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Hi all, I've been a long time reader of the CA forum and in this first post I want to ask your opinion on my fanless build. It will be a headless server, based on MPD and RT Linux. I'll stay with the CAPS design philosophy as closely as possible. I just ordered the parts and will keep you posted on my progress. This is my setup: Akasa Euler fanless case Gigabyte GA-H61TN (thin mITX mainboard) Intel Pentium G630T OCZ Vertex 64 GB SSD For a review of the case, see: Akasa Euler Fanless Thin ITX Case | silentpcreview.com Other components: Musical Fidelity V-Link (on its own linear PSU, circumventing the USB power line) Metrum Octave + linear PSU Duson PA-100 (Class A stereo amplifier) All my music will be placed on either the SSD or on the network and MPD can be controlled through my phone or tablet using one of the available clients. Once it's up and running, it's really convenient. As for the software I'll be using MPD on (stripped-down) Debian Linux, because of my experiences with this combination. On an earlier build I really came to love the sound of the PREEMPT RT kernel. Despite the disbelief I noticed in other threads by some of the audio qualities of a real-time Linux kernel, I really want to say that it did wonders to my previous setup. Voices are so clear, they almost seem visible in space like a hologram. Audiences and drum sounds in live recordings sound very realistic too. To make full use of the real-time kernel, you need to prioritize the threaded IRQs, which can be done effectively by using the rtirq scripts by Rui Nuno Capela. Then there are some small adjustments, such as increasing the priority of the MPD process and setting the processor affinity for each process, working towards placing MPD on its own CPU core. See this guide for some useful tips (based on Voyage MPD): ????? Furthermore, I'm using the following ALSA configuration in my MPD.conf, allowing me to make use of the async-USB properties of my USB-S/PDIF converter: device "hw:1,0" format "*:24_3:2" use_mmap "yes" auto_resample "no" I suspect some people on this forum are using similar configurations and I'm interested to hear how they compare their own setups to the more expensive servers and appliances of the established brands. In short, has anybody used the Akasa Euler case for a CAPS before? And does anyone have good tips on how to get the most out of my setup? I'd really like to hear your comments and tips! Regards, Vincent