may or may not be. The best advice I can give you is try to listen with the cables plugged in and unplugged. If you can't hear a difference, leave them. If you hear a difference, then decide what's higher priority for you - convenience or sound quality. 

some OS can be setup to disable unused things like video cards and USB ports, so you do not have to worry about them.

 

 

[MarcelNL]

14 minutes ago, Nenon said:

I moved to a new house earlier this year and I have been working on my new dedicated listening room. My equipment hasn’t changed much except for selling my Vinnie Rossi preamp and building a new tube-based preamp, which sounds a lot better. I have been working 8 months on this preamp and it gets better and better, but the initial design is not mine, so don’t ask me to share any details.

A lot of work has gone to my new room acoustics. I can count over 50 acoustic panels - approximately a third are bass traps, a third diffusers, and a third absorbers. I’ve done measurements but treating the room according to measurements did not sound as good as treating the room by ear. But also, every time I move my speakers (and listening sofa) I have to re-tweak the room treatment, and that brings a big improvement. In some cases I needed to make quite fundamental changes to the room treatment after moving the speakers.

On the power side, I have a 6AWG wire running from my dedicated circuit to my Sound Application TT-7. There are no power AC receptacles on the way. The wire goes to the circuit breaker on one end and there is a 20A Bocchino IEC terminated directly on the other end of the wire. The 20A IEC feeds my TT-7. My circuit breaker was sent to QSA in Hong Kong and was treated with the same technology that they use to treat their $5000 fuses. Yes, that made a difference if you are wondering, but that’s a topic for another post. 

My Taiko Extreme has been running for over 7 months, so it should be well burned-in by now. I have switched back to my DIY DAC, which is in 2 chassis and has 6-rails of DC4 LPS feeding the digital section. But I also accommodated some new improvements on the analog section that I discovered while doing R&D on my preamp. That DAC will likely be replaced next year with something else, but it’s a good fit for now. 

That’s where I am right now. It has been busy 8-9 months since I moved here. I have done a lot of work and a lot of changes. My system sounded very different every month. I kind of lost my long term reference, and I could only do real-time A/B comparisons. It was pretty much impossible to make a change and to know if that made my system better than it was let’s say a month ago. Things finally started to settle a few weeks ago. And for the first time this year I feel like I know my system well and started to establish a long-term reference again! This was also one of the reasons you haven’t seen many posts from me lately. Also, my room/system are overall much better sounding here in this new room than they were at my previous place. 

Since I stopped making big changes every week, and my system got even more resolving, I started to notice every change. My system sounded different on different days and times. That’s normal. Power quality is different, and I was sure that’s the main reason. What I also noticed was that when my system sounded worse, my digital was much more impacted than my analog. In other words, the delta between the best sounding time and the worse sounding time was much bigger for my digital than the same delta for my analog. On the best sounding days, my digital is mind-blowingly good, and I never turn on my turntable or reel 2 reel. But on the worst days, my digital sounds much flatter and more unengaging than usual. On these days I like to listen to vinyl and tapes. Don’t get me wrong, though – even on the worst days my digital sounds very good… but now that I have what to compare to, I am missing some of the magic I get on best days. 

Chicago power is not the best. My TT-7 fixes a lot of that. I’ve tried other solutions like the PS Audio PowerPlant P20, but I prefer the TT-7. So, when Emile announced that he is working on Taiko Battery Power Supply (BPS) for the Extreme, I decided not to worry too much about power fluctuations and wait for the BPS. Since my analog sounds very similar on bad days and good days, I thought lifting my digital rig off-the-grid and using batteries will be the way to go. 

There was a lot of posts about grounding on the Taiko thread on WBF. I kind of skipped those discussions and did not read most of them. We can go crazy on tweaks. One can spend an unlimited amount of time and money obsessing about every little thing. My focus is to get the fundamentals right – take care of the room and incoming power. I’ve tried some grounding boxes like the one Taiko used to make and the Synergistic Research grounding box, but they were not worth it in my system. And so, for me these things were a solution to a problem of equipment that does not have its grounding right. Well, at least that’s what I thought. 

Two days ago, we had a lot of rain in Chicago. I was experimenting with the cathode bias on the tubes of my preamp and discovered something that sounded really good. After a few A/B comparisons I settled on what sounded best and started listening. My system (digital) sounded so good, that my listening session continued for over 6 hours. All of a sudden, my tube equipment had very similar bass to the Gryphon amp I tried last year (which was not good enough to replace my tube monoblocks but it had amazing bass control). I realized I started to enjoy more bass guitar-heavy music, and that was the case when I was using the Gryphon. I did hear a very good improvement from the cathode bias changes but my digital (compared to the day before) just sounded better than the A/B I heard from the preamp change. I forgot about any of these changes and just enjoyed going from album to album and enjoying the music. Before going to bed, I wondered if the system would sound so good in the morning. I wondered if that was one of the days with exceptionally good power. 

