Building a DIY Music Server

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26 minutes ago, Mags said:

Thanks, Peter. I invite you to come listen to the devastation I have wrought in my system if you're ever in New Jersey. Such devastatingly beautiful sound.

My amps are also all choke input, two stage, direct-coupled, SET. 2.3kV on the big output tube plate. Have a look:

 

Happy to find an Audiophile in the tri-state area! Nice setup 😎

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9 minutes ago, Mags said:

Thanks! I'm usually on DIYAudio in the TubeDIY forum but I'm interested in upgrading my source to a SOTA music server, so I'm here browsing and learning. 

I'm in Central NJ in the Somerville/Bridgewater area.

Youre certainly in the right place! It truly is astonishing how much improvement can be obtained by upgrading one's source. I'm Manhattan based.

 

Cheers,

-Rob

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6 minutes ago, realDHT said:

The PSU box for my music server (although the CPU choke isn't really visible in this image (it's hidden below the softstart board in back righthand side) 

Very clean work. Are you comfortable sharing information about the specs and topology?

 

Cheers,

-Rob

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14 minutes ago, mikicasellas said:

Yep, I re-tweaked all the config to be as equal as posible as my last version, which it was  to the same but i could at least check on the similar.

 

I was trying to avoid the "download the file to USB" path and I thought it was as plain as pushing the Flash back button 

How long has your system been online since updating the bios and reverting to your previous settings?

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1 hour ago, Soul Analogue said:

It is not easy for someone to “switch” between L input and C input…. If simply put in and take out the C from psu.. the resultant voltage will be largely different..

and even given the same resultant voltage… the design and construction of the choke for L input choke and C input are very different….so there is no easy switch… or the test result will be less than optimal in either cases

 

i believe it is a matter of taste for choke input and cap input psu…(talking about properly designed and executed) 

the presentations are quite different

 

In my diy venture… i first started with cap input… and later tried on choke input and could never go back….so L input for me as far as practicable

Thanks for sharing. It would be great to hear about the differences you've perceived, going from C input to L input LPS's in your experience.

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31 minutes ago, Nenon said:

I enjoy reading what people do or have done. A lot of good stuff. There are probably people reading all these comments about chokes who are getting confused. So, let me clarify some things. 

 

1. There are some claims that the 5A choke I picked does not provide enough current and restricts the dynamics on the dual Xeon server. 

That is not the case with my build. I utilize about half of the current capabilities of this choke. And this is by far the most dynamic server I have ever built. 

There are two things to keep in mind here. First, this is an unregulated LPS + GaN based ATX, which is extremely efficient. Note the 95W vs. 270W comment in the post I am quoting below. Second, Windows (LTSC in my case) the way I have configured it is more efficient than Euphony. As a result of this I am using about 95W from nearly 200W available with this choke. 

More details here:

Unless you do heavy DSD upsampling with 120W TDP CPUs, chances are this choke will work great. As a general rule, if you can passively cool down your CPU with a HDPlex/Streacom chassis, you probably won't have any issues with this choke/design.

 

2. There are some claims that the 5A choke I picked will be very noisy.

This is also not the case in my system. Not at all! There are people here who have followed the DIY recipe I provided and can comment about their experience. No noise in my power supply. Please do share if your experience is different.

 

3. Very important - you SHOULD NOT just replace the choke with another part unless you know exactly what you are doing. You can potentially kill your Taiko ATX if you simply replace the choke with a much lower DCR one and don't make any other changes.

For example, modeling some of the bigger Hammond chokes turned out they will require 470,000 uF of capacitance instead of the 66,000 uF in V2. In some cases, with some chokes, you may reach the need to use 700,000 uF. 

 

4. A higher current choke does not sound better in my experience. It sounds different. There are always tradeoffs. What I have provided for DIY is a very well balanced power supply design. It's a good tradeoff between staging/envelopment and dynamics/naturality. It looks like a very simple design that I put together during my lunch break, but it actually took many months of development, testing, and most importantly - listening. It employs a lot of things I've learned from Emile and Sean, some of which I can't really share. But it doesn't really matter how I came up with this design. It's the end product that matters... and that's shared for anyone who wants to build it. I've shared details here (the cost of parts keeps going up, so my spreadsheet is already out of date):

 

Combine this unregulated LPS (v2 or v3) with the Taiko ATX to power up your computer. It hardly gets any better than that.

Once you hear what this sounds like, it will change your perspective on fully regulated linear power supplies for high current draw applications. You still can't beat a good LPS for low current draw applications (i.e. 1A-2A-3A), but for high current CPUs this is my new gold standard. 

