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Computer Audiophile Pocket Server

1. There is an option two and that is boot from a VHD on the USB drive VHD Virtual Hard Drive VHD s are the files used for all Microsoft virtualization from Virtual Server PC to Hyper V It s a bit trickier but I m told it works http www garrymartin com blog 2009 10 native vhd boot windows 7 or win Whatever works Login or register to post comments Submitted by rudyy on Tue 02 09 2010 03 44 Joined 10 31 2009 Offline Comments 16 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server C A P S Very nice Chris My first post on this forum was to seek information on custom built computers regardless of operating systems I really wanted to buy one with Linux I did what I could for someone who knew little about the numerous so called Linux distributions but ultimately could not find a Linux distribution I could work with My notes tell me I tried Ubuntu 9 04 and several others including at least one that was specific to media applications Ubuntu had been recommended to me at some online web site For a music player I tried acidrip sound juicer amarock2 audacity rythmbox and potamus none of them did everything I needed I finally gave up on Linux just as I had done about 7 years ago when I bought a Red Hat version on floppy disk I couldn t get it to fully load For at least one reason related to golf I have to keep a Windows OS computer so I keep a Vista laptop but I d sure like to rid myself of it and just
2. 32 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Sun 02 14 2010 20 03 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline Comments 6744 MA Hi Lior Here is a link that Hi Lior Here is a link that covers FireWire cards for Weiss DACs http www computeraudiophile com content Which PCIe Firewire Card Will Chris Connaker Founder Computer Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by liorms on Sun 02 14 2010 23 27 Joined 04 20 2009 Offline Comments 27 FW and linux vortexbox Hi Chris My question was intentionally about the mix of linux Vortexbox fedora and FW support as I ve already experienced issues with my Lenovo X61 WIN XP and bought an additional PCMCIA FW card with TI Chipset As the OS support is important I was wondering what is the best choice for linux fw card combo BTW you did not comment anything on vortexbox distro what is your take on this Regards Lior Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Mon 02 15 2010 00 11 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline Comments 6744 4 a bh eg Hi Lior I m not sure about Hi Lior I m not sure about the right FireWire card for Linux and the Weiss DAC I have not used the Vortextbox software yet but hope to use it soon Chris Connaker Founder Com puter Audiophile Login or register to post commen
3. The trick is to bypass the mixer and write directly to the hardware a Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Fri 02 12 2010 10 24 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline A Comments 6744 VN ew 3 a Beg Hi hubsand Are you sure computeraudiophile com Computer 26 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Chris Connaker Founder Com puter Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by gvb on Fri 02 12 2010 10 40 Joined 02 11 2010 Offline Comments 3 re Question on your test with Linux E I was wondering if you talked to Alsa people about the impossibility to output the sound automatically a la Amarra with the original sample rate This can be done with ease but it is not really a feature of ALSA directly but rather of the driver for the specific card under ALSA Thus you may experience different results according to the card or chipset you are using I can tell you that it can happen as you described with the Intel HD Audio ALSA driver with the Realtek chipset It also happens with the ESI Juli I didn t have good results with an old Creative Sound Blaster ALSA has a mixer alsamixer which is the default route for all sounds in the system The mixer resamples everything to 48KHz So the casual user of ALSA will not get bit perfect output In order to achieve the bit perfect output you have to bypass the mixer and plug directly to t
4. When I come home I want to listen to music and not work on the computer Am I wrong Bernhard Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Wed 02 10 2010 03 51 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline Comments 6744 bS Hi Bernhard I control my Hi Bernhard I control my servers with a MacBook Air that sits next to my listening chair I usually open and close the Air when I need it or am done changing something The Air goes to sleep and wakes from sleep computeraudiophile com Computer 15 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server I agree when I listen to music I don t want to work but I also need full control of my servers as I change advanced setting often to check sonic differences etc Chris Connaker Founder Com puter Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by EuroChamp on Wed 02 10 2010 11 19 Joined 01 25 2010 Offline Comments 10 Remote Control Hey man This is the first real application area for the iPad We will see if and when the guys of J River Mediamonkey amp Co will release a nice plugin Apple will be the winner in this race I think The notebook even a Mac Air is a no go for me I am IT system administrator so I am a MS guy But nobody offers a nice application designed for touchscreens And Apple has iTunes and the iPod that works Amarra is a nice upgrade indeed Windows Media Center Windows7 is
5. mmn Submitted by hubsand on Fri 02 12 2010 09 40 Joined 10 13 2008 Offline Comments 78 it Only the new Synergy boards from Zotac have PCIe slots None of their other boards need it for 2 channel audio they all have SPDIF coax on board It s a cheap socket but with a good cable it sounds superb The POV board may be perfect it has PCIe no fan and does BluRay but the quality isn t as good as the Zotac Actually most Atom boards with heatsinks don t need the fan What s twisting my melon right now is the possibility of obtaining better digital throughput using a dedicated card like the Xonar or Lynx Zotac s implementation is very lean there s almost no power overhead and that enables the system to run pure clean and streamlined on a 90W linear regulated supply Powering a motherboard sized audiophile grade soundcard designed for D A then not using 90 of it makes my Occam s Razor twitchy At least the Asus is sensibly priced presumably the perfect card for this application is the best shielded but lowest spec version I wonder whether a smarter alternative is simply to retrofit a Zotac board with an isolated WBT coax Login or register to post comments baocrazy If the application ani Submitted by Idolse on Fri 02 12 2010 10 00 Joined 08 20 2008 Offline Comments 164 baocrazy If the application is configured correctly then ALSA will change sample rates on the fly
6. s Got it also no advertiser slapping Maybe we should advertise PM me But to the music server in our experience following a minimal path reaps rewards the Lynx card as opposed to the Zotac Ion s Realtek SPDIF drivers seems on the face of it to be an over elaboration The Zotac board is also equipped with enough video processing muscle to do double duty as a BluRay source therefore more generally as a HTPC It s passively cooled and has no wireless or on board DC conversion all good I would argue The coax socket can be upgraded to a WBT or similar but no break out leads are needed HDMI optical and USB audio out are all inbuilt Given the necessity of a large HD which can easily be located in a quiet box 60cm away the SSD seems redundant too Conversely powering it with an evil SMPS seems cruel there are places where one can buy under regulated linear PSUs outputting 12 5V quite inexpensively so I hear I believe it pays to prevent interference from piggy backing on the coaxial or USB audio output but at the very least substituting an audio grade power supply for a switching device will benefit anything else attached to that section of the mains The net effect of trimming what appears at first to be excess fat could result in a major cost saving something like 1000 which surely could be better spent elsewhere in the system and more attention paid to the cleanliness of the power looks like an upgrade Y our recipe
7. Hey ahp you will not need Hey ahp you will not need the 4GB nor will it be an advantage when you use 64 bit You should prefer the 32 bit version On the other hand the mainboard of your choice does only support 100MBit networkspeed No problem when you play 16 44 1 files but the 24 192 files are much bigger You will get longer interrupts when you load the tracks over the network Bernhard Login or register to post comments For neophytes and near neophytes h L Submitted by iamimdoc on Sun 02 14 2010 10 10 Joined 05 16 2009 Offline Comments 131 ll For those of us who have never built a computer but have replaced a few parts added boards Ey 1 Could a Compact Flash Card be used instead of a SS drive The guy at Frys s though it could and would be cheaper 2 Could the sound card be left out entirely if one were satisfied with USB DAC sound for now 3 Can you explain how one gets the operating system onto the drive without a CD DVD drive Or the music player software Or the drivers for my NAS drives Iocell and Maxtor drives Sorry if this is readily apparent to others Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Sun 02 14 2010 10 33 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline f ijd Comments 6744 1a fr SPS Hiiamimdoc Good Hi iamimdoc Good questions 1 Could a Compact Flash Card be used instead of a SS drive The guy at Frys s though it
8. Microsoft based candidate Building a Mac OS X based machine Hackintosh is of no interest to me as it violates the Terms Of Service of OS X and is more of a tweaker s system than most audiophiles are willing to accept Beyond the mainstream consumer operating systems I used used a variant of Berkeley Unix called FreeBSD in addition to a few distributions of Linux I ruled out FreeBSD fairly quickly After using it for a few hours as a music server I concluded FreeBSD was better left to host web servers and other business type applications I am very fond of FreeBSD and I really wanted to like it as a music server OS but squeezing a square peg in a round hole wasn t a goal of the CA Pocket Server Project I spent much more time researching and using Linux based operating systems than all the others combined As I said at RMAF 2009 and I still believe today Linux is the future for music servers The only caveat is Linux requires quite a bit of knowledge to setup as a music server The amount of knowledge required is a show stopper for 99 of the Earth s population let alone analog loving audiophiles However if I could satisfy the C A P S requirements I was willing to attempt writing an extremely thorough how to Linux guide for CA readers to build this music server The Linux based operating systems I used are Debian Linux Voyage Linux Puppy Linux Arch Linux openSUSE Ubuntu Studio and probably a couple more that I can t remember at this time The fina
9. and digital DVI video outputs that allow it to connect to many displays Running J River in theater Mode with the server connected to a nice display would be a really neat and visually appealing system Chris Connaker Founder Com puter Audiophile Login or register to post comments HR sect Submitted by Socrates7 on Tue 02 09 2010 15 26 Joined 10 07 2009 Offline Comments 579 computeraudiophile com Computer 11 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server symposium Comparisons or it didn t happen Schnell Schnell Also I have a local dealer working on a similar design Pretty nifty stuff and love to see a Lynx card stuffed into such a small form factor Based on some other conversations going on elsewhere on this site I m guessing that off board power is should be a must But Windows 7 That s tough to take Anyway I m also guessing here but I m assuming that a wired keyboard and wired monitor will be preferred over a wireless for those persnickety concerns over having a broadband broadcaster sitting in your rack no Scot Power Mac G5 gt gt ART Legato gt gt Berkeley Alpha gt gt Syst me du Jour I might remind you that whilst your ears are on the side of your head mine are near the top and may well hear nuances that you cannot Login or register to post comments NAS and C A P S L f Submitted by Valvefan on Tue 02 09 2010 15 39 Joined 01 28 2010 Offline
