Some Basic Advice on 10yr Update to CAPS Lagoon Please

[Cazzesman]

Hello all,

 

Time marches on and it is telling me I have to put my thinking cap on regarding upgrading my wonderful CAPS Lagoon Circa 2013.   Thanks so much Chris for introducing me to Digital Playback.,

 

The Hardware has pretty much remained the same from day one.  Same case, MB, RAM and wiring.   I upgraded the OS to WS2019, changed from Sotm Card to JCat XE USB and increased the SSD from 1tb to 2tb.    The rest are items that have sprung up around it i.e. Mutec, Keces LPS etc.

 

I have devoured the threads on AS from all of our resident Server builders.  Some brilliant stuff going on and thanks for all your designs and recommendations.

 

I am very much in wanting to stay within the KISS principle i.e. Keep It Simple Stupid.  A man has to know his limitations and JRiver with 24/96 is mine.   

 

Here is my current set up.

 

System - CAPS (Lagoon; running - JRiver Ver 25 ) - WS2019 - Audiophile Optimizer v3.0 - Fidelizer 8.8pro -128 gig & 2tb SSD + JCat XE USB card - via USB Curious Evolve Cable - into Mutec USB 3+ (AfterDark - BME with Farad S3) attached by Aurealis 75ohm Silver Cable with Furutech BNC to AfterDark Emperor Double Crown OCXO 10MHz Clock powered by AfterDark LPS - via DHLabs Silver Sonic 110ohm AES- into MiniDsp 22D (Dirac Live) via DHLabs Silver Sonic 110ohm AES - into Kii 3 speakers with Peter Graves Premium Power Cables, with Kii Controller. All powered by 2000 VA IsoTran.   Keces P8 LPS powering CAPS and JCat XE with Ghentaudio cables.  Synology NAS DS416 Slim (Backup)

 

I am 62yrs old so I doubt me ears are going to get any better, but by all accounts they are fine at the moment.

 

I keep it simple with Flac and MP3 files upsampling everything within JRiver to 96kHz into the Mutec and out at 96kHz to the Minidsp (DiracLive) out of Minidsp at 96kHz and into the Kii 3's where the magic happens.  

 

I have no intention of crunching big numbers going to DSD or doing all the tricks in HQPlayer that requires CPU grunt and a big Power Supply.

 

I have found that my biggest gains of late have been with the LPS's and Cabling.    So that is the direction I would like to head.

 

I have really liked what @StreamFidelityhas done with the use of the 2 Keces LPS and the Specialist cabling he has put in from Keces to PC.   

 

So that is what I am aiming for.    I already have 1 Keces P8 (12v version) driving my Lagoon.   I have the JCat XE USB card driven by the Keces.    I will go again with the JRiver, WS2019, AO 3.0 and Fidelizer 8.4.    That is supported by the modded Mutec and DiracLive on the outside.    As I am not crunching big algorithms to do DSD etc so I don't believe I need an i7 or i9 MB with matching CPU that brings the heat and sucks the power.   

 

I like the look of the HDPlex H5 for an ATX MB.    I'm thinking the HDPlex DC-ATX 400 will do the trick plus a 2nd Keces P8 20v or 12v.    I am open to suggestions about the RAM i.e Corsair low latency or Apacer versions and what will work with the MB.   I'm thinking 2 x 8 will do the trick.    

 

I am open to suggestions as to what MB and CPU will make the music.   I have some ASUS hardware in my new home PC that is going well so I will start with that brand.     Will an ASUS intel i5 1200 2.6Ghz cut it?     Do I NEED 3.6Ghz or more.     Will z590 1200 6 core 65w TDP board do it?     Is 1200 better than 1151 for SQ?      Do I need an i5 or an i3?   

 

I don't require a separate Graphics card so a MB/CPU onboard Graphics combo will suffice.      I don't need a Net Card as the MB will suffice as well. 

 

I'm thinking that as my current 10 year old Lagoon is making the music, then even an i3 might cut it, but happy with an i5 for some wiggle room.      I do want to retain my storage within the PC and will plan on using 2 x 2tb M.2 cards.   WS2019 might go on SSD but again I am open to suggestions there. 

