Building a DIY Music Server

[RickyV]

12 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

Yes of course. But it is not an ECC RAM. I attach great importance to cooling, because I run a fanless PC and the lowest latencies.

 

DOMINATOR® PLATINUM 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 DRAM 2400MHz C10 memory kit

I thought that the consensus was that Apacer wide temperature industrial  ram was the best sounding. Acknowledging by many.

[MarcelNL]

30 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

Yes of course. But it is not an ECC RAM. I attach great importance to cooling, because I run a fanless PC and the lowest latencies.

 

DOMINATOR® PLATINUM 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 DRAM 2400MHz C10 memory kit

pls tell me the lighting comes off....I don't want any noisy LED's in that place in my computer build if I can avoid it... 

[lmitche]

1 hour ago, MarcelNL said:

pls tell me the lighting comes off....I don't want any noisy LED's in that place in my computer build if I can avoid it... 

StreamFidelity is right, the Corsair Platinum memory is excellent, but the 2400mhz model is no longer manufactured. It's strength is the high quality Samsung B-die modules used to achieve low latency performance. These same modules are used in the Apacer memory that Nenon introduced to this forum.

 

Take a look at my project list where amongst other topics you can find links to other B-die options from a variety of manufacturers besides Apacer and Corsair:

 

I agree with your thinking about the bling RGB lighting. Thankfully you can find many dark modules as well.

[Exocer]

On 12/14/2020 at 9:30 AM, StreamFidelity said:

 

I also consider low latencies to be a key to increasing SQ. The setting in the ASIO USB driver depends on the sample rate. With DSD 256, 32 samples can be specified as the lowest buffer. Then it is 1.18 ms input latency and 1.50 ms output latency for USB.

 

With LatencyMon the process latency can be measured. I have measured the sensationally low value of 12.20 µs = 0.0122 ms since using the XILINX Solarflare Flareon Ultra SFN8522 PCIe card.

 

 

My tips:
- Check the process latency with every change. Disturbing drivers are displayed with LatencyMon. A driver update usually helps.
- Select and configure everything that transports data according to low latencies (CPU, USB, Ethernet, RAM, SSD, etc.)
- Disable unnecessary processes

I'm not sure if you've already covered this,but, have you had a chance to compare the Xilinx to an audiophile network card? What were the tonal differences if any? Cheers

[StreamFidelity]

6 minutes ago, Exocer said:

I'm not sure if you've already covered this,but, have you had a chance to compare the Xilinx to an audiophile network card? What were the tonal differences if any?

I compared it to the JCAT NET Femto Card.

 

Sound description XILINX Solarflare Flareon Ultra SFN8522 PCIe card:

 

The sound is just addicting. A sensational speed. Flamenco or drums are a real delight. This clarity and accuracy of the notes are the best I have heard so far. The separation of instruments is outstanding, combined with an excellent spatiality. And the whole thing garnished with a beautiful flow of music without any sharpness. Despite the high resolution, voices have a nice melt and the bass is physical and precise.

[Nenon]

54 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

I compared it to the JCAT NET Femto Card.

 

Sound description XILINX Solarflare Flareon Ultra SFN8522 PCIe card:

 

The sound is just addicting. A sensational speed. Flamenco or drums are a real delight. This clarity and accuracy of the notes are the best I have heard so far. The separation of instruments is outstanding, combined with an excellent spatiality. And the whole thing garnished with a beautiful flow of music without any sharpness. Despite the high resolution, voices have a nice melt and the bass is physical and precise.

 

What switch are you connecting it to? And what transceivers are you using? 

We should find a good sounding 10G switch and try different AOC cables. 

[MarcelNL]

I recall reading something about that in the Taiko Extreme thread at WBF.

[jean-michel6]

22 hours ago, MarcelNL said:

am comparing the two, and with somewhat surprising, well baffling rather,  results. 

All fairly quick comparisons (30 sec or so, with not more than 5-10 sec between them), done using the same track by the late Johnny Cash, 'unearthed' track 14 (alternate take) of 'down there by the train'

Thank’s for these very interesting results .