10. audio I would like to have HD playback as well E E Login or register to post comments Submitted by hubsand on Thu 02 11 2010 16 21 Joined 10 13 2008 Offline Comments 78 Atom based music server J The Atom is perfect for this job but to be more widely useful it needs reasonably meaty graphics the Ion board is perfect and runs Win 7 64 bit no problem Login or register to post comments Submitted by hubsand on Thu 02 11 2010 16 23 Joined 10 13 2008 Offline Comments 78 f More space The SSD is great for the OS Music files can be stored on external drives cause the streaming rate is pedestrian compared with the processing you need E Why have the SSD at all in that case Why not just put the OS on the external drive too once the player avo is loaded there s verv little HD activitv resulting from the OS or vlaver anvwav computeraudiophile com Computer 20 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Thu 02 11 2010 16 34 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline A Comments 6744 TEA A LBS Hi silverarrows The SS Hi silverarrows The Broadcom card fits easily under the Lynx It snaps into place perfectly with plenty of room to spare Chris Connaker Founder Com puter Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Thu 02 11 2010 16 36 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline Com
11. could and would be cheaper This is certainly an option but there is no free lunch Most CF cards are very slow and really not designed to host an OS like Windows 2 Could the sound card be left out entirely if one were satisfied with USB DAC sound for now 100 yes 3 Can you explain how one gets the operating system onto the drive without a CD DVD drive Or the music player software Or the drivers for my NAS drives Iocell and Maxtor drives I use a USB CD DVD drive for the OS install and down the rest of the software via Internet Chris Connaker computeraudiophile com Computer 31 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server comments Submitted by Jammrock on Sun 02 14 2010 11 16 Joined 09 02 2000 Offline Comments 11 Win7 64 bit vs 32 bit It is my personal opinion that the 64 bit versions of Vista Win7 are more stable than the 32 bit versions I know a lot of people who will agree with that assessment too Furthermore I have never ne aa run into any application incompatibilities running a 32 bit app on a 64 bit OS nor are there any performance degradations for doing so It is also very rare to find a device maker who does not make 64 bit drivers for their devices The Lynx AES16 has Win7 64 bit drivers as do all the Intel nvidia AMD ATIi RealTek ASUS and all major providers There is honestly no reason for the average user not to use 64 bit considering that is the direction t
12. it s only required if the internal components need additional air flow I never took the fan out of the box The M10 is built for a mini itx motherboard such as the Intel D945GSEJT Installation is very simple Origen provides the four required screws to attach the board to the bottom of the case The 2 5 60GB SSD selected for the C A P S server screws easily onto the inside panel right next to the SATA power and data cable ports on the motherboard Photo Also included is a mountable tray to hold a slim slot loading CD DVD drive I didn t install such a drive as I wanted to keep things very simple and I had no need for an internal CD DVD drive I used a USB CD DVD drive to install Windows and I use a different computer to rip my CDs to the easily accessible NAS device If I did install a DVD drive I would select the Pioneer DVR TS08 slim slot loading SATA drive for under 60 The M10 case features a very nice looking front display and hidden infrared sensor I was unable to utilize these features because the Intel Do945GSEJT motherboard has a power incompatibility with the M10 The M10 ships with its own 150 watt external power supply but I was unable to make it work with the Intel D945GSEJT motherboard The D945GSEJT would not accept power via the 2x2 connector and the internal case electronics required a 20 24 pin motherboard connection that the D945GSEJT doesn t have to function properly This incompatibility may have a silver lining Audiophiles
13. many components that I haven t already discussed I didn t want to rehash The Zalman or hFX based music servers I wrote about in 2008 and 2009 Those servers are still great but don t meet all the C A P S requirements 01 Absolutely silent 02 Capable of great sound 03 Great looking 04 No moving parts 05 Fairly inexpensive computeraudiophile com Computer Audiophile Fir Cables Missing locatio1 music on I tune Amarra Fluke e Audio Research e Audio research AES vs BNC e suggestions for inexpensive headphone e HDtracks downl manager CIAMARA C 1 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server o8 Easy to assemble install a Assembly installation by one s self or b Assembly installation by local computer shop son daughter neighbor or friend og Small size 10 Low power consumption 11 Low heat 12 Accept an add in card for audio or additional capabilities Hardware amp Software must accept appropriate add in cards 13 Play 16 44 1 24 44 1 24 88 2 24 96 24 176 4 and 24 192 all bit perfect Operating System The first step in the process was to test different operating systems I rules out previous versions of Windows including the apparent audiophile standard XP because they were not current Copies of Windows XP OEM are still floating around some of the online shops but I was ready to retire XP anyway That left Windows 7 as the
14. of a different article The sound quality from my Voyage Linux server outputting USB to the dCS system was truly wonderful Chris Connaker Founder Com puter Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by Jammrock on Tue 02 09 2010 00 33 Joined 09 02 2000 Offline Comments 11 Windows 7 on a stick a E Excellent write up You actually can run Win7 from a USB drive and ergo an eUSB drive with a little work Here are some online guides I have seen computeraudiophile com Computer 8 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Whatever works Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Tue 02 09 2010 00 40 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline Comments 6744 eg Hi Jammrock Thanks for the Hi Jammrock Thanks for the kind words and links I appears that the links only show how to create a bootable installation USB drive They don t say it s possible to actually install Windows on a USB drive Did I misread the links Chris Connaker Founder Com puter Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by Jammrock on Tue 02 09 2010 01 12 Joined 09 02 2009 Offline Comments 11 One of those is definitely an al One of those is definitely an install link Must have copied the wrong one The other I have not tested I lack a big enough USB drive at the moment but I will try if I can dig up a drive
15. of handling more memory Both servers are absolutely silent with no moving parts The Origen M10 based C A P S server is far more visually appealing than a Zalman TNN300 The Zalman case is no longer manufactured although there are plenty left in the supply chain here in the U S The C A P S server case is 320 and the Zalman TNN300 is 690 Not a single component in the Zalman servers is less expensive than coresponding C A P S serve component The C A P S server 9 5 x 4 x 9 8 w feet 6 6 Ibs consumes far less space than a TNN300 13 x 9 x 18 5 32 5 lbs The CA Pocket Server is an excellent way to use a Lynx card in one s system without planting a huge PC tower next to audio components I think both the C A P S and Zalman based servers are capable of similar great sound quality Wrap Up The Computer Audiophile Pocket Server project was frustrating at times but well worth the time money and effort Make no mistake the C A P S server will never be a commercial product that benefits Computer Audiophile financially This server was created to be a great solution for myself and CA readers alike There are an unlimited number of ways to change this configuration or adjust it to one s personal needs No single configuration is the right configuration for everyone Despite some technical terms weaved into the article this is a really easy music server to build as a whole or in part I know many people who like to dig into projects like th
16. on Debian there are a lot of avenues for bouncing ideas off other people and a fair amount of documentation on the OS nycparamedic initially got me into Voyage on the Alix boards Chris Connaker Founder Computer Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by chasm on Tue 02 09 2010 23 53 Joined 01 22 2010 Offline Comments 4 HHEKEE Chris Five stars Best exposition on the subject I ve seen anywhere along with the rest of your material on this site I have two questions 1 Why J River over MediaMonkey Foobar or the others 2 Can you recommend an online primer on setting up a PC from scratch Like once you get the hardware assembled how do you load the OS Basic stuff for us neophytes who are willing to dip a toe in the water Thanks so much for your efforts Chuck computeraudiophile com Computer 14 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Submitted by The Computer Au on Wed 02 10 2010 02 29 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline Comments 6744 MODE Hi chuck Thanks for the Hi Chuck Thanks for the nice comments 1 Why J River over MediaMonkey Foobar or the others I ve been researching applications for a while now and concluded that J River Media Center is currently the best Windows based application available I recently visited the J River office and was very impressed at the level of knowledge there and the willingness to work with people on get
17. the bits for themselves wherever they can find the best price just as you have done here Neither of us profit financially by this other than by reputation and site traffic The differences between proposed DIY music servers seems worth discussing your recipe centres on the Lynx card I m not convinced this is money well spent but I m open to persuasion Our recipe incorporates a linear regulated power supply you apparently feel this is less important we should all chat about it it s a forum hu b sand Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Thu 02 11 2010 17 32 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline A Comments 6744 Hi hubsand Thans for the response although the smart ass comment No linking to sites with possibly interesting things is a little disingenuous That said I totally agree we all benefit from discussing every option available You can certainly accomplish this without directing people to your website where you sell audio equipment Allowing these links is a slap in the face to the paid advertisers who support Computer Audiophile and allow me spend all this time working on these projects and improving the site Na i phi Seg Hi hubsand Thans for the Thanks for your understanding Chris Connaker Founder Com puter Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by hubsand on Thu 02 11 2010 18 06 Joined 10 13 2008 Offline Comments 78 f Got it i
18. the C A P S server I contacted the nice people at Mimo A few days later an iMo 7 Pivot Touch USB monitor arrived at my door On paper or computer screen this touchscreen monitor seems too good to be true for only 199 Unfortunately it is too good to be true I used the iMo 7 Pivot Touch on Windows and Mac system before concluding it wasn t my cup of tea Connected to the C A P S server I had nothing but trouble using this little touchscreen Initial setup wasn t very smooth but I was eventually able to see my desktop on the iMo Next I went through all the calibration steps to fine tune the touchscreen Calibration is pretty simple but when it came to actual use the iMo was a nonstarter If I had infant size fingers I Touchscreen computeraudiophile com Computer 4 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server thing I can say about the iMo Pivot Touch 7 touchscreen is that it may work as neat display similar to how Jeff Kalt of Resolution Audio used the non touchscreen version at CES this year I do not recommend people purchase this monitor before using it themselves Needless to say the iMo 7 Pivot Touch did not make the cut to be part of the C A P S server Comparison Compared to a Zalman TNN300 based silent music server the C A P S server comes out very well The two main benefits of the Zalman baed server are disk space and the ability to use PCI Express cards in addition to PCI cards The Zalman is also capable
