Building a DIY Music Server

[Marcin_gps]

On 7/5/2022 at 5:56 PM, RickyV said:

nice products Marcin.

So what will be the options then for cpu cooling? 

Thanks. Noctua has some nice heatsinks that can work passively. 

 

On 7/5/2022 at 6:06 PM, NewOldman said:

any measurement for the chassi

what MB is it made for,
ATX or SSI EEB

I will post exact dimensions later, but it's Full ATX. So who wants to build on Asus Sage motherboard, should look at Taiko enclosure. The idea behind JCAT enclosure was that it works in tandem with OPTIMO S ATX PSU. I know for a fact that the OPTIMO S ATX works fine powering 2x Xeons, but I can guarantee and recommend only single processor motherboards and CPUs within 95W TDP and those do not need hefty cooling. 

 

On 7/6/2022 at 4:01 PM, Nenon said:

 

Marcin - please share more details as those become available. That will be a neat solution for those using the JCAT ATX power supply as it will be matching cases it seems like. 

 

Exactly. That is the plan. 

 

Best regards, 

Marcin

[Marcin_gps]

Sth new for DIY crowd from JCAT:

 

BUILD YOUR OWN OPTIMO POWER SUPPLY.

The linear power supply module that is used in our award-winning OPTIMO 3 DUO power supply now availalble to skilled DIY audiophiles.

 

https://jcat.eu/product/optimo-diy/

 

 

 

[Marcin_gps]

58 minutes ago, Exocer said:

This looks particularly nice for those who need smaller builds. I’m looking to replace my Keces P3 (on router and modem duty) and this may very well be what I go with. Will sync up with you about which transformer you recommend.

 

Here is a document with detailed instructions: https://jcat.eu/OPTIMO_DIY_MODULE_manual.pdf

[Marcin_gps]

15 hours ago, MarcelNL said:

I'm using the Femto NVME so for the OS I'm covered, it's just that I was looking for larger storage for music files and started going through some options amongst which I found a couple 'military grade' pSLC and that got me started...

Not all pSLC drives sound good. I have an APRO pSLC drive which cost me $750 / 512GB and it sounds really bad. 

 

Just my 2 cents. 

 

Marcin

 

 

[Marcin_gps]

1 minute ago, di-fi said:

I can only imagine, like with MLC & LTC drives, one can hear differences. But pSLC seems in general a better performer.
I am just wondering why one would need a 512GB or 320GB (which I suspect for Revelation Audio SSD is 1GB in pSLC) size drive for only the OS?

They make them in that size, but half the size costs half less and so on. A 80GB or 120GB should be plenty for only OS. I read somewhere that smaller is even better in pSLC. It will become available soon I am sure, as we see with APACER (discussed above) available in smaller sizes.

There was a time users had great results with SD cards mounted in PCI slots, remember? Today Kingston makes pSLC SD cards for under 20$ ;-), so I am hopeful for the smaller NVMe pSLC.
 

Some people use their PCs for other tasks than music playback and then the storage size becomes important. 

 

The relation of size / sound quality is mainly due to power requirements. 

[Marcin_gps]

22 minutes ago, di-fi said:

Would be fair to APRO and interesting if you could put the bad sound on a scale as ZZxyz did in the SSD comparison spider chart.

You compared to what? The Revelation maybe? with or without external power supply?

 

I compared to Apacer SLC which killed it. There is no point in using a scale in this case

[Marcin_gps]

14 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

Positive reviews of JPLAY for iOS (UPnP Control Point) were found on quite a few threads

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/67399-jplay-for-ios/

https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/jplay-for-ios-and-ipados-review-r1213/

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/66785-jplay-ios-app-world-premiere/

http://jplay.eu/forum/index.php?/topic/5138-jplay-ios-app-world-premiere-event/

https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/bits-and-bytes/jplay-for-ios-is-now-available-r1162/

 

It's hard to understand why we would even bother with any mobile devices at home (as a remote control that is) unless they're completely blocked from accessing the Internet

 

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/android-sends-20x-more-data-to-google-than-ios-sends-to-apple-study-says/

 

Pretty much the same deal with the desktop flavors, the gift that keeps on giving?

