Building a DIY Music Server

ASRMichael · January 12, 2021

6 minutes ago, matthias said:

I agree, this is the status of the current tech, maybe Emile is one step further with his DC-DC

SMPS.

But to have an unregulated LPS which outputs to an DC-DC SMPS is brilliant.

Matt

Or he hasn’t heard Sean Jacobs DC4! 😜

matthias · January 12, 2021

3 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

Or he hasn’t heard Sean Jacobs DC4! 😜

I can not imagine...

Matt

Nenon · January 12, 2021

The Taiko ATX has a separate +5V (4A) super low noise rail. We can easily compare that with SOTA LPS at different loads.

I have no doubts that a well designed dedicated LPS is the way to go for USB cards, network devices, DACs, etc. And that would be another variable in the DIY recipe that would have different options depending on the budget.

Exocer · January 12, 2021

@Nenonyou mentioned the need to use 1 EPS input or 2 depending on the motherboard used. Does the Asus C621 Sage most of us will be using require one or two EPS inputs with dual CPUs installed? Going to try and get a head start on cabling...

Nenon · January 12, 2021

22 minutes ago, Exocer said:

@Nenonyou mentioned the need to use 1 EPS input or 2 depending on the motherboard used. Does the Asus C621 Sage most of us will be using require one or two EPS inputs with dual CPUs installed? Going to try and get a head start on cabling...

It has 2 x 8-pin EPS connectors one 6-pin EPS connector and a 24-pin ATX connector.

But the entire motherboard has just a single 12V input. You can feed the 12V from the ATX only or from the EPS or from any combination.

My recommendation with the Taiko ATX would be to feed all 12V connectors with the Taiko ATX. Those are 13 x +12V pins and 13-ish GND pins. If you use 13 x 16AWG wires, that's a combined wire gauge of 5AWG! This with the 40A on the 12V rail = BIG DYNAMICS!

But don't rush on cables yet. Wire is one of the things I am trying to pick as part of the voicing. The Mundorf silver/gold may not be the best choice here. It's very expensive to use it too. 46 x 2 feet Mundorf silver/gold wires would be $2K. I think we can spend $2K better somewhere else in this case.

Tatomek7 · January 12, 2021

21 minutes ago, Nenon said:

It has 2 x 8 pin EPS connectors one 6-pin EPS connector and a 24-pin ATX connector.

Before you entered Taiko ATX, did you use one or two EPS 8-pin inputs? I still have HdPlex 800 converter and didn't succeed to boot MB with two separate rails from HDPlex converter. Waiting for Taiko one maybe it's worth to try again?

LTG2010 · January 12, 2021

29 minutes ago, Tatomek7 said:

Before you entered Taiko ATX, did you use one or two EPS 8-pin inputs? I still have HdPlex 800 converter and didn't succeed to boot MB with two separate rails from HDPlex converter. Waiting for Taiko one maybe it's worth to try again?

The board runs fine with the 800W HDPlex. Either one or both 8 pins will boot but both for best sound. Plus 24pin. Most likely not enough current to HDPlex.

Tatomek7 · January 12, 2021

11 minutes ago, LTG2010 said:

Most likely not enough current to HDPlex.

Yeah, it seems like. I will try to cut 12V in ATX and power CPUs directly from separate LPSU.

JonD · January 12, 2021

I recently joined up on AS, but i have been building computers and into audio for many years now. My journey has really been focused on building headphone systems and at the moment i am lucky enough to own a dCS Bartok and Rossini Master Clock which i use to drive Hifiman HE1000SE and also Focal Stellia's.

My music sits on a QNAP NAS, powered by a Teradak and my DAC, clock, NAS and EE 8 Switch are all plugged into an AQ Niagara 3000. The Niagara has an AQ Hurricane power cable and the Bartok and clock are using Chord Signature power cables

So my journey has taken my quite a long way and i have been interested in seeing what a decent music server can do. A friend of mine has just trialled an Innuos Zenith with his Chord DAVE and was very impressed with the results. He also has a Phoenix on order.

Although tempted to go down this route as well, I do like building my own PCs, so hey we are in lockdown and i need a project to research and execute on... Keep me busy after work :D

So this thread has been great... A lot less than 700 pages long, but full of really interesting information and experiences. I started taking notes on the combinations of hardware that people had been trying and thought i would have a decent idea pretty quickly; although the power side of things seems like it can get expensive :O

But when i got the the final 10 pages the revelation about the Taiko DIY project really caught my eye. I have of course heard about the Taiko Extreme and its high price point, its up there with the Vivaldi DAC. But to be able to get to say 80+% of the Extreme with a Taiko DIY project, sounds pretty amazing.