19. the US to UK adds around 190 to the price But hopefully the delay won t be too long Also instead of the Lynx card I will use the PCI slot for a TI firewire card to connect to the Weiss AFI1 Thanks for doing all the ground work it really has helped me out a lot Will let you know how the C A P S compares to my laptop running on battery power Cheers Mani computeraudiophile com Computer 34 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Submitted by liorms on Mon 02 15 2010 12 53 Joined 04 20 2009 Offline Comments 27 FW cards for linux Hi baocrazy I assume your talking about the Roma player did Daniel gave approximated date spec pricing for this device Thanks for the link to ffado Still I m not sure how it is helping with locating the right FW pce card to fit into linux distro As all of the mentioned devices will connect into the FW card in the PC and they do not behave as a FW PC card And from reading the next thread here it was mentioned that the TI chipset is also not perfect and if you want to have a good solution you ll need a VIA chipset this is confusing Can anyone attest on what FW PC card he s using to connect to the Weiss Minerva DAC2 which proved to be a good solution It will be even better if someone have found a MOBO that includes that port on board that would leave the extra pci e slot for other enhancement Thanks Lior Login or register to
20. you my immediate suspect for the case was the Origen M10 and fanless MOBO design your article came like a present from heaven Lately I ve found a free linux distribution that acts as a server player the player part was added only on the date of 1 Feb 2010 and therefore it might have skipped your radar while doing the tests The distribution could be downloaded from www vortexbox org it does include a commercial part where they offer a fully integrated solution still the linux distro is FREE for download I ve installed it on an OLD pc Pentium 2 266MHz amp still works for 16 44 1 it does hit a snag with 24 96 but your HW setup will run 24 192 with no issues The distribution supports the Lynx AES16 and FW and more It also support a Squeezebox setup as a server to manage the files and a few more options including the recently added MPD based player Installation of the vortexbox is something like next gt next gt next no prior linux knowledge is required All working out of the box Q Asa WEISS Minerva owner and user I d like to fit a FW card into your design installation of Vortexbox 1 1 to complete the FW solution In that case what FW card will you recommend using As none was mentioned in the article BOM and it is well known that one should use a card with TI chip set to comply with PRO audio and the Weiss HW both 4 and 6 outputs will be appreciated Regards computeraudiophile com Computer
21. 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Log in Create n WADIA DIGITAL BE SONORE wy simple Design HOME FORUM EQUIPMENT MUSIC C A S H LIST CA ACADEMY AUDIO SHOWS FAQs About Us Contact Us O COMPUTER d d Competer Avdiophile J peachtree audio Spend much time strapped to your desk Decco2 will change the way you look at your Computer o Home Content Computer Audiophile Pocket Server C A P S Submitted by The Computer Au on Mon 02 08 2010 17 15 Over the last several months I ve researched different combinations of motherboards nm computer cases audio cards and accessories that go along with these components The goal of all this research was to put together a hardware and software music server solution that ssm would actually use and the Computer Audiophile readers could actually use I would do the leg work test amp listen to everything and provide the information for CA readers to put together the exact same music server This sounds somewhat simple until one considers all the requirements that go into such an audiophile solution Great sound great looking no moving parts silent fairly inexpensive and 100 of the components must be available today Along the way this server was named the Pocket Server by a colleague who was very surprise at its small size when I pulled it out of my carry on luggage The server is a bit larger today than it was at th
22. BU which is almost always a definite plus We ll be building this and the Xonar ASIO based version mentioned above and running some comparative auditions in the next few weeks but as things stand Windows or Linux digital transports have some persuasive advantages unless you re committed to end to end excellence in USB or FireWire No Lynx card but BluRay capable and with a linear regulated PSU Login or register to post comments Submitted by Andrew S on Sat 02 13 2010 14 07 Joined 06 28 2009 Offline Comments 258 Nice Chris Chris Very well researched written and comprehensive write up Thanks for the obvious effort you put in Pretty thankless task putting your head above the parapets IME Linux amp MPD is perfect with USB Dacs partic async and not alot else it s just too much of a PITA to configure anything requiring a driver to achieve automatic sample rate switching RME and Lynx have both defeated me life s too short Having said that along with Amarra MPD has given me the best playback sound I have experienced from a computer digital transport I run Win7 64 on my current Lappie Asus UL30 SSD M2Tech HiFace J River 14 and Wasapi out no problem at all with latest beta 64 Hiface driver from Marco No stutters or distortion Very nice sound The Hiface esp BNC is a nice alternative to the Lynx esp for lappie users or those on a budget Not as good for sure but a whole lot less expensive and works
23. Comments 4 Hi Chris AA 7 Thanks for the awesome article on the C A P S I m using a windows laptop and external HD as a sever the system is pretty quiet but not silent I ve never set up a NAS before Can Vista or Windows 7 be set up to connect directly to a NAS via wired ethernet or is a router required I might be able to put a NAS in another room to reduce the HD noise Can jRiver MC14 easily find my music library via the LAN connection Thanks for the help Valvefan External HD gt eSATA gt Vista laptop gt jRiver MC14 gt USB gt Ayre QBg gt Pass Labs X preamp gt Blue Circle BC 204 amp gt Cabasse Farella 401 speakers Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Tue 02 09 2010 18 31 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline Comments 6744 A pA ee Hi Scott Yeah Windows 7 is Hi Scott Yeah Windows 7 is tough to swallow for several readers but for others it s all they want For this server I wanted an OS that people would purchase anywhere and would be available for a while You are right about the persnickety concerns and using wired keyboard mouse and monitor The sound compared to other computers used at the Symposium is different Windows based machines sound different than Mac based machines and XP different from Windows 7 I have confidence that Windows 7 can be made to sound better than XP Right now my XP G5 Mac Pro and MacBook Pro servers are on the sideline I ve gravitated to t
24. DC conversion only the dual core 330 needs a fan the more powerful and less suitable 330 board also features DC conversion and wireless no no no The linear PSU Zotac Ion 230 recipe costs less than 500 350 in my part of the world plus OS and case The power supply is much better and plus a 100 BD ROM it does BluRay without a glitch But I am curious about building the system around the Linx card if in audition it bests the Realtek SPDIF drivers on the Zotac then maybe it justifies the cost Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Fri 02 12 2010 05 36 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline Comments 6744 But I am curious about But I am curious about building the system around the Linx card if in audition it bests the Realtek SPDIF drivers on the Zotac then maybe it justifies the cost Hi hubsand I connected the special cable pictured in my article directly to the S PDIF headers on the motherboard I was so displeased with the sound I could barely listen The Lynx is a great card and it s very versatile for external clocking and dual wire applications Chris Connaker Founder Com puter Audiophile Login or register to post comments f Submitted by hubsand on Fri 02 12 2010 07 54 Joined 10 13 2008 Offline Comments 78 Only one wav to tell computeraudiophile com Computer 24 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server The U
25. ES16e gt Windows 7 gt Goldwave Login or register to post comments computeraudiophile com Computer 13 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Submitted by The Computer Au on Tue 02 09 2010 21 03 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline di Comments 6744 r Hi jbpsrca I ve had great Hi jbpsrca I ve had great luck with the regular ASIO driver and selecting the Lynx card via the config in J River WASAPI has been a bit troublesome for me with bursts of distortion and some scary noises infrequently Since you are using the AES16e card things may be a bit different Chris Connaker Founder Computer Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by IamKirk on Tue 02 09 2010 21 49 Joined 10 15 2008 Offline Comments 101 a Chris 3 What was experience like with Arch Linux Was voyage selected because of the nycparamedic alix project Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Tue 02 09 2010 22 03 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline Comments 6744 i br Hi IamKirk I used Arch for Hi IamKirk I used Arch for a very short time Nothing about it made me have to have it Whereas Voyage was awesome and I thought it beat everything else hands down I researched distributions seemingly forever and even thought about creating my own CA Linux distribution I couldn t find one better than Voyage for what I wanted to do Since Voyage is based
26. K price of the Lynx card is scary expensive double that Stateside but we ll import the bits and audition the Lynx with an Atom ITX board Unless anyone has built one locally and fancies a bake off There is a board with PCIe a fanless single core Atom and Nvidia Ion for bluray see here http www overclock co uk product Point of View NVI DIA ION Intel Atom 2 This would probably also run the Asus Xonar card too Login or register to post comments Submitted by Jammrock on Fri 02 12 2010 08 08 Joined 09 02 2009 Offline Comments 11 Essence ST X Can t wait to hear your opinion on the Essence ST X with the updated ASIO driver I ve been eyeing that card for a long time Si Whatever works Login or register to post comments Submitted by Jammrock on Fri 02 12 2010 08 30 Joined 09 02 2009 Offline Comments 11 Ion FLAC amp Space Fight g I agree 60 GB is not a lot thus my 128 GB suggestion but again it is a moot point if you have a good home network with a media server or NAS with multiple TB s worth of storage And that s the point made in the article The CAPS is a great front end and that s what it s designed for not necessarily a media server Audiophiles love their separates after all and that can easily translate to the CA niche FLAC Free Lossless Audio Codec Lossless being the key word besides free I ve done bit comparisons between WAV output and FLAC output and they a
27. OCZ 16GB PATA PCle Mini Solid State Drive 151 69 Will not fit on Intel D945GSEJT motherboard Solid State Drive e ATP eUSB SSD 8GB Z U130 139 Windows can t be installed to this drive Wireless Card e Intel Wifi Link 5100 802 11a b g Draft N PCIe Mini Card 29 00 Wireless Antenna e Wireless Dual Band Antenna 108 mm 4 and Pigtail Cable 17 00 Click To Enlarge Photos C A P S Server in my listening room Stock Photos of Origen M10 computeraudiophile com Computer 6 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Chris Connaker Founder Computer Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by cfmsp on Mon 02 08 2010 19 47 Joined 08 10 2008 Offline Comments 2302 f shame about Linux Chris Ey it s a shame about the challenges of Linux Like you I believe it to be the OS of choice down the road for purpose built audio servers until then I m fine with Mac OS X nice article clay Login or register to post comments Submitted by silverarrows on Mon 02 08 2010 21 17 Joined 02 08 2009 Offline Comments 38 Excellent article J I ve been looking at what would be needed to build a Windows 7 based server and this is exactly the type of thing I was looking for For me I would probably lean towards a Zotac IONITX board with the NVIDIA graphics card It also has built in s pdif optical coax outputs to give some time to eventually p
28. a great application but it is not bit perfect It would be the program i prefer I will have to order a touchscreen monitor and test all the bit perfect programs out there Today you can buy computer cases with a 7 inch touch integrated in the front They are more expensive but you do not need an extra monitor The rest of the hardware you selected is really very nice totally silent and low power consumption I think some persons want one single server for video too Then they need more graphics power for Full HD video It is possible to build it noiseless So let s stay tuned Bernhard Login or register to post comments Submitted by BobH on Wed 02 10 2010 15 23 Joined 10 03 2008 Offline Comments 689 Remote control I just thought it might be worth mentioning that a nice monitor located somewhere near to the listening position together with something like the Logitech MX Air mouse might be an elegant solution for anyone simply looking for a way to control playback Bob CAPS EssenceST gt Tact 2 0s gt Audio Reseach 100 2 gt Martin Logan Vista Login or register to post comments Great article thank you h Submitted by av_passion on Wed 02 10 2010 16 48 Joined 09 18 2009 Offline Comments 21 it T Chris What a great article Thank you for doing all of the work the research the testing and the trouble shooting This makes building a great music server achievable and rel