 

If I understand well you did get the best sound quality with music files streamed from the optane drive , correct ? 
If yes it means it is even better than music buffered and then streamed from ram ! 

Ideally then instead of buffering to ram it will be nice if we could buffer to the optane drive . 
 

Can I ask how did you managed to transfer music files to the optane drive ?

[MarcelNL]

11 minutes ago, jean-michel6 said:

Thank’s for these very interesting results .

 

If I understand well you did get the best sound quality with music files streamed from the optane drive , correct ? 
If yes it means it is even better than music buffered and then streamed from ram ! 

Ideally then instead of buffering to ram it will be nice if we could buffer to the optane drive . 
 

Can I ask how did you managed to transfer music files to the optane drive ?

you are right, I listened to the file from Optane comparing to Ramdisk and comparing Optane to SSD. Optane outperformed all options.

 

Moving files was simpler than I anticipated (as was mounting the drive in Daphile and moving the OS, all was almost automatically, all the better as my linux skills are those of a 4 year old), recall all I had to do was select 'music'as type of usage and ticking R/W and 'share'.

 

Once the drive is mounted/installed using the Daphile file manager it's a matter of copy pasting folders or files to the free partition of the Optane drive, and sitting back amazed seeing how fast the file moves (actually faster than noticeable). The Optane drive has three partitions, one is free (12 or so Gb out of the 14.x that is available on a 16Gb).

 

While I'm typing I'm listening to Underworld Drift CD1 from Optane, sounds sweet, great intro for another lockdown. 

[MarcelNL]

just to clarify, this is not my discovery, I just wanted to hear the difference if any for myself and judge the order of magnitude.

 

[jean-michel6]

51 minutes ago, MarcelNL said:

Once the drive is mounted/installed using the Daphile file manager it's a matter of copy pasting folders or files to the free partition of the Optane drive, and sitting back amazed seeing how fast the file moves (actually faster than noticeable). The Optane drive has three partitions, one is free (12 or so Gb out of the 14.x that is available on a 16Gb).

Thank’s for this info . 
I will try it tomorrow and report results . 

[jean-michel6]

I did managed to copy some music files on the optane drive as you said it is very easy . 
i will do the listening tomorrow.

If it is clearly a sound quality improvement we may be could ask the developer Kimmo to put that as an option .

Either buffer to ram or music internal drive ! 
Great 

[MarcelNL]

7 minutes ago, jean-michel6 said:

I did managed to copy some music files on the optane drive as you said it is very easy . 
i will do the listening tomorrow.

If it is clearly a sound quality improvement we may be could ask the developer Kimmo to put that as an option .

Either buffer to ram or music internal drive ! 
Great 

Life is too short to wait until tomorrow ;-)

 

I was indeed thinking about asking for that option, but without havin to click an icon, just a tick box 'copy all local files to drive X and play from there'

[jean-michel6]

I am in bed :-) .... but my system is running because I am burning in some mundorf cabling ( by the way this is also a true sq lift ! ) .

 

If several of us are asking Kimmo , he may do it ! 

[MarcelNL]

I need to get me some Mundorf wire, I am a big Neotech fan but I hate the insulation used on it....Jupiter wire is also nice.

[Exocer]

Just now, jean-michel6 said:

I am in bed :-) .... but my system is running because I am burning in some mundorf cabling ( by the way this is also a true sq lift ! ) .

 

If several of us are asking Kimmo , he may do it ! 

It truly is! Currently using it within my modded Buffalo, SJ DC3 DIY dual rail build, and connectivity between the DC3 and ER/Buffalo, and connecting the HDPLEX DC-ATX and motherboard "24" pin. 

[jean-michel6]

1 minute ago, MarcelNL said:

I need to get me some Mundorf wire, I am a big Neotech fan but I hate the insulation used on it....Jupiter wire is also nice.

I was also in neotech copper ( heavy gauge ) , the mundorf is really a big sq lift over the neotech.

[StreamFidelity]

17 hours ago, Nenon said:

What switch are you connecting it to? And what transceivers are you using? 