Only thing I am wondering about is the fact that alot of what i read is about feeding the DAC via USB... Well that isnt recommended for any of the dCS DACs. They are designed to sound best using ethernet. I heard a big improvement in my system just by adding the English Electric 8 Switch in between the NAS and the DAC.

Do you think i can expect similar sonic improvements from one of these custom music servers (I am thinking of similar to what Nenon has been building) using ethernet (PCIE card like JCAT)?

I dont need a server that can upsample at the moment, the Bartok handles that extremely well. Its got a lot of headroom for future firmware improvements as well. So I am looking at feeding my DAC direct from a music server from local storage and also streaming via Tidal...

The Bartok also handles streaming duties, but this is more optional with the Bartok...

Anyway, I will keep following this thread, its been great to learn so much and also that some of the top power supply designers are based here in the UK or just over the channel in nearby Europe :)

Nenon · January 12, 2021

16 minutes ago, JonD said:

I recently joined up on AS, but i have been building computers and into audio for many years now. My journey has really been focused on building headphone systems and at the moment i am lucky enough to own a dCS Bartok and Rossini Master Clock which i use to drive Hifiman HE1000SE and also Focal Stellia's.

My music sits on a QNAP NAS, powered by a Teradak and my DAC, clock, NAS and EE 8 Switch are all plugged into an AQ Niagara 3000. The Niagara has an AQ Hurricane power cable and the Bartok and clock are using Chord Signature power cables

So my journey has taken my quite a long way and i have been interested in seeing what a decent music server can do. A friend of mine has just trialled an Innuos Zenith with his Chord DAVE and was very impressed with the results. He also has a Phoenix on order.

Although tempted to go down this route as well, I do like building my own PCs, so hey we are in lockdown and i need a project to research and execute on... Keep me busy after work :D

So this thread has been great... A lot less than 700 pages long, but full of really interesting information and experiences. I started taking notes on the combinations of hardware that people had been trying and thought i would have a decent idea pretty quickly; although the power side of things seems like it can get expensive :O

But when i got the the final 10 pages the revelation about the Taiko DIY project really caught my eye. I have of course heard about the Taiko Extreme and its high price point, its up there with the Vivaldi DAC. But to be able to get to say 80+% of the Extreme with a Taiko DIY project, sounds pretty amazing.

Only thing I am wondering about is the fact that alot of what i read is about feeding the DAC via USB... Well that isnt recommended for any of the dCS DACs. They are designed to sound best using ethernet. I heard a big improvement in my system just by adding the English Electric 8 Switch in between the NAS and the DAC.

Do you think i can expect similar sonic improvements from one of these custom music servers (I am thinking of similar to what Nenon has been building) using ethernet (PCIE card like JCAT)?

I dont need a server that can upsample at the moment, the Bartok handles that extremely well. Its got a lot of headroom for future firmware improvements as well. So I am looking at feeding my DAC direct from a music server from local storage and also streaming via Tidal...

The Bartok also handles streaming duties, but this is more optional with the Bartok...

Anyway, I will keep following this thread, its been great to learn so much and also that some of the top power supply designers are based here in the UK or just over the channel in nearby Europe :)

I don't know any people with Vivaldi DAC and clock building DIY servers. But I do know several people with Vivaldi DAC + DAC who have Taiko Extreme. And as far as I know they all preferred to ignore the DCS recommendation and connect the Taiko Extreme via USB.

You are obviously not a Vivaldi + Extreme user, but the Bartok and this DIY recipe can be considered their smaller siblings. I suspect whatever works best with Vivaldi + Extreme would apply to you as well.

My suggestion would be to dig into the Taiko thread on WBF and see what Vivaldi + Taiko are actually doing. Or ask there if you can't find any info.

If I was to guess, your Bartok would work better with USB and this server than any ethernet streamer. But that's just a guess. I have no real experience with dCS DACs. And I have been proven wrong before.

matthias · January 13, 2021

7 hours ago, Nenon said:

I don't know any people with Vivaldi DAC and clock building DIY servers. But I do know several people with Vivaldi DAC + DAC who have Taiko Extreme. And as far as I know they all preferred to ignore the DCS recommendation and connect the Taiko Extreme via USB.