29. agree that the Lynx AES16 is a better I O than the Juli To my knowledge I hope I can be corrected the Lynx card is NOT supported on Linux The other promising multiple sample rate interface is the M2Tech Hiface but for the moment this one is only a promise as far as Linux goes Sorry for the long post but I hope this contributes to the dialog Again I don t think this Linux Juli XBMC alternative disqualifies in any way the choices made by Chris Gerson Login or register to post comments Submitted by Elprior on Thu 02 11 2010 07 30 Joined 11 05 2008 Offline Comments 189 Hi Chris excellent article Hi Chris excellent article I am precisely in the mood for a silent computer near my dac I was looking to the Atom platform too and am already using JRiver MC14 very good piece of software Just a few questions 1 Is the Atom powerful enough to use the theater view I just could not make it work on windows xp with a core 2 duo laptop and a crappy nvidia graphic card and asio ouput the ouput kept dropping depending on the cpu load asio issue I am to say that I use flac files But outside theater view the cpu load hardly hit 1 Using a loudy pc under w7 bits with a nvidia 7600gt and the very same system I could not suffer a single dropout in theater mode So any figure claim about the Atom stress would be greatly appreciated 2 Are you playing from memory I love this feature really this elim
30. are always seeking ways to turn off unneeded features or capabilities and frequently use single purpose components such as a DAC with separate power supply or separate external clock Turning off a component s display is nothing new to audiophiles either This time there is no option to turn the display on or use the included remote control I don t know if the lack of these features reduces any electrical noise inside the case but I m willing to bet an argument could be made in support of such a reduction Again this is strictly because I selected a motherboard that was not 100 compatible with the M10 case I ve read other reports of these features working very well In fact with a compatible motherboard it would be possible to control applications like J River Media Center via the infrared remote control The Origen M10 case supports half hight PCI cards sitting vertically in the motherboard s PCI slot I placed an ASUS Xonar HDAV 1 3 Slim card into the PCI slot and it lined up perfectly with the hole to screw the card into place stabilizing it with the unique internal metal frame of the case The M10 can also accommodate full size PCI cards like the Lynx AES16 and ASUS Xonar Essence ST by use of a PCI riser card Photo A PCI riser card simply enables the PCI card to mount horizontally instead of its native vertical placement I know of no detrimental effects by using such a riser card I was initially concerned about heat dissipation as most of the
31. at could also accept FW or USB I m not comparing this to a full Mac pro Lynx solution which obviously is not cost competitive Thanks again for a great article m2 computeraudiophile com Computer 28 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server MacBook Pro with Pure Music iTunes amp PS Audio PWT gt PS Audio PW DAC Spiral Groove SG2 TT w Triplaner arm amp Ortofon Ago Cartridge gt ARC Ref 2 Phono Pre gt Concert Fidelity CF o80 Preamp gt VAC Phi200 Monoblock amps gt NOLA Baby Grand speakers Login or register to post comments Submitted by hubsand on Sat 02 13 2010 06 57 Joined 10 13 2008 Offline Comments 78 Mac v PC We recently ran several auditions of our 500 dedicated Windows 7 digital transport of similar spec to the CAPS against MacMini and MacBook equivalents running PureVinyl The MacBook was audibly less artefacted than the Mini but the only way the MacBook could reach the level of the Windows machine with a moderately good coaxial interconnect was via a very high quality USB cable and only then when using a DAC with well implemented USB input i As a die hard Mac user it really pains me to say that for the same money a Windows 7 machine generally sounds better and runs BluRay Chris version uses the very expensive Lynx card and drivers which in principle offers even higher quality digital out and the possibility of entering the DAC via AES E
32. at time but the name hasn t changed What follows is the story of the Computer Audiophile Pocket Server and all the information required to recreate the 1 500 C A P S solution Jack of All Trades Master of None Like many audiophiles I am never satisfied with the status quo The status quo in computer based audio is to purchase a Windows based PC or a Macintosh plug it in and let er rip That type of a solution works wonderful for the vast majority of the world s population and it s one I recommend frequently when the situation arises Moving beyond the status quo many audiophiles including myself customize standard Macs and PCs until they re satisfied with the sound quality This customization still does not address many of the issues inherent in a machine built for general computing and is often like polishing a turd The CA Pocket Server Project began with a completely blank whiteboard This way I had no turds to polish or in audiophile terms I had no jitter to clean up from the start It s always better to build a fanless system rather than install inches of acoustical foam fight with noise and worry about other issues related to fans That s the general thought process I used to approach this project Plus the always pertinent acronym K I S S Keep It Simple Stupid Requirements The Computer Audiophile Pocket Server requirements were non negotiable I had to satisfy these requirements or the project would be a failure I also elected to use
33. ativelv painless Thank vou computeraudiophile com Computer 16 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Login or register to post comments The guy who wrote MPOD for The guy who wrote MPOD for the iPhone and MPD is looking at re designing things for the iPad This would have some great potential for a remote control application If you re willing to give Linux a go then you could leave some feedback for him on what you d like in the ipad version here http www katoemba net makesnosenseatall 2010 01 30 ipod mpod ipad mpad f Submitted by Idolse on Wed 02 10 2010 19 08 Joined 08 20 2008 Offline Comments 164 E Regarding mounting the network share I ve been working on a custom distribution for MPD and I didn t have a problem using the mount command in re network mount FULL t cifs ipaddress sharename mnt music o username username password password Getting the right packages to use that command in Voyage may be more difficult not sure I was using Puppy Linux which can also be set to read only like Voyage though they use a different technique to accomplish it I agree that even this could be complex for some users but essentially what the user needs to know is the IP address sharename and user pass pass is optional if you can configure guest access on the NAS All is plain text Guess I should get around to finishing that distribution and instructions Login or register to pos
34. clearly on page 34 Sample rate supports 32 44 1 48 88 2 96 192 kHz Coaxial Output only Without 24 176 4 the MAY A44 card failed the requirement The RME 9632 audio card was a different story About 100 hours into the configuration nightmare I was able to pass bit perfect audio on all required sample rates Configuring the RME 9632 in Linux was extremely frustrating There are bits and pieces of outdated user generated documentation all over the Internet If there is demand I will create my definitive guide to the RME 9632 on Linux There are software firmware and hardware incompatibilities to work through I m really happy I put in the time to make it work on the C A P S server as I learned quite a bit in the process Once I had the card working on all the required sample rates I still had problems changing sample rates on the fly when I switched audio tracks I could not get this to work no matter what I tried I did create scripts to change sample rates but each one had to be called up via command line before playing a track that required a sample rate change This mix of problems is what lead me to exclude Linux from the list of possible operating systems Requirements 12 and 13 combined equate to a system that is not easy to use Audio cards with Linux support that also support the required sample rates are few and far between The cards that do exist are not user friendly enough for most people to use on a daily basis Canned servers that o
35. connections for those that have the patience to deal with that Now for the requirement 7 First I would like to comment that not all players are created equal in the Linux space in particular for FLAC FLAC decoding is typically embedded in the players so mplayer and MPD for example produced different results on the same file Some FLAC files in particular the ones with exotic sample rates can be a problem Much to my surprise the most consistent player was also the one with the best user interface in my opinion XBMC from xbmc org While primarily a multimedia player it behaves flawlessly with FLAC files sending their decodes directly to the sound card with no manual sample rate switch anywhere I haven t tested other music file formats Two comments about XBMC One its installation was a breeze I just had to install Ubuntu from the live CD no fancy options or tricks there Then the XBMC site provides a few instructions to add the XBMC repository to the source list in your Ubuntu system Next it is just one command to install it One other comment XBMC or any Linux player for that matter will not do bit perfect output out of the box You will need to create a file called asoundrc that creates a virtual device that plugs straight to the hardware bypassing the ALSA mixer Then you have to choose that virtual device as your output in XBMC I can provide details on that if required And one last comment I think everybody would
36. d most of the requirements can t met Readers not schooled in computer hardware o should know a motherboard is the main board to which everything in a computer connects 7 The motherboard dictates what CPU can be used how much memory can be used how many and what type of hard drives can be used and everything else that goes together to build a working computer The first criterion I used to determine the best motherboard for the C A P S server was number four no moving parts There are many methods to eliminate moving parts from a motherboard such as the addition of passive cooling used in servers based on the Zalman TNN300 or hFX chassis Adding passive or active cooling only increases complexity I wanted a motherboard with no moving parts out of the box Such a motherboard had to include passive cooling as part of the board s design This requirement reduced the number of qualifying motherboards down to a handful I had previously built a Linux based music sever using a motherboard from the swiss company PC Engines These boards are very small have incredibly low power requirements but have too many limitations for the C A P S server PCI slots memory slots hard drive capabilities and operating system limitations were too much to overcome One capability I really like using with a current PC Engines board I have is Power over Ethernet PoE This board receives all its power via an Ethernet cable It s a nice bonus in the aesthetics department whe
37. e com Computer 23 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server g 7 Thanks for all this great information This is very educational to us newbies and your willingness to respond to all of the comments and questions makes this one of the best places on the internet Soon I will build a server for myself THANKS Login or register to post comments Submitted by hubsand on Fri 02 12 2010 03 53 Joined 10 13 2008 Offline Comments 78 Ion amp Space 7 ae s Jammrock 60Gb is fine for MP3s you squeeze loads of albums on an iPod Ey But seriously well heeled audiophiles building a music server are surely not going to hobble its performance with a compressed format like FLAC not when such a leap in sound quality comes for free by using AIFF or WAV The CAPS is built from the ground up to pass 24 192 so let s talk about the space overhead that level of quality comes at the price of roughly a meg a second 60Mb a minute 17 minutes per Gigabyte maybe 12x single album CDs on a partially occupied 60gb drive assuming a streamlined 5Gb OS 24 albums per 60gb drive if we deal in 24 96 Assuming we re still talking about music lovers we re in the realm of 200 album collections minimum Even in 16 bit that s a lot of space We just need to forget about SSDs until they become economically viable in terabyte capacities QED The Zotac Ion 230 board has a single Atom chip passive cooling no fan and no