 

Lastly, I encourage you to build this unregulated LPS (both v2 and v3) and try it with the Taiko ATX (powering up the EPS and ATX) before going into arguments or criticising a particular part I chose. No part I picked was just a random choice. They all work together and create a synergy. Once you do that, by all means feel free to experiment and if you find something that works better, please share. I am done with the unregulated LPS development and stopped tinkering with it (for now). No upgraded versions are to be expected by me for a while. But I hope other people will pick this from where I left it and share their improvements. 

 

@Soul Analogue  I admire your work. Feel free to post details and pricing about your unregulated LPS with handmade chokes. It might be a good alternative for people who are not comfortable building a DIY power supply. I would personally love to test it myself. Maybe someone in the US will buy one and will be kind enough to send it to me to try it :). 

 

Thanks for the clarification. My 2nd Hammond choke arrives today. If time permits, I will be completing the wiring for V3 but will likely wait at least a week to connect it to the circuit. Before I expand to V3, I am hoping to conduct a small non-scientific shootout of 3 USB cards. Hoping to conduct this test in the next week or so. Looking forward to sharing my impressions.

 

Then, testing of V3 will proceed (which I am very excited to hear). Once V3 settles in i'll re-test the PH SR7T/V2 feeding the Taiko-DC to ATX and do a nice write-up on what I hear. Hopefully folks will find it useful! 

 

Cheers,

-Rob

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6 minutes ago, Darryl R said:

 

Looking forward to seeing how that Core Audio stacks up.  Will you be posting your results in the "Best Audiophile USB Card" thread?

Yes indeed. Looking forward to testing!

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1 hour ago, Soul Analogue said:

Nenon… we were talking about Choke input psu yesterday… it is a total different story from capacitor input psu

Not to be argumentative but I was confused by some of your feedback. You mentioned choke size being too small around the time several of us posted pics of our CLC Unregulated LPS's. Glad this is cleared up and that perhaps the topology of those pics you saw was misunderstood at the time of your feedback. 

 

@Nenon - I did not realize the Noratels shipped. FOMO is settling in....Is it worthwhile to "upgrade" to it if you already have the Toroidy Supreme v2? What does the 5% improvement afford you?

 

Cheers,

-Rob

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15 minutes ago, Soul Analogue said:

you have to understand what psu topology is being used and what Is being discussed here in order not to be confused =)

 

😁 I understood what topology was being used... I was certainly not confused about that aspect. More confused about your suggestion of changing one component in a circuit with an entirely different design than your own. Hence why I waited for Nenon's follow up before purchasing a larger choke, and purchasing the same 5A choke again to expand to V3. No hard feelings though...

 

19 minutes ago, Soul Analogue said:

but in either psu topologies, i dont see, measure or simulate, any overshoot, ringing issue by using high current choke…

 

Interesting. Maybe an opportunity for us all to learn from each other 😎. That's what this place is about.

 

Cheers,

-Rob

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1 hour ago, Soul Analogue said:

My suggestion of a change of higher amp choke is still valid for Nenon’s cap input supply…

my cap input design is still transformer > rectifier > c1 > choke > c2

Very similar right? Just plain more simple i would say..

i have built over a hundred of this CLC topology psu for audio purpose for myself and my friends and i never encountered the issues mentioned by Nenon.. 

If these high current vs low current choke discussions has to be continued….perhaps Nenon shall share his findings of overshoot, ringing, burn out taiko issue more clearly.. 

what transformer secondary voltage was used? Which rectifier bridge? which high current choke(s) was tried? What were the symptoms of overshoot, ringing? How they were measured? Or even showing simulation screenshots would be helpful for troubleshooting

All really good questions! 

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Moving onto the chassis. I have measured all of the parts for V3 using all 22,000uf Mundorf HC caps and it is a snug fit in this enclosure:

https://modushop.biz/site/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=128

 

This enclosure is similar in size to the HDPlex H5 V2 many of us are using.

 

Going to order it and test it in the coming week. Worst case scenario I will be forced to swap out two Mundorf 22,000uF caps for a single 47,000uF cap to save space.

 

Cheers

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Today I measured power consumption of my server during boot. I witnessed a very quick peak around 135Watts but it consistently hovered around 53watts during boot, dipping into the high 40s at times, eventually settling down to 37W.

 

I didnt catch the peak with my camera but perhaps I'll record a video and snap a picture from there.

Edit: here is peek power consumption during boot:

 

During music playback AND idle, this is what I hover around, 37.5W:

 

I9-9900k OCed to 4.6ghz. 

Edit: I do not upsample with HQPlayer.

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Just now, Mags said:

With an i9 9900K overclocked to 4.6GHz, do you still run into issues with some HQP filters and modulators? 

Good question.

 

I should have mentioned I do not upsample. I mostly use Euphony Stylus to stream at default sample rates or for PGGB file playback. I occasionally use HQPlayer but mostly to check whether it sounds better than Euphony stylus (at default sample rates).