You are obviously not a Vivaldi + Extreme user, but the Bartok and this DIY recipe can be considered their smaller siblings. I suspect whatever works best with Vivaldi + Extreme would apply to you as well.

My suggestion would be to dig into the Taiko thread on WBF and see what Vivaldi + Taiko are actually doing. Or ask there if you can't find any info.

If I was to guess, your Bartok would work better with USB and this server than any ethernet streamer. But that's just a guess. I have no real experience with dCS DACs. And I have been proven wrong before.

+1

Reading the complete Extreme thread on WBF I did not come across a set-up with Extreme where a DAC connected to an endpoint (or an Ethernet-DAC) did sound better than the direct (mostly USB) connection to Extreme.

Matt

JonD · January 13, 2021

@nenon and @matthias thanks for your comments. I will go over and do some additional research 🙂

JonD · January 13, 2021

A bit of reading and it seems that both USB and Ethernet are an option for using with the dCS DACs, which is good to know.

Looking around at these ASUS Sage motherboards and the Intel Silver CPUs, they come up second hand quite a bit, so with a little patience two CPUs and a mobo can be bought at quite a discount... Something to think about.

ASRMichael · January 13, 2021

11 minutes ago, JonD said:

A bit of reading and it seems that both USB and Ethernet are an option for using with the dCS DACs, which is good to know.

Looking around at these ASUS Sage motherboards and the Intel Silver CPUs, they come up second hand quite a bit, so with a little patience two CPUs and a mobo can be bought at quite a discount... Something to think about.

Don't tell too many people that!! They'll be none left for us!!

guiltyboxswapper · January 13, 2021

Have any of the Solarflare SFN8522 or similar users tried https://github.com/Xilinx-CNS/onload ? As described it allows Linux apps to bypass the core networking stack for Onload's ultra high performance and highly configurable network stack instead.

Installing is relatively easy, simply clone + run /scripts/onload_install provided your Linux distro has the necessary build tools.

I've installed the latest version to find another uptick in SQ, especially in musical transients / flow. This was in AudioLinux, using the standard latency profile and LTS 5.4 RT kernel.

There are many other profiles, some will even allow you to cache/buffer more in-memory (throughput profiles), amongst other things. Highly customisable. https://github.com/Xilinx-CNS/onload/tree/master/scripts/onload_profiles

StreamFidelity · January 13, 2021

1 hour ago, guiltyboxswapper said:

Have any of the Solarflare SFN8522

The Solarflare SFN8522 is absolutely awesome! A dream in terms of sound. I reported here:

ASRMichael · January 13, 2021

9 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

The Solarflare SFN8522 is absolutely awesome! A dream in terms of sound. I reported here:

Would be great if there was a comparison with new JCAR Net XE card!

guiltyboxswapper · January 13, 2021

36 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

The Solarflare SFN8522 is absolutely awesome! A dream in terms of sound. I reported here:

Its worth making an effort with OnLoad - you're only half utilising the card at the moment 😊

StreamFidelity · January 13, 2021

53 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

Would be great if there was a comparison with new JCAR Net XE card!

The JCAT NET Card FEMTO is well behind Solarflare. I don't have the XE version.

27 minutes ago, guiltyboxswapper said:

Its worth making an effort with OnLoad - you're only half utilising the card at the moment

Yes, I am aware of that. Solarflare is a Diva. 😄

I was happy to get it to run well. According to the manual, I have set the network card adapter to the lowest possible latency. Have a look at this: DSD 256 x 48. The sound is fantastic.

Can OnLoad also be set in Windows? As far as I know, this only works on Linux.

guiltyboxswapper · January 13, 2021

1 minute ago, StreamFidelity said:

Can OnLoad also be set in Windows? As far as I know, this only works on Linux.

Linux only. Uses some of the newer kernel features (express data path) as well as eBPF to essentially "intercept" network calls and push them down its own accelerated/optimised path.

It was pretty easy to install, so well worth a try should you be tempted.

guiltyboxswapper · January 13, 2021

5 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

The JCAT NET Card FEMTO is well behind Solarflare. I don't have the XE version.

Did you externally power your NET Femto card too?

guiltyboxswapper · January 13, 2021

6 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

I was happy to get it to run well. According to the manual, I have set the network card adapter to the lowest possible latency. Have a look at this: DSD 256 x 48. The sound is fantastic.

I would also try the "max throughput" option as that invokes a certain amount of in-memory caching/batching. I'll be trying that myself sometime this week.