38. e features of the Intel Do45GSEUJT include on board S PDIF digital audio output headers Header is another term for pins on the motherboard to which one can connect devices This output supports 16 44 1 24 48 and 24 96 sample rates A special cable is required Photo 1 Photo 2 to use this S PDIF output as there are no built in S PDIF ports A full mini PCI Express slot is available for wireless cards or other devices like a hardware decoder to increase video playback capabilities One of the USB headers on the D945GSEJT can be used for an eUSB solid state drive I purchased an eight GB eUSB drive for this server Photo 1 Photo 2 but did not use it with the Windows 7 installation Windows 7 will not install to a USB drive even if it s placed directly on the motherboard I have installed Linux to this tiny drive without any issues An underrated feature of small mini itx motherboards is the network speed capabilities Many small boards only contain 10 100 Mbps network cards The Intel D945GSEJT has an on board 10 100 1000 Mbps card commonly referred to as a gigabit Ethernet card The maximum amount of random access memory RAM the Intel D945GSEJT will accept is two GB in its only memory slot The decision to use two GB of RAM doesn t require any thought or further discussion here Just add to cart it s cheap Selecting a hard drive to meet the no moving parts requirement is easy if one has unlimited funds Fortunately Solid State Drives SSD continu
39. e is only 35 bucks but you loose the cd option I could be wrong but the AES16 card looks a bit funny in the M10 case I really like the idea of the fanless design and the external power adapter or power brick as some call them That junk does not belong inside the music server I have something very close to this my personal unit in the pic with a mini itx MB with VIA chip OCZ ssd fanless case 4 GB ram Windows 7 and firewire to my Minerva and I love it I use M M because the iTouch app rocks IMO Someday we will have WASAPI and I will be golden A side note about Linux with all do respect to your attempt here to try it My buddy Clay says it s a shame about the challenges of Linux I say it s a shame you did not ask me to help I understand that my input might spoil the project as a vender but we should be able to look past that I agree that Linux poses some challenges moving forward However Andrew has been working very hard with me to bridge the gap and make it accessable to anyone willing to try it For sure you started out with some Linux software distributions that are to hard core for the average Joe At the same time your building the Windows 7 machine from scratch so installing Andrew s Linux distribution should be on par Andrew s Linux distribution is also 100 free to use without limitations and it is geared to rip music store music and most importantly play music with MPD My install guide is posted here on CA if anyone is interes
40. e to decrease in price every week At the time of this writing an OCZ Vertex Turbo 60GB SSD is 219 This is not the exact drive I used in the C A P S server but it s contains the same amount of disk space as the one I used If I were putting together the C A P S server today I would purchase the OCZ drive previously mentioned There is currently no way store most people s music collections on local solid state hard drives The available sizes just aren t large enough without spending thousands of dollars on convoluted PCI e SSD devices That s why I selected a 60GB SSD Most music must be stored elsewhere My music is located on a Network Attached Storage NAS device If an external spinning USB or FireWire drive is necessary then so be it At least C A P S server is free from internal moving parts for now In the future it will be possible to house all one s music locally on solid state storage Audio card selection for the C A P S server was fairly easy for me a Lynx AES16 I am a strong supporter of the Lynx AES16 PCI card for its sound quality and its advanced capabilities The Lynx enables one to use an external clocking device and supports dual wire AES I used both of these features during the computeraudiophile com Computer 3 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server sound but it doesn t meet many of the requirements of this project An audio card I would really like to use in the C A P S server is the ASUS Xonar Es
41. he C A P S server Hi Valvefan Yes any current operating system can connect directly to a NAS without a router J River will automatically find all the music located on the NAS as long as you map a drive to it or point J River to the right folder The thing to do is connect the NAS directly to the computer with an Ethernet cable Most likely your computer or NAS will automatically cross over the cable so a special cable is not required You will have to assign a manual IP address to the NAS and your computer so the two can talk to each other If you only have one network port on your computer you won t be able to access the internet or anything other than the NAS drive computeraudiophile com Computer 12 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Founder Com puter Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by vortecjr on Tue 02 09 2010 18 55 Joined 04 18 2009 Offline Comments 779 Chris at the risk of sounding like a copy cat 1 ordered that very Intel Do945GSEJT MB backplate and ram for an unrelated venture I m not ready to discuss what that venture is at the moment but that should be enough to say I like the MB L S told me about the MB and the backplate a few fews weeks ago when I asked them about new MBs with PCI and SATA and minimum 2GB of ram I don t think that the M10 case is quite ready to except that backplate because the backplate was meant for another case BTW that cas
42. he hardware Login or register to post comments Submitted by hubsand on Fri 02 12 2010 10 42 Joined 10 13 2008 Offline Comments 78 24 192 v 24 96 vr Chris Support for 24 192 is spotty granted And considerably software dependent preferred WASAPI on our streamlined system was fine with 24 192 but not 24 88 1 for instance However reaching for 24 192 was less of a priority than standardising on a rock stable 24 96 platform we re not convinced that 96 sample rates are relevant for the foreseeable future Getting the domestic industry to 24 96 is already a titanic but very worthwhile struggle I take the view that diminishing returns compatibility issues availability of music and file sizes all count heavily against 24 192 for the next 2 3 years In fact for playback I manually resample our 24 88 1 and 24 192 files to 24 96 in Soundbooth Pro Originals get archived future proof No problem I do admit that our recipe priorities were different I didn t set a 24 192 requirement But we did cast in stone that it had to be BluRay capable and not use a switch mode power supply Login or register to post comments Submitted by baocrazy on Fri 02 12 2010 11 38 Joined 02 12 2010 Offline Comments 4 f Thanks for this gt Thanks for this information Do you have some url to share on how to realise that with those two soundcards you mentionned Login or register to post PEREPERE compu
43. he majority of us to duplicate I m particularly interested in Linux despite the shortcomings you highlighted it s of interest to a number of readers and the extra effort shortcomings may be worthwhile for some readers if the sound quality is there Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Mon 02 08 2010 22 28 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline Comments 6744 i yr r Hi Idolse Nice to see you Hi ldolse Nice to see you commenting on this article as I know you are a big supporter of Linux and likely understand it as well or better than many readers I did check every source in the country for Juli cards and nobody had them in stock I couldn t even get one from the distributor because it didn t have them either The Linux system with a Juli would fail the requirements for the C A P S because it wasn t user friendly enough It could certainly be made user friendly enough but not by the average CA reader I don t think the average reader can setup a NAS connection that references a stored encrypted password file and mounts at boot time without pulling their hair out This is one of many issues that users would run into and that can t really be novice proof because they require user specific information a user may not even know I ve been asked what an IP address is many times You and I can do this stuff blind folded but not most of the CA readers Plus a really tweaked Linux system is the topic
44. he market is heading and not just for Windows and that is offers better stability and future proofing As for the memory amount question you don t need 4GB but it doesn t hurt either Every operating system has the so called sweet spot where adding more RAM no longer improves system performance For Windows 7 Vista that is 4 GB for XP it is 2 GB I can t tell you the sweet spots of Linux OS X but I m sure they have them The reason for this is because of system caching The operating system will cache all of the background processes and application into a RAM cache which allows the system especially Win7 to respond snappy On average my Win7 install will cache 1 6 GB of the operating system to RAM With standard system security running anit virus anti spyware malware firewall a few tray programs running and a some apps open you use about 1 1 75 GB of active RAM That totals to just under 4 GB which is where the 4 GB sweet spot comes from And let s face it 4GB RAM is super cheap these days There s no real reason not to go with 4GB Whatever works Login or register to post comments Submitted by liorms on Sun 02 14 2010 16 12 Joined 04 20 2009 Offline Comments 27 Vortexbox LINUX amp FW option Hi Chris That is a lovely well written article which provides with all the discussion around it a perfect tutorial I m looking for such a solution for last 1 5y and my main problem was the OS Similar to
45. inates the need for streaming through the network 3 What about this Debussy baby How does it compare through its usb input against the linx setup I know this is too early a question Thanks Elp Login or register to post comments computeraudiophile com Computer 19 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server bet migrate audiofiles from mac to caps hd Thanks for this great piece Is it possible to move the itunes music files aiff to be used in CAPS I am afraid that re rip is mandatory Pure Music Dac202 LebenXS MagicoV2 Stealth cables www bluedy com Login or register to post comments Submitted by One anda half on Thu 02 11 2010 09 05 Joined 04 12 2009 Offline Comments 176 Small Drive J The SSD is great for the OS Music files can be stored on external drives cause the streaming rate is pedestrian compared with the processing you need Sony VAIO F127 Win7 64bit Sony STR DA5400ES AV Receiver Halide Design Bridge Accuphase E 450 Accuphase DAC 20 KEF Reference Three Speakers Yamaha YST1500 Sub Woofer Custom Teflon 12guage speaker cables AQ Copperhead interconnects Login or register to post comments Submitted by silverarrows on Thu 02 11 2010 11 23 Joined 02 08 2009 Offline Comments 38 Broadcom BCM970012 PCIe Mini Card Looking at the pictures would this card fit in if the AES card is installed with the riser While the goal is to build the best server for
46. iophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by Idolse on Sat 02 13 2010 17 01 Joined 08 20 2008 Offline Comments 164 f Power Supply Options 1 E It seems to me that the power supply is the one component of this system that could use an upgrade I ve been wondering if the aftermarket squeezebox power supplies would be compatible with the Intel or Alix boards I can t find enough info to confirm 100 but I suspect the answer is yes I was looking at Welborne Labs http welbornelabs com squeeze htm Never heard back from them when I emailed them inquiring about the same though Login or register to post comments Submitted by ahp on Sun 02 14 2010 00 28 Joined 02 14 2010 Offline Comments 2 f Intel Desktop Board D410PT 9 E I m thinking about building my own solution based on your great article Since I ll be using an Ayre QB 9 I won t need the sound card making the system much cheaper to build But I m also thinking about using Intel D410PT motherboard since it can support 4Gbyte memory and 64bit operation This would generate 10W heat instead of the 2 5W generated by the D945GSEUJT you are using Do you see any compatibility or heat issue with the D410PT Thanks for the answer in advance computeraudiophile com Computer 30 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Submitted by EuroChamp on Sun 02 14 2010 03 01 Joined 01 25 2010 Offline Comments 10