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/269797/stop-criticizing-apps-for-phoning-home.-instead-ask-why/

 

Either switch to Win11PE without any kinda telemetry whatsoever, or go for one of those reasonably "clean" Linux distros then?

 

---

 

http://upnp.org/resources/documents/UPnP_AV_tutorial_July2014.pdf

https://www.a-knowledge.eu/av/crestron-sonos-and-spotify/

 

Here's the thing, could we really eliminate both UPnP Control Point and UPnP Media Server altogether if we're actually casting local files to UPnP Media Renderer directly?

 

https://github.com/alexballas/go2tv

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/go2tv

https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/mqu6r0/go2tv_cast_videos_to_upnpdlna_mediarenderers/

 

---

 

The remote device is used only as a 'remote', there are no music data between a remote device and a server/renderer.

 

Still, despite reducing network traffic to absolute minimum, the impact of network can be heard simply, because the network connection is active whether we send data or not. 

 

The solution you're proposing is no different than a classic UPNP server -> UPnP renderer approach. 

 

In my personal system I've now eliminated wifi completely. I'm running the JPLAY app on M2 Mac Mini which is connected to XACT S1 (switch) and the XACT S1 (switch) is conected to XACT S1 (server/player). 

 

Even though there is almost zero network traffic (few bytes of data every couple seconds) the difference in sound between control point connected by wifi and wired ethernet is clearly audible. And adding a network switch is, again, clearly audible which is quite significant in terms of SQ - even for files played directly on the server which is baffling. 

 

Everything in hi-fi 'plays' even though we may have no answers why. 

 

 

[Marcin_gps]

9 hours ago, di-fi said:

 

Finding wifi being worse than Ethernet cables, I realize your listening ritual must be a desktop experience to get the best out of the XACT S1.
That seems a significant compromise for whom prefer listening not from behind a desk.

Would a wired iPad (Pro M2?) with « wifi not connected »  have the potential to be comparable in SQ to the M2 Mac Mini to allow for a more flexible choice of listening position? 

 

My listening ritual is on a sofa with an iPad in my hands. To be able to 'see' XACT S1 in the home network again I have to connect one of the ethernet cables back. It's just for more critical listening I isolate my 'audio' network from my main home network by disconnecting the cable going to router from XACT S1 switch (this is possible once XACT S1 server/player and Mac get their IPs assigned by DHCP server running on the main router).

 

The first LAN cable on the right connects to router. It's not a big inconvenience.

 

[Marcin_gps]

On 8/21/2023 at 4:35 AM, di-fi said:

I am just curious because in your post you seem to suggest in your personal setup by disabling wifi and adding a XACT S1 (switch) you virtually eliminated all network noise resulting in better SQ even for files played directly on the server.
Control point - switch - server

 

Then you added disconnecting from the router besides not using wifi while only using a M2 Mac Mini to control the XACT S1 server over Ethernet, I get that. In that scenario I tried to suggest you could have the same control point with your iPad (wifi disconnected) over Ethernet to the switch with the advantage of controlling from your listening position instead.

In both scenarios no router and no wifi involved to virtually eliminate all network noise or is there a difference?

with iPad I still need the connection to main router (wifi). 

[Marcin_gps]

3 hours ago, Mops911 said:

@Marcin_gps any way to upgrade your xe usb card? ASUS has upgrade tool…

Here is the guide how to upgrade the firmware: https://www.inateck.com/blogs/news/asm3142-firmware-upgrade-operation-steps on the USB XE

 

The latest firmware download can be found here: https://www.station-drivers.com/index.php/en-us/component/remository/Drivers/Asmedia/ASM-1x4x-2x4x-314x2-3242-4242--...--and--107x-USB-3.x--and--USB-4.x-Controllers/Firmwares/ASM-114x-214x-314x-USB-3.1-Controller/orderby,2/page,2/lang,en-us/?Itemid=0

[Marcin_gps]

On 10/20/2023 at 10:06 PM, Mops911 said:

thanks much @Marcin_gps do you think it’s worthwhile?

The update is recommended for those with compatibility issues.