Woke up on the next day (8 am on Thursday), made a cup of creamy espresso and went to my listening room. Started my system and even cold it sounded amazing. I thought – well, that new cathode bias upgrade must be really really good! I kept listening to music for another 3 hours and eventually needed to get up and start my (late) day. I had taken vacation time that week but still had some errands to do. And this is when a lightbulb went on in my head! It rained the whole day on Wednesday and most of the night leading to Thursday morning. But how can the rain affect the sound quality of my system? Maybe people in my area disconnect electronics to protect them from thunderstorms? Well, that would not explain the exceptional sound I got on Thursday between 8am and 11am (and pretty much the whole day) after the rain had stopped. That’s one of the day/times when my system typically sounds less engaging. But how about another explanation – I have a ground rod outside my house, and that amount of rain makes the soil super wet, which makes it more conductive, and essentially, we get less resistance to ground? That kind of makes sense, doesn’t it? I started thinking about other times when my system sounded better than usual and I remembered another rainy day. 

Time to make some calls. I called a friend in Chicago who listens to headphones. He has a very simple system – a Taiko Extreme and a Sennheiser HE-1. Without giving him any details, I asked him if he listened to music in the past 24 hours. He told me he was just listening to music when I called and told me how good his system sounded right now. A-ha!
His case is very interesting because he uses one of the big Stromtanks (battery supply) to power up the Extreme and HE-1. He always disconnects the Stromtank power cord while listening, so he is running off batteries, off-the-grid. He also disconnects the network sometimes, so noise cannot get even through his network. That really takes his system completely off-the-grid. He has a TriPoint grounding device. Even when he is listening completely off-the-grid, adding the TriPoint is a huge improvement for his system. I find this very interesting. The TriPoint is dissipating noise. There is no noise coming from the electrical grid. There is no noise coming from the network. There are basically no cables connecting to his system. What kind of noise is the TriPoint fighting? It must be either internal noise generated by his components or noise picked up from the air, or both. The TriPoint is connected to his power outlet utilizing the ground rod outside his house. If the impact of a heavy rain and reduced ground resistance makes such a difference for his off-the-grid system, then I must have really underestimated how important GROUNDING is! Fortunately, there is an easy solution for him. He just needs to install a dedicated ground rod for his TriPoint and do it right with enhanced soil, etc. He said that Miguel (TriPoint owner) had told him that a dedicated ground rod for him is more important than a dedicated power circuit. I would have had hard times believing this until now… but I am curious now! 

Back to my system. I did notice that I lost some of the magic on Wednesday night and that happened progressively throughout the day on Thursday and Friday. But my system is still sounding better than before Thursday, so my guess is that cathode bias upgrade is indeed as good as I thought. 

There are two takeaways from all of the above for me:
1.    A Battery-based solution only solves part of the problem.
2.    I will be experimenting with ground as I am convinced it’s worth it now. 
I made a joke with the Taiko team that I will be requesting a new feature for their XDMS software – a sprinkler control on/off button in XDMS (at least for the sprinklers around my ground rod outside). 

moisture does affect many aspects, not just ground...

shielding can do a lot too, I'm also moving into a new house (finally!) and am planning to treat the one wall behind my setup (and part of the ceiling and floor) with tin foil hat EMI shield grounded to the grid ground and planning to add a ground rod later (when the phono stage is finished).

 

O, and do not underestimate the effects of moving equipment around! takes weeks to settle!

 

[MarcelNL]

@Nenon forgot to congratulate you with the new home!

 

 

[MarcelNL]

On 12/23/2022 at 8:43 AM, Tubeman66 said:

This DC plug is recommended for DIY Cables made of billet copper/brass
in my opinion better than Oyaide,

 

VIBORG DC21G Jack DC 5.5/2.1mm Connector Gold Plated Ø9mm - Audiophonics

I wish they would make one without plating but I'll try this one as for sure the Oyaide is not worth it's price

[MarcelNL]

for those in for some experimenting I'd like to suggest putting  Sprague Vitamin Q on the menu for bypass..I'm currently using a 4uF 200Vdc version on the first cap of the ULPS and having some great results, stupidly good !

[MarcelNL]

and by all means DO bypass the bypass....especially on that first C, think exotics, the rarer and crazier the better it seems...