47. is and I also know many people who want nothing to do with a computer project Fortunately the C A P S server was created with both groups of people in mind Using off the shelf parts currently available to anyone CA readers can undertake this project themselves or simply call up a local computer shop and have them put it together Whether one builds it buys it or brushes it off is irrelevant The Computer Audiophile Pocket Server s purpose is to increase one s enjoyment of our wonderful hobby The Computer Audiophile Pocket Server piece by piece Motherboard e Intel D945GSEJT Johnstown Mini ITX Motherboard 109 00 Power Supply e Power Adapter DC 12 V 80 W 29 00 RAM e TRANSCEND 256MSQ64V6U SO DIMM DDR2 667 Memory 2GB 73 00 Solid State Drive e OCZ Vertex Turbo OCZSSD2 1VTXT60G 2 5 60GB SSD 219 00 PCI Riser e PCI Riser Card for D945GSEJT 10 95 Digital Audio Card e Lynx AES16 PCI Audio Card 625 computeraudiophile com Computer 5 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Computer Case e Origen M10 320 Music Application e J River Media Center 14 50 Other bits and pieces used during the C A P S Project that did not make the final build Hardware Decoder e Broadcom BCM970012 PCIe Mini Card 59 00 Solid State Drive e Emphase 44 pin Industrial Flash Disk Module 4 GB 4000X 69 00 Windows installation too large for 4GB version Solid State Drive e
48. l selection of an operating system for the C A P S server came down to Windows 7 and Voyage Linux Voyage Linux is an incredibly small operating system It can fit on a tiny USB memory stick compact flash drive or any hard drive currently available The initial installation requires about 128 Megabytes of disk space not to be confused with 128 Gigabytes Voyage installs as a barebones operating system The user must add or update audio features such as Music Player Daemon MPD Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ALSA and other tools like NCMPC and Minion There are countless options when using Linux This is a great thing for most Linux users but can be overwhelming to those trying it for the first time I forced myself to use Voyage Linux for many weeks Without the option to jump over to a Mac or Windows based server one can become very well versed in Linux music servers On the contrary one can quit using a Linux music server due to frustration if one doesn t have the necessary time and skills to work through problems The Voyage based system I setup satisfied all but three of the stated C A P S requirements Requirements 7 12 and 13 were constant battles I tried a few different audio cards and had varying levels of success with each of them I used an ESi MAY A44 and RME 9632 for much of the time I was unable to pass 24 176 4 digital audio out of the ESi MAY A44 The MAY A44 data sheets proclaim support up to 24 192 but the user manual states
49. looks great though it just looks expensive On the software front I think we re completely on the same page Linux or Windows 7 JRMC WASAPI the implementation of which we too are really impressed by in V14 computeraudiophile com Computer 22 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Login or register to post comments Submitted by Jammrock on Thu 02 11 2010 20 42 Joined 09 02 2009 Offline Comments 11 SSD and ION nr How many albums on 60 GB Well 60 GB using the SI system equates to 55 9 GiB GibiBytes or i giga binary bytes usable by Windows Assume about 20 GB for OS pagefile apps and required free space and you have about 35 9 GB for music With FLAC compression you re looking at 350 MB per CD album divided by 35 9 GB and you get roughly 102 albums assuming full length If we move into something like the HRx space you get about 690 minutes with 176 4 24 FLAC or about 10 albums Which is not a lot but then there isn t a lot of 176 4 24 content out there yet Of course the 60 GB SSD is only a suggestion You can get 120 164 GB SSDs for slightly more cash already The newly announced second gen Kingston SSDNow V is a good example with Win7 TRIM support garbage collection good performance and a 377 MSRP for the 128 GB version Since the HDD is the noisiest and slowest part of normal computers these days going SSD and sacrificing some space is by far the better option for a trul
50. ments 6744 ILDS Hi bluedy It is 100 Hi bluedy It is 100 possible to play AIFF files from iTunes on the C A P S server Using J River Media Center I played back my from my iTunes music folder to make sure this worked Chris Connaker Founder Com puter Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Thu 02 11 2010 16 51 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline Comments 6744 a ee Dr Husband It appears that you Husband It appears that you are the Registrant of the domain that you are directing people to I can only assume you are posting here for you own benefit and looking for free advertising Y our site sells audio components that readers here are possibly interested in Consider this your one and only warning More posts talking about products you sell or linking to your own Store will result in an immediate ban from the site Chris Connaker Founder Computer Audiophile Login or register to post comments Understood pae Submitted by hubsand on Thu 02 11 2010 17 21 Joined 10 13 2008 Offline Comments 78 Understood No linking to sites with possibly interesting things Or at least not interesting things we have a vested interest in Fai computeraudiophile com Computer 21 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server We re not box shifters and we don t sell PCs as a service we publish our reference spec so people can buy
51. mes out as a sub second burst of static The latest builds in GIT allow the use of libsndfile library which doesn t have this problem though it does have an issue with not updating the progress bar in clients though this new issue is purely cosmetic Login or register to post comments Submitted by Afveep on Sat 02 13 2010 00 09 Joined 07 27 2008 Offline Comments 36 Chris Comparison to a Mac Mini Chris An excellent article and obviously the result of an immense amount of work It does beg the question though of the end result sonics only vs a very simple Mac Mini solution with Pure Vinyl for example The 1500 target price does not appear to include about 180 for Windows 7 unless I m mistaken bringing the total cost of the CAPS solution to about double that of a Mac Mini and PV AA I can certainly understand the immense value of this solution for those who are not interested in a Mac based server have a bug for an iTunes based player or have the desire as you state for more flexibility for an external clock or for use with a DAC that can accept only AES or SPDIF Given that you have considerable listening experience amongst the various servers in your own system my core question is whether you or anyone else here believe that this CAPS server provides a material sonic improvement over a mac Amarra Mini 24 96 only or PV 24 192 etc off the shelf solution when used with a common DAC obviously one th
52. motherboard rests underneath the horizontally mounted Lynx AES16 card Thus far I ve yet to experience any heat related issues I ve even listened to four hours straight of 24 176 4 HRx material outputting dual wire AES to a DAC without a single hiccup and the M10 case is cool to the touch Inside the case the Lynx AES16 card is no hotter than any other installation I ve seen The bottom of the Origen M10 case features four metal with rubber bottom feet The feet are tall enough to allow placement of the case on short carpeting and the rubber bottom of the feet enable one to place the case on any surface without scratching I currently place the M10 case on carpet in my listening room instead of behind a wall where my other music servers reside The case looks very nice and I have no reason to hide such a component This placement also allows me to use short AES cables from my Lynx AES16 card to my DAC Overall I don t consider the power incompatibility an issue I would purchase this case without the extra features were it available in such a configuration Plus I personally user remote desktop for control of the server and wouldn t use the IR receiver or front panel anyway Use of a monitor is not something I normally consider with my music servers The Intel D945GSEJT does have analog DSUB and digital DVI video outputs One of these is certainly required for system setup and could continue to be used if necessary Seeking to add something extra to
53. n one can remove the power cable from a component After much research and testing I selected the mini itx Intel Do945GSEJT motherboard for the C A P S server Photo 1 Photo 2 This board has a built in non removable Intel Atom N270 1 6 GHz CPU that is passively cooled with low profile attached heat sinks No CPU fan required The Intel D945GSEJT has two SATA hard drive ports Connecting standard SATA solid state hard drives SSD eliminates another source of moving parts from the server Spinning hard drives are a source for noise greater power requirements increased heat and can limit the computer case options One feature that elevates the Intel Do945GSEJT motherboard above others is the built in full size PCI slot This satisfies the requirement for add in audio cards or additional capabilities By additional capabilities I am talking about a PCI FireWire card to connect a FireWire DAC or FireWire hard drive for people using USB DACs Power requirement for the Intel D945GSEUT is very flexible One can use a traditional computer power supply that connects to the board s 2x2 power port These traditional power supplies are rarely fanless rarely silent and can decrease the number of computer case options due to mounting requirements The Intel D945GSEUT also accepts an external 12 volt power supply similar to most laptops on the market A silent fanless external power brick was easily my choice to power the C A P S server Other notabl
54. ne can purchase off the shelf based on Linux and cards such as the RME 9632 RME HDSP AES 32 Lynx AES16 with OSS drivers or even the ESi Juli card have a bright future Creating this type of solution at home for one s self is not for the average audiophile seeking to listen to music rather than fiddle with a computer That said I continue to use Linux in my listening room next to my other servers Note The ESi Juli card supports all the required sample rates but can be very hard to obtain I was unable to procure one during the several months of this project Even with a Juli card a Linux based solution still does not meet the C A P S requirements Windows 7 satisfies all of the software based requirements It is capable of great sound it s a current OS easy to operate and install works with more hardware than any other OS and is capable of bit perfect computeraudiophile com Computer 2 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server 64 bit Windows 7 I still think I would use the 32 bit version There are no benefits to using a 64 bit operating system on the C A P S server I selected J River Media Center 14 as the playback and library management application for the C A P S server MC 14 has become my new go to Windows based music application because of its features flexibility and bit perfect playback Hardware The motherboard is the most critical component of the C A P S server Without the right yy motherboar
55. ngly reduce cost and product great sound What then was the thinking behind using AES16 sound card which is undoubtably a great piece of kit Regards APS Login or register to post comments Submitted by bmckenney on Tue 02 09 2010 11 49 Joined 11 03 2009 Offline Comments 156 I have a serious question I have a serious question Is there any benefit to this type of server over a Mac Mini with some a tweaks like a SSD It seems to me a Mac Mini headless would be cheaper and simpler and still meet all the requirements Add in an async USB or FW DAC Anyway just curious what your thoughts are on the pro s and con s of a custom server like the Pocket Server verus a Mac Mini Especially interested in sound quality differences but I understand the player software won t be the same Bryan Dedicated 240V balanced power Torus RM20 BAL Mac Mini Ayre QB 9 LSA Group Signature integrated Eminent Tech LFTS8B speakers Real Trap and GIK bass traps Login or register to post comments computeraudiophile com Computer 10 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Remote Control Hey Chris iam entirely of your opinion Your how to is perfect There is only one question you do not use the touchscreen so how are you controlling the system It is relatively easy to integrate an IR control but useless without a screen THX Bernhard Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Com