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54 minutes ago, AngeloVRA said:

When it finally becomes available, it might be a good step up for me to change to the HDPlex H5 case so I can plug in the cards directly to the motherboard.

Next on the horizon would probably be upgrading the standard footers.

Totally agree with this idea. Getting rid of the riser cables will be an improvement.

Also, I haven't ventured too far down the footer journey but what I will say is:

 

1. Gaia footers for the PHSR7T was absolutely worth it.

2. The Herbies Tenderfeet I use for the server were also an improvement.

 

Sounds like you're headed in the right direction. Wonderful job with wiring BTW.

14 minutes ago, Nenon said:

@Exocer was probably the first person to do that comparison. And he prefered his CPU powered by his PH LPS as well. I made the same comments to him (in this thread) and he built the v2 of the unregulated LPS I posted about. I believe that changed his perspective and he is planning to revise that comparison again. It will be interesting to see what he thinks now that he has the DIY unregulated LPS I recommended running at a higher voltage powering the Taiko ATX. 

Correct - you just reminded me that I should test going back to the CPU being fed by the PHSR7T along with the V2/V3 comparisons. I did initially prefer the SR7T powering the CPU via the 12V rail. But even before I switched to the Duelund 20awg solid core copper EPS cable, it became apparent that there was a loss in separation/speed/transparency/detail retrieval going to the CPU directly from the SR7T. It did sound a bit weightier in the lower registers but somehow with enough break-in the Taiko which initially sounded a bit thin, filled out tremendously with break-in and eventually I had all the slam I needed + the positive traits of the SR7T.  In the end it still was about as weighty and more nibmle/transparent for me, which I why I never switched back to the CPU direct to SR7T. Plus, the transparency may have highlighted issues elsewhere in my system... (I had some really crappy sounding interconnects mucking up the sound more than I realized).

 

V2 from the moment I powered it on was even more transparent and effortless than the SR7T. @AngeloVRA, I would be very interested in your impressions and hope you do entertain building one at some point. You certainly have the technical abilities!

 

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1 hour ago, elan120 said:

For the people have done building Unregulated power supply for the Taiko DC-ATX, what transformer secondary voltage output you are using for your build?  I recall somewhere Nenon mentioned higher voltage will provide better sounding, but can't recall what the optimum output should be, and I am thinking to order a transformer that will provide close to 40V of output.

 

1 hour ago, ASRMichael said:

@Exocer? I believe it’s 36v is optimal but Rob can confirm. 

Transformer secondary we used is 24VAC. After rectifier it gives around 36.5-37VDC

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7 minutes ago, elan120 said:

@Exocer, @Tatomek7,

 

Thank you for the confirmation, I will get the parts ordered and see how it works in my endpoint build application.

Awesome.

Are you coming from a multi-rail regulated LPS?

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3 minutes ago, Soul Analogue said:

duelund tin plated wires in cotton

I enjoyed this same wire in other areas of my system. I no longer use it but liked it very much!

 

 

5 minutes ago, Soul Analogue said:

Transformer - custom made from my local partner supplier up to my standard and requirements

Choke - best materials available for this purpose in the market, hand assembled and adjusted with my hands

Capacitors - selected from my years of experience in my diy journey and favourable feedback from friends… they had gone through my proprietary treatments for better performance

Cable - wires are copper core and also selected from my experience…

@Soul Analogue- Interested in learning more. Would you be interested in sharing pricing publicly or would that be best handled over PM? Do you ship to the US?

 

Thanks,

-Rob

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8 minutes ago, Soul Analogue said:

hi Rob

I believe any deals should be handled privately.. in order not to violate forum rules 

feel free to discuss in PM 😀

Acknowledged. I will PM you when ready to experiment! Would really like to hear your work. Cheers.

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30 minutes ago, Nenon said:

I have also used the powered version of the Sablon USB with the JCAT XE without any issues. 

BTW, getting a good deal on the Shunyata Omega USB, so my Sablon USB will be for sale if that happens. 

How much better is the Omega? Let's assume the Omega is a 10/10.

 

Edit: @ASRMichael,didn't see your question. Now mine is redundant 😁.

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4 minutes ago, MarcelNL said:

I don't think 3 grand is crazy, is spending well north of 5 K for an audio server crazy? depends on who you ask IMO.

BTW, did you ever try making a cable? FAR cheaper, lots of fun and it will bring insight for free. In the end it's metal thread, insulation, cable geometry and shielding (or not), not that many variables to play with,

I am totally into DIY. I tried looking for high quality audio USB connectors and couldn't find anything. Do you know of any? Id really like to try building USB cables. I do have the Sablon 2020 to compare to.