 

I use the Startech 1000BASE-EX SFP -SM LC-40 KM transceiver for this.

 

The connection is:

Router -> 11GTek (10GTek with Sellarz Clock) -> XILINX Solarflare Flareon Ultra SFN8522 

 

For more details: 

 

[MarcelNL]

switches and routers are my next battleground...thanks for sharing ! (also for the clocks, as the PF clock is too expensive to tinker with)

[MarcelNL]

see what I found in my tinker stash:

(sorry for the head tilting

 

[MarcelNL]

I hate it when yet another rabbit hole beckons me ;-)

 

[MarcelNL]

WOW Mouser delivered the Apacer RAM today after ordering it a couple of days (shipping from TX) does anyone have thought on RAM breaking in? It just arrived, sits in the computer with a track on repeat. 

I imagine that heating up tp normal operating temp does something, but anything beyond that?

 

EDIT:also, does anyone have thoughts on the amount of RAM? enough is enough and more adds noise or is it never enough? (I came from 64Gb now 8, which is plenty for Daphile, it shows I have 7Gb free memory)

 

 

Plan on listening tonight...

[OAudio]

21 minutes ago, MarcelNL said:

 

 

EDIT:also, does anyone have thoughts on the amount of RAM? enough is enough and more adds noise or is it never enough? (I came from 64Gb now 8, which is plenty for Daphile, it shows I have 7Gb free memory)

 

 

 

Hi MarcelNL,

 

The most important thing when deciding how much memory to install is how many DIMMs are needed to have one DIMM per CPU memory controller / channel. For instance on a c621 motherboard there are usually 6 memory controllers / channels so 6 DIMMs are needed. For an X99 / X299 there are usually four controllers / channels so 4 DIMMs. Etc.

 

Best to look at your motherboard manual to work out how to populate the physical slots so as to use all available controllers / channels (physical DIMM sockets on motherboards may not nessasarily be mapped one to one to a cpu controller / channels).

 

Otherwise within reason keep the capacity of individual DIMMs low 2 or 4 GB per stick seems OK.

 

OAudio.

[MarcelNL]

1 minute ago, OAudio said:

 

Hi MarcelNL,

 

The most important thing when deciding how much memory to install is how many DIMMs are needed to have one DIMM per CPU memory controller / channel. For instance on a c621 motherboard there are usually 6 memory controllers / channels so 6 DIMMs are needed. For an X99 / X299 there are usually four controllers / channels so 4 DIMMs. Etc.

 

Best to look at your motherboard manual to work out how to populate the physical slots so as to use all available controllers / channels (physical DIMM sockets on motherboards may not nessasarily be mapped one to one to a cpu controller / channels).

 

Otherwise within reason keep the capacity of individual DIMMs low 2 or 4 GB per stick seems OK.

 

OAudio.

splendid! thanks!

 

I checked the MB and it seems it has 2 channels and the manual says to populate slot 1 and 2 when using 2 sticks. I have done so. Should be OK!

 

' Dual Channel Memory Configuration This motherboard provides four memory sockets and supports Dual Channel Technology. After the memory is installed, the BIOS will automatically detect the specifications and capacity of the memory. Enabling Dual Channel memory mode will double the original memory bandwidth. The four memory sockets are divided into two channels and each channel has two memory sockets as following: Channel A: DDR4_2, DDR4_4 Channel B: DDR4_1, DDR4_3

Due to CPU limitations, read the following guidelines before installing the memory in Dual Channel mode. 1. Dual Channel mode cannot be enabled if only one memory module is installed. 2. When enabling Dual Channel mode with two or four memory modules, it is recommended that memory of the same capacity, brand, speed, and chips be used. For optimum performance, when enabling Dual Channel mode with two memory modules, we recommend that you install them in the DDR4_1 and DDR4_2 sockets.

 

[OAudio]

Try 1 dimm per channel and then 2 just to check out any sound quality change.

 

Often the extra dimm on a channel dosent add anything or makes sound a little worse, but that might not be the case with your board 😉