56. ocket Server comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Wed 02 10 2010 23 56 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline Comments 6744 WR See oe 3 pA Seg Hi jbpsrea Yeah with my Hi jbpsrca Yeah with my Lynx and MediaMonkey I use the 0 67 ASIO driver I ve been using ASIO4ALL version 2 1 and it works great with USB devices I haven t tried it with the Lynx yet When you use J River just select the ASIO option There really is no need to install ASIO4ALL v 2 1 unless you have issues I d move away from wave_out as it s pretty easy to change the bits with the slightest misconfiguration Wave_out is not the same thing as WASAPI This of WASAPI as the brother of ASIO Chris Connaker Founder Com puter Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by hubsand on Thu 02 11 2010 04 35 Joined 10 13 2008 Offline Comments 78 f Music Server G P l E Looks like you re not the only one liking the board as a Windows 7 music server ri Audio s recommended computer audio rig goes down that route much more cheaply They don t like iTunes although they share Chris love for JRiver Login or register to post comments Touchscreens soon m n A touchscreen would be the ideal control and display solution for this system but we re not quite there yet I suspect the technology will really take of in 2011 triggered by wider application support Submitted by hub
57. post comments Submitted by baocrazy on Tue 02 16 2010 02 13 Joined 02 12 2010 Offline Comments 4 f Lior He didn t referred il Y He didn t referred specifically to the roma music player and I never asked more about this Linux device Lior Login or register to post comments Submitted by manisandher on Mon 02 15 2010 16 14 Joined 06 02 2009 Offline Comments 322 FW PC card Can anyone attest on what FW PC card he s using to connect to the Weiss Minerva DAC2 which proved to be a good solution The firewire card TI chipset built into my Sony laptop works fine with the Weiss AFI1 and Windows7 WASAPI As too does the Lacie PCMCIA firewire 400 800 card TI chipset I have an old Adaptec AFW 8300 firewire 400 800 PCI card TI chipset that I will use with the C A P S I ll let you know how that works out Mani XXHighEnd gt W7 gt Zalman TNN300 with i7 gt RME AES 32 slave gt Pacific Microsonics Model Two master Login or register to post comments computeraudiophile com Computer 35 37 15 10 2010 Comment viewing options Computer Audiophile Pocket Server 322 Wifi or Bluetooth bad idea Chris you said I control my servers with a MacBook Air that sits next to my listening chair So you re using Remote Desktop and connecting via a wireless network right Isn t this a bad idea from a SQ perspective Personally I wouldn t want wifi or bluetoo
58. puter Au on Tue 02 09 2010 14 46 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline A Comments 6744 s Hijohniboy The motherboard Hi johniboy The motherboard has a mini PCle slot that accepts a wireless card I listed this wireless card at the bottom of the review as a component that didn t make it into the final server build The card snaps into place right on the board It s simple to install but I didn t need it because I have a wired gigabit Ethernet switch close to my system I m glad you brought up the remote control amp weak processor issue I originally had the issues you described Then I disabled or removed many of the programs that run in the background and eat system resources Right now the server hiccups a tiny bit upon the initial Remote Desktop connection but after than I am able to browse my collection in a controlled manner without issues I can reproduce the hiccups if I start clicking all over the place and scrolling really fast through all the albums lie a madman It just takes a little usage to understand how best to operate the server via remote desktop I don t think it s a problem now or I would never have published such a system Hi APS Good question about why I use an internal sound card Right now this card allows playback of all critical sample rates into 99 of the DACs on the market It also has advanced features that allow me to externally clock the card and use dual wire AES into a DAC like a dCS Debussy pictured in
59. r Login or register to post comments 1 2 3 next gt last Pistia areena H Tai iaaa gun W TAA 22s ee ad computeraudiophile com Computer 36 37 15 10 2010 computeraudiophile com Computer Computer Audiophile Pocket Server CRIMSON COSECANT BRICK PROTON STREAMLENGTH ASYNCHRONOUS a USB DACS i COSECANT 24 96 JUNE ISSUE STEREOPHILE WHY FIX JITTER Sap USBDACS com WAVELENGTHAUDIO COM Advertisors Index Privacy Policy Terms of Use 37 37
60. re identical There is no reason to shun FLAC because it uses compression when you save about 50 on disk space and end up with identical audio quality It does use more CPU than WAV but an Atom can handle high res FLAC with ease I am interesting in your ION Lynx experience Drop me a PM if you make a write up Whatever works Login or register to post comments Submitted by Audio_ELF on Fri 02 12 2010 08 34 Joined 03 16 2009 Offline Comments 2554 Xotac Ion Just a thought but Husband menationed two or three times the Zotac Ion motherboards but IIRC these don t have PCI slots There is a ASUS motherboard with Atom ION chipset with a PCI slot but has a fan and another from a company called POV or Point of View which IS fanless Eloise Mac OSX 10 5 with iTunes mostly ALAC USB gt Musical Fidelity A1008 gt B amp W CDM 7NT iPhone remote computeraudiophile com Computer 25 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Submitted by baocrazy on Fri 02 12 2010 09 29 Joined 02 12 2010 Offline Comments 4 Question on your test with Linux g Hello Chris Great article I am too very interested to build a Linux Music Server I was wondering if you talked to Alsa people about the impossibility to output the sound automatically a la Amarra with the original sample rate If so what was their answer Baocrazy Login or register to post comments Motherboard suitability
61. really well if Marco would just release linux drivers for it I would be a very happy little vegemite Cheers A Thanks for sharing Login or register to post comments computeraudiophile com Computer 29 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server 7 Very nice setup Chris but i m wondering about whether PoE is good enough As I have written elsewhere I m have a strong suspicion that when a good power supply vastly improves the sound from the Sq box even when only the digital output is used then the power supply of a music server is also likely to have an important influence Something that forum members are also speculating on in the thread about the G5 vs the Mini As I understood your article you also have the option to use a real power supply Have you tried comparing it with PoE PC gt Squeezebox Duet with Bolder Cables Power Supply gt Toslink yes sounds better than coax gt Emm Labs DAC2 gt 2 x Pathos Classic 1 mk III bridged gt Verity Fidelio Encore Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Sat 02 13 2010 16 30 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline Comments 6744 r Hi Encore PoE was only an Hi Encore PoE was only an option for the Alix PC Engines board I used on another server The CAPS server requires power from the external supply or a more traditional internal computer power supply Chris Connaker Founder Computer Aud
62. rely on my iMac for everything despite iTunes inability to keep my musie lihrarv arganized computeraudiophile com Computer 9 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Login or register to post comments remote and atom cpu g Hi Chris Ey f Submitted by johniboy on Tue 02 09 2010 06 52 Joined 04 20 2009 Offline Comments 81 Nice setup and thank you for sharing your experience in such detail A quick question I believe you control the music server using remote desktop iphone or ipod touch right So you need a wireless connection Does the motherboard have a wlan chip If not do you use a wlan usb stick for this purpose When I was experimenting with my music server I first used a single core centrino cpu This was not satisfying because the wlan stick remote desktop application took up too much cpu usage when scrolling though my albums It resulted in hickups Then I switched to a dual core and the problem was gone One cpu for the remote one for the playback Did you experience anything similar with the atom cpu Login or register to post comments Submitted by aps on Tue 02 09 2010 09 50 Joined 04 04 2009 Online Comments 54 AES16 versus Firewire USB output 9 Ey Chris Thanks for the excellent article I have to date assumed that my next audio computer would use eithe firewire and or async USB to get digital audio to an external DAC This would seemi
63. sand on Thu 02 11 2010 04 48 Joined 10 13 2008 Offline Comments 78 A Although the Pocket Server looks really cute there s a weird contradiction at its heart it was painstakingly designed for bit perfect 24 192 audio from the ground up yet it only has 60GB storage how many albums exactly can you fit on that SSD at that quality Login or register to post comments Submitted by gvb on Thu 02 11 2010 05 39 Joined 02 11 2010 Offline Comments 3 f Linux still a viable option g Hi Chris and everybody else Thanks for this site which provides a wealth of information I have had so far only browsed through the many topics but this one made me think I have some knowledge I should share Ey I believe the choices made here are great ones However I would like to point out that I do think Linux is still computeraudiophile com Computer 18 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server The issue with Linux is to have a sound card that has good driver support with ALSA ALSA is the current sound infrastructure in the Linux kernel This restricts the possibilities a bit But the Juli and other cards using the Envy24HT chipset is supported I think Juli is superior to other Envy24HT cards because it has two clocks This card makes for a relatively unexpensive and effective digital 1 O However the card s breakout cable is indeed a disaster There are some DIY discussions in the web regarding better
64. sence St I currently have the STX PCIe version that will not work in the C A P S server as it doesn t have a PCIe slot A few weeks ago ASUS provided me a prerelease ASIO driver for the STX card I was very pleased to see the card now outputting bit perfect audio at 16 44 1 24 96 and 24 192 According to ASUS 24 88 2 and 24 176 4 support will be part of the final ASIO driver version The reason I mention all of this about a card that won t work in the C A P S server is because this driver also works for the ST PCI version of the Xonar Essence card Since I haven t heard the ST version I can t comment on the sound quality However if the quality is similar to the STX version with the new ASIO driver I will highly recommend the ASUS Xonar Essence ST card and consider it a great option for the C A P S server The ST PCI version of the card is available for around 200 at many online stores During this project I researched a countless number of computer cases I m glad I did the research but I could have saved all that time by selecting the case I originally wanted from day one of the project The Origen M10 computer case was clearly the best case for the C A P S server Audiophiles not only like great sound we like excellent build quality and products that look just as good as our audio components The all aluminum 5mm Origen M10 case meets or exceeds all the requirements set out for the C A P S server The case ships with a 60mm fan but
65. t comments Submitted by av_passion on Wed 02 10 2010 19 55 Joined 09 18 2009 Offline Comments 21 f Great article thank you What a great article Thank you for doing all of the work the research the testing and the trouble shooting This makes building a great music server achievable and relatively painless Thank you Chris James Login or register to post comments asio driver followup n Submitted by jbpsrca on Wed 02 10 2010 22 30 Joined 04 26 2009 Offline Comments 16 Thanks Chris Is it still th v 67 asio driver you are using or have you moved to the current release v2 1 AT Unfortunately I get infrequent clicks and sometimes extended distortion with the v 67 asio driver under win7 32 bit w MediaMonkey Haven t tried asio v2 1 yet For now I ve switched to wave_out which is stable Doesn t seem to be as magical tho haven t done critical back to back listening yet Is wave_out same thing as WASAPI I also see a Direct Sound this weekend but haven t tried it yet I ll switch to J River this weekend Thanks for all the tips and research Love this site out Windows 7 gt Media Monkey gt asioqgall gt Lynx AES16e gt Redco custom Gotham AES EBU cable 7 oft gt Antelope DA Clock gt Harmonic Technologies Magic Digital 1 AES EBU cable gt Berkeley Alpha DAC gt AudioQuest Cheetah RCA computeraudiophile com Computer 17 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile P