 

Also, $3500 is more expensive than my DAC. I'd rather up my DAC game first. For those with DAC setups costing in the 10s of thousands I can see this cable making a lot more sense.

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4 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

Been busy today!!! 
 

Added a few copper pipes! 
 

Heatpipes is a rough job! Just bent them with my hands! Could of added a 4th but ran out of paste! 
 

Temps are around 29c @ 3.7gHz i9 10900k. Previously 31c

 

You’ll also see I had to extend my H5 case. It’s sitting in Panzerholz wood. My mobo is ATXE board. So had to make space for Taiko ATX (it’s now screwed straight into the Panzerholz wood. 

Excellent job! The extension of the chassis worked out very well. The Panzerholz must help a lot with keeping vibrations to a minimum. Solid build!

 

 

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8 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

Is everyone else with Taiko ATX using both EPS connectors? 

I am using 1.5 of the Taiko EPS conbectors because my motherboard only has an 8 + 4 pin input. If I had two 8pin EPS inputs on my motherboard I would have used both. I would use both if I were you.

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2 hours ago, Nenon said:

For complete transparency (and in the spirit of a drama free forum) - I am NOT the one reporting @Soul Analogue, if that is what is triggering Chris's posts. 

For the record, neither did I. But I too am interested in hearing @Soul Analogue's unregulated LPS and will hopefully do business with him when the time is right.

 

There have been a lot of changes in my system lately...most of which have caused me to drift away into the beautiful world of listening. Further away from the nervosa than i've been in quite a while:

 

1. I upgraded the binding posts on my speakers.

2. Switched to different speaker wire.

3. Obtained a JCAT Femto XE USB card (to borrow)

4. Swapped out my Yggy's analog board for the LIM (Less is more).

5. Unfortunately had to switch back to the PH SR7T for power because I accidentally killed the Taiko Active rectifier. (I have a Saligny on the way). Hopefully I can compare the two for any SQ differences but I would expect them to be subtle at most.

 

Up until now, I was a bit apprehensive about spending big bucks on a USB card. I will have to admit that I was missing out on some serious audio goodness by doing so. Upon switching back to the regular USB cards, I could not believe the dimensionality, soundstage, detail, musicality,, and slam I lost without the audiophile card.

 

Powered by a modest MPAudio ALS-HPULN rail, I can easily tell that the CoreAudio P24 OCXO and JCAT Femto XE USB are much better than standard USB cards based on the same chipsets. If I have to choose from generic cards, this one sounded better than the Startech ASM3142 based card I had been using for a while: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008AJMNKI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Here are some pics of Nenon's V3 (partially built because I was still tinkering with placement at the time) in the Slimline 3U chassis. It would have been nice if the tray were a bit deeper but everything managed to fit. I can't wait to fire it up again! and listen. It feels very hefty and solid with the base plate! 

 

Cheers,

-Rob

 

 

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33 minutes ago, elan120 said:

Hi Rob,

 

Thank you for posting the picture of your V3 ULPS, it looks very nice.  One thing I noticed that you have 7 main caps in your ensure, but Nenon's V3 description show a total of 5 in CLCLCCC configuration.  Could you comment on the two extra main caps in yours?

 

Thank you,

Kevin

 

Hi Kevin,

Good question. I just did things a bit differently:

 

 

So in that portion of the circuit I went with 5 22,000uF caps instead of 2x 47,000 + 1x22,000uF. I wanted to emulate the way @Nenonconfigured his V3. I'm sure either will sound great. In retrospect, going with 2x 47,000 + 1x22,000uF would probably have saved a significant amount of enclosure space and you end up with more capacitance (110,000uF vs 116,000uF) in the last portion of the circuit.

 

Hope this helps,

-Rob

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16 hours ago, derBen said:

Hi,

 

I just finished my second DIY Audiio Server and I would like to share some impressions.

 

I'm running a Aaeon Mini-ITX board with 16GB Apacer Ram, a 250GB Samsung 980Pro M.2 SSD and a Intel i7 9700T CPU.

For the connections I use JCAT FEMTO cards: USB and NET.

The operating system is Euphony OS running ROON.

 

The server is built into two cases:

- One external PSU regulating 16V + 16V + 9V + 7V from a custom 400 VA toroid

- The main case containing the local PSU (regulating 12V + 12V + 5V + 3,3V) and the computer components

 

Both cases have the same shape and dimensions, only the button in the front is missing in the PSU case.

 

What dio you think?

Ben

This is just awesome on a whole new level. Great work! I was proud of my CAD work on the rear panel of my Slimline 3u but this is in another league entirely. Kudos.

 

We have the Taiko chassis coming (which I do not know if I can afford), but having other options for dual Xeon builds would be phenomenal. Would you have any interest in working on a larger chassis? I would be willing to chip in any way I can...

 

Cheers,

-Rob