 

After the Hardware I would go down the track of upgrading the standard PC cabling to Ghent Audio or maybe from FIS.  I am not sure if FIS sells their PC cabling separate.  

 

Please give me your thoughts, as currently, in my situation......'A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous situation to be in at my age.'  :-)

 

Regards Cazzesman

      

 

    

 

 

[StreamFidelity]

3 hours ago, Cazzesman said:

have really liked what @StreamFidelityhas done with the use of the 2 Keces LPS and the Specialist cabling he has put in from Keces to PC. 

Thank you very much.

 

3 hours ago, Cazzesman said:

I will go again with the JRiver, WS2019, AO 3.0 and Fidelizer 8.4. 

If KISS is your principle, why don't you reduce the operating system? Try the HQPlayer OS or Euphony. You can test both on USB stick without buying it right away. It requires a willingness to learn, of course, but you can still do it at 62. 😉

 

3 hours ago, Cazzesman said:

I am not sure if FIS sells their PC cabling separate.  

fis Audio sells the cables directly: PC-Line Cable

 

I wish you much success. 

[Cazzesman]

It says freshman member under my name and I have a mere 210 posts.    I actually joined in January 2012 so that makes me a 10+ year member.

 

Sometimes AS can make me feel like I am the new kid on the block.   Like the guy that has to live in the town for 25 years before he is considered a 'local'.   

 

I struggle to see why after 110 views, no-one has an opinion on my query, on a website based around building, designing and tweaking Computer Music Servers.

 

As the kids say today................What eve's! 

 

Regards Cazzesman

 

 

[jcn3]

@Cazzesman i agree with the feedback above -- if it's working well and you're happy, why do anything?  you're not doing anything that requires any significant computing power so more horsepower isn't really needed.

 

one thing you could try that would be inexpensive is to get a raspberry pi, making it a renderer.  on your existing computer, jriver can operate as a music server and feed your files to the raspberry pi.  the raspberry pi would feed the mutec.  the idea is to remove a noisy computer/server away from the audio chain, replacing it with something doing much less work (reducing the potential for noise to be injected in the audio chain).

 

you'd need to determine what linux-based software you'd want to put on the raspberry pi, but that's pretty easy and could be a fun learning experience.

[Lebouwsky]

If you’re going to invest in a motherboard I’d advice you to buy one with the latest chipset and skip the z590. This makes it more future proof. Some have reported the 12th generation cpu’s from Intel sound better then the previous ones, which gives you another reason to go for the z690. Can’t confirm that.

 

Just like you I use Jriver, no DSD, just pcm, no upsampling. It used to run on WS2019 with AO, but now I use windows 10 LTSC 2021 with AO, which sounds just as good, maybe even better, but with the convenience of a consumer friendlier GUI.
 

I also went from an old celeron to an I5 z390 to an i7 z690. The latter made a huge improvement in flow or effortless ore easynes or whatever to call it (I suck in discribing sound). Looking back I’d even buy an I9.

 

With fast cpu’s you can lower the latency in Jriver which improves sound. If you’re lucky you can also lower te latency of your dac driver. Are you already loading the file in ram with Jriver? The GSkill trident series are also low in latency. 16gb is more than enough indeed

 

I also use the H5 case, it’s stunning, both in looks as in cooling results. Barely gets warm. Good to know that newer cpu’s don’t take more energy than older ones, in fact they’re more energy efficient.  And, if you don’t upsample my i7 iddles on 5, maybe 10% if it’s max, which is probably just as much power as an old 7th gen i3 on, say 30%. The numbers is guessing, but I hope you get the point.
 

SSD produce digital glair as I call it. Intel optane drivers have very low latency, made a nice step forward to my ears.

 

Hope this helps sir, best regards,

Lebouwsky

[botrytis]

My suggestion is to wait because there have been issues with the Intel CPU clamps have been warping and CPU's can run 10C higher than normal. One HAS to use active cooling or the CPU's will fault due to heat.