66. ted As it stands you need to download the iso burn the image to a cd and install the software Then you set the dac from a web gui config page and your ready to go with the on board outputs or a usb dac Yes the AES16 card takes a few extra entries at command line and some configuration The extra entries and config would be a copy and paste exercise Firewire is still pretty hard but we are working on it and it is supported Jesus R www sonore us Sonore Fanless Music Play er W Vortexbox Engine gt Playback Controlled from iTouch or Web GUI gt no Mouse no Key board no Monitor no Problem gt Lynx L22 amp Lynx AES16 Login or register to post comments Submitted by jbpsrca on Tue 02 09 2010 20 40 Joined 04 26 2009 Offline Comments 16 Great article chris Question 1 F Great article chris 7 Question what audio driver do you use with win7 and j river for the lynx card I m assuming the asio4all is out of the picture as it was a legacy version that used to be in favor Thanks out Windows 7 gt Media Monkey gt asioqall gt Lynx AES16e gt Redco custom Gotham AES EBU cable 70ft gt Antelope DA Clock gt Harmonic Technologies Magic Digital 1 AES EBU cable gt Berkeley Alpha DAC gt AudioQuest Cheetah RCA interconnects gt NuForce Ref 9 v2 SEamps gt Nordost Red Dawn II speaker cables gt Magnepan 3 6R speakers vinyl in Lucid AD9624 gt Redco custom Gotham AES EBU cable gt Lynx A
67. tem I used the Asus P5Q EM Mobo with an E7600 dual core CPU Unfortunately my choice of MoBo and CPU meant that I needed to use two silent case fans I am thinking of changing the MoBo and CPU to make my system completely fanless and without any moving parts But wanted keep my high spec graphics and to have space in my Silverstone GWo1 HTPC case full size cards etc I wanted to ask your opinion about an alternative way of achieving Chris brief by using an Intel i7 Clarkdale 32 nm CPU 18W and Mobo rather than the Atom setup This i7 cpu could easily work with a fanless cpu cooler It s more expensive than the Atom option but it offers more flexibility and power What are your thoughts Custom built HTPC with Lynx AES16e sound card gt Bryston BDA 1 gt BP 26 4BSST2 gt Harbeth SHL5 speakers amp Chord Com pany interconnects and speaker leads Login or register to post comments Submitted by manisandher on Mon 02 15 2010 10 32 Joined 06 02 2009 Offline Comments 322 All parts for C A P S now ordered Hi Chris I ve been meaning to put together a dedicated music PC for a while now to replace the Sony laptop I currently use And my requirements echoed yours to the letter especially your no 12 and 13 I ve ordered all the necessary parts for the C A P S save the Origen case I can get a black one right now from a UK retailer but will need to wait for a silver one to arrive and to get one shipped across from
68. teraudiophile com Computer 27 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Submitted by aps on Fri 02 12 2010 11 43 Joined 04 04 2009 Online Comments 54 DVD Drive Chris The build doesn t appear to have a DVD drive I ve always thought that this minimalism makes sense given that I can rip on another computer but wouldn t it make installation and or upgrades of the OS much harder Cheers APS Login or register to post comments Submitted by Idolse on Fri 02 12 2010 21 41 Joined 08 20 2008 Offline Comments 164 f baocrazy Not sure if you 9 Not sure if you were looking for links from me anyway here is the info for MPD which is the app I would recommend on Linux baocrazy Check this thread for a detailed discussion for using plughw and hw for writing directly to the hardware and how to check the sound subsystem to see that the sample rate is changing http www computeraudiophile com content Auraliti Music Player and DAC This isn t about sample rate but how the latest builds of mpd can pad the differently bits for some DACs http www computeraudiophile com content New mpd feature cleaner signal As long as I m talking about mpd I did mention in the one thread that WAV and AIFF id3 tags work flawlessly in MPD I have since found one flaw using the default libaudiofile sound library mpd uses for WAV AIFF playback will actually attempt to play the tag which co
69. th anywhere near my music server Indeed I switch all the wireless devices in the house off for my late night listening sessions Along with cleaner electricity at that time I m sure this makes a difference even with a fully balanced system Interested in hearing anyone s thoughts on this Mani XXHighEnd gt W7 gt Zalman TNN300 with i7 gt RME AES 32 slave gt Pacific Microsonics Model Two master Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Tue 02 16 2010 04 22 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline A Comments 6744 ERa A s Hi Mani For critical Hi Mani For critical listening I setup a play list and disconnect The playlist also consist of audio copied to the local SSD My wireless router is not near my system The server is connecting via wired Ethernet I do know some people who turn down the power on their routers but I haven t A B d that yet Chris Connaker Founder Computer Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by liorms on Tue 02 16 2010 08 39 Joined 04 20 2009 Offline Comments 27 XXHighEnd Hi Mani I ve noticed that you are using the XXHighEnd As far as i know this works best on VISTA which is not really popular nor confirms with HTPC build HW wise Can you share your thoughts experience on the software As I m very interested in the engine abilities Though the GUI and platform are somewhat dis encouraging Thanks Lio
70. the article I am a big fan of Async USB and FireWire DACs Either would work great with this server However the FireWire DAC options are somewhat limited I highly recommend products from Daniel Weiss and the Sonic Studio Model Four Both have FireWire inputs Also the Async DACs I ve review and listened to over the years are really wonderful Right now support for 176 4 and 192 isn t widely available If a reader wants this capability he is limited to very few DACs that may not meet his sonic quality standards or price point Hi Bryan Oh no a Serious Question Only joking of course Thanks for the Mac Mini related question There are many benefits to this system over a Mac Mini but most of them are subjective The objective benefits are a totally fanless no moving parts design 100 silent from any distance support for internal audio cards and it doesn t set off those Mac allergies in many audiophiles Also as I touched on above a Mac Mini limits one to USB or FireWire For many people this is totally acceptable I wasn t satisfied with that limitation but I did build in the ability to remove or exclude the Lynx card in favor of a PCI FireWire card That would bring the cost down close about 600 In terms of sound quality both a Mini and the Pocket Server are capable of great sound they both sound different that s for sure Hi Bernhard I am controlling via Remote Desktop from another computer The Pocket Server does have analog DSUB
71. ting things done right The guys also understand audiophile sound quality and what it means not to mess with the bits This app is extremely powerful and I will go into a lot of detail when I publish a thorough J River Media Center 14 article in the near future 2 Can you recommend an online primer on setting up a PC from scratch Like once you get the hardware assembled how do you load the OS Basic stuff for us neophytes who are willing to dip a toe in the water There are probably tons of them around but I can t point you to any right now I m sure people here are willing to help get you though any problems you may encounter or initial questions you have Just open a topic in the forum and hopefully you ll get to where you need to be Installing the OS is really easy Chris Connaker Founder Com puter Audiophile Login or register to post comments Submitted by EuroChamp on Wed 02 10 2010 03 36 Joined 01 25 2010 Offline Comments 10 Remote Control Hi Chris RDP is the remote control of your choice You build a fanless mediaserver and you control it with a notebook which is in front of you Do you shut down the notebook after you have selected the track you want to hear Because the notebook will be much louder than the mediaserver which is far away We should find a good solution for remote control iPod maybe or we should find a good touchscreen next to the mediaserver like Meridian Sooloos
72. ts computeraudiophile com Computer 33 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server WP Ai Lior I contacted Daniel Weiss recently to ask if he will provide a Linux driver for the weiss dac He s actually working on it now since the soon to come Weiss media server will run Linux For other firewire cards the new audio firewire stack should be available in most of linux distribution soon See these links http www ffado org http www ffado org q devicesupport list Login or register to post comments Submitted by debt_collector on Mon 02 15 2010 09 37 Joined 10 26 2009 Offline Comments 24 A slightly different approach but is it sensible p o Thanks for the article Chris It s really informative and helpful I wish i read it before I built my HTPC Unfortunately I already built my HTPC six months ago and I took a slightly different path My HTPC was designed to play music and HD video unlike the C A P S But my main aim was to build a server with a brief similar to Chris I wanted it to play audiophile quality music so I chose the Lynx AES16e for music I also wanted the HTPC to play high quality HD video so I settled on a fanless nvidia 9550 card Ideally I would have liked it to have no moving parts to make it completely silent so I used an SSD drive for my OS Windows 7 At the time my HTPC wasn t built as a completely fanless unit but I was aiming to construct a near silent sys
73. ut in the Lynx AES I would also use iTunes as it is bit perfect from my understanding with Windows 7 32 bit Thanks for this Chris Login or register to post comments Submitted by Iam Kirk on Mon 02 08 2010 21 48 Joined 10 15 2008 Offline Comments 101 Linux OS s OG Can vou expand anv more on vour linux OS experiences I see Arch Linux there How did vou like computeraudiophile com Computer 7 37 15 10 2010 Computer Audiophile Pocket Server Login or register to post comments Submitted by Idolse on Mon 02 08 2010 21 52 Joined 08 20 2008 Offline Comments 164 ESI Juli g If you haven t been able to acquire the Juli I d recommend this site http www djdeals com egosystemsJULI htm Found via pricegrabber com and I m almost certain I acquired my Juli from them a year or so ago The North American ESI Disti is KaySound http www kaysound com I m curious as to why the Linux system would fail your requirements even with the ESI card With Voyage Linux were you able to run that on the Intel board I know it can be difficult to get Voyage running on systems the distribution owners didn t specifically target This may sound like a repeat of the complaint with the Peachtree DAC but I d really like to hear more about how these different Operating Systems new hardware combos sound in a shootout since you have the luxury of listening to them side by side something quite difficult for t
74. y silent PC Then use a NAS SAN or media server elsewhere with your big disks and stream music in if needed I too wondered why the an ION board was not chosen then I started to look at them While they are significantly better in the video space most of them come with active cooling on the heatsink which defeats the no moving parts qualification I would personally wait for ION2 to come out before reevaluating the motherboard Even better performance using even less power due to a die shrink and some chip tweaks That should give more passively cooled options I think the best cost saving for the CAPS will be the Asus Xonar Essence ST X assuming it has a solid WASAPI driver or gets a solid ASIO driver At less than 200 you save a bundle over the Lynx AES16 and don t have to shell out for a custom cable A CAPS with the upgraded SSD Xonar Essence ION2 and minus the custom cable would drop the price by about 225 assuming the motherboard costs 100 more And it would make a pretty mean HTPC as well Whatever works Login or register to post comments Submitted by The Computer Au on Thu 02 11 2010 21 37 Joined 11 28 2007 Offline Comments 6744 Ar Hi jamrock I received an Hi jammrock I received an updated ASIO driver for the Asus Xonar Essence ST X this afternoon Full support for 88 2 and 176 4 Chris Connaker Founder Computer Audiophile Login or register to post comments computeraudiophil

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