[MarcelNL]

I would not blame the Taiko ATX so soon, it's pretty solidly built. Did you check in with Taiko to hear their ideas on what the issue may be?

[MarcelNL]

do you power up the Mb with the U-LPSU? I usually wait a few seconds to allow the voltage to get up to speed....220.000 uF needs a bit of time to fill up

[MarcelNL]

4 hours ago, Gavin1977 said:

Finished diagnosis.  So it’s definitely my GPU that has failed, I guess a passive 1030 might still need some airflow… New one ordered.

 

It’s just shear bad luck that it failed at the same time as the Taiko ATX was installed.  I blamed the Taiko ATX initially because of the failure to boot, but the Taiko is actually fine - just that it’s needs 5mins being powered before you can attempt a boot (no such issues with the HDPLEX DC-DC).

 

Music on hold 😭

Bummer, it complicates troubleshooting ever so much when components that do not really matter fail...easy to overlook so good on you that you found the issue!

 

[MarcelNL]

2 minutes ago, Gavin1977 said:

When did this all kick off:

 

https://taikoaudio.com/shop/

 

New network switch and other stuff!

 

Even the DIY chassis is now back in stock in the DIY section.

 

 

A good while ago....over at WBF you cab keep up with developments by Taiko.

For now all that stuff is exclusively for Extreme owners.

[MarcelNL]

Lets bundle it with a port of xdms ;-)

[MarcelNL]

21 minutes ago, littlej0e said:

You rule! Just saved me hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Very much appreciated! 

Are you sure you can operate a regular TLC SSD in pseudo SLC?

Imo it's not that pseudo SLC needs 1/3 of the available space, you just have 1/3 left when operating in pseudo SLC.

 

 

 

[MarcelNL]

RAM is random access memory, aka the sticks that provide volatile memory in your computer.

 

SsD is Solid State Disc, which is memory that does not suffer from Alzheimer....

Pseudo SLC is a mode in which you use another SSD storage format way less efficuent but with a sonic advantage

[MarcelNL]

12 minutes ago, littlej0e said:

Understood. In that case, I can't confirm TLC can indeed be used in pseudo SLC mode. Also not sure about the penalties you speak of, but I haven't noticed any restrictions using my 16G RAM sticks in a 10/10/12 config (10G dedicated to RAM, 10G to ZRAM/a.k.a. ramroot/a.k.a swap, 12G free). 
 

I assume the fake Taiko (Faiko?!?) server I'm building will be more of the same. Obviously, 48G RAM will be supreme overkill, so I'll play around with the configs and see what sounds best. Given the direct PCIE bus access for both storage and boot drives, I do wonder if loading to RAM will actually sound better in this hardware configuration. 

I'm afraid we're miscommunicating...

 

RAM memory is neither TLC nor SLC afaik...

 

Loading to RAM likely sounds better since all the processing is done upfront

[MarcelNL]

2 minutes ago, Gavin1977 said:

Could try these new SLC SSD:  https://www.mouser.co.uk/ProductDetail/Swissbit/SFSA160GM2AK1TA-I-8C-11P-STD?qs=MyNHzdoqoQLUA8SQn5NJLg%3D%3D

 

Or, go for network boot to RAM and avoid an SSD all together (although I guess if you rambooted, e.g. like what Euphony does, then the SSD will be largely inactive anyway).

Interesting find!

 

Though it's pseudo SLC it's one of the few!

 

Booting to Ram works, yet in my system booting to Ram from the pSLC femto drive sounds better than from regular SSD.

for local files it'd be nice to have a pSLC a bit bigger than this one.

[MarcelNL]

Agree, check EVERYTHING, i ended up with two Taiko ATX modules....

 

Not a bad tbing as i plan to put both to use, I need to know what it brings...

[MarcelNL]

Using a Toroidy 500VA transformer and two Lundahl ll2273 chokes(off the top of my mind) I never had to wait for booting using an AMD R9 CPU .

These chokes are capable of 10A., I had them in common mode and in parallel, no difference

[MarcelNL]

Core saturation is another limitation

 

 

 

[MarcelNL]

He is willing, yet availability of core material is an issue.

He used his last cores and ordering new comes with a lead time of like a month or two.

It's probably best to group order to allow him to order enough in one go, he is a hobby coil winder and will not be able to keep much cores in stock, just in case.

 

I discussed the voltage drop with him and he explained it to me , the explanation sounded plausible but my knowledge of coil behaviour etc does not go far enough to fully grasp it....I'll reread and to convey it here later (do remind me as I'm in the middle of moving house)