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computer music server

D

dave thomas

pfm Member
I was hoping to get some feedback from anyone who has built a music server similar to the computer audiophile CAPS, eg mother board and power supply used.
I have recently obtained surprisingly good results by installing Linux in an old MAC mini.
It sounds better than my mac and windows laptops.
I was thinking it might be possible to further improve the SQ building something from scratch.
 
It depends how you're using it. HDMI audio out? USB audio? Asynchronous USB audio? Headphone jack? Optical S/PDIF?

Or do you literally mean just a server, where the music is stored and retrieved by a real playback device?

If the latter, there is no way for the sound quality to be different. It's simply impossible.

If the former, it depends on the audio interface you're using. Asynchronous USB audio will sound the same on any hardware, assuming that the OS is using direct hardware control of the USB device (ALSA hardware mixer, or OS X CoreAudio Exclusive mode for example).

Other outputs like headphone jacks and S/PDIF could conceivably sound different across different computers, and if you're using software mixers, filters, volume controls, etc then there's a really good chance of wide variances across computers. How are you using it?
 
Have you thought about raspberry PI as a music server?

I've just built up a PI running Raspbian Jessie with a 2TB HDD.

Installed minimserver and good to go.

It's inexpensive, works well, sounds great.
 
Raspberry Pi based servers work best with Async USB DACs, the Pi internals suffer from rather high jitter on 44100 audio
 
davidsrsb said:
Raspberry Pi based servers work best with Async USB DACs, the Pi internals suffer from rather high jitter on 44100 audio
Click to expand...

As a network server?

TBH I've compared it to my aging Qnap NAS and it sounds a little better to my ears but that maybe a distro difference (if you believe in such things).

I also compared it to the powered WD 2TB HDD directly to PC and again it sounded a little better.

So maybe yes hooked directly to a DAC things are not quite so good (but plenty seem to like them that way)

But I've been pretty impressed by the PI running light weight Minimserver using Bubble DS next as a CP to my streamer (Jplay).

Dave how to go about it is pretty easy.

download this

https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/

and follow the installation guide.

Then follow the instructions here

http://minimserver.com/install-raspbian.html

Raspbian Jessie has Java pre installed so no need to worry on that.

command lines are easy enough.

The first instruction line ''cd /home/pi'' does not work for me but substitute it for 'pwd' and then cut and past the rest in.

I Have Nil Linux experience but it took about 1 hour to have a working server up and running.

and the price?

Crazy cheap.

I think that my server came in at around the £150 mark.

Or if you have an old PC/MAC lying around (no great processing power needed) then install Minimserver on that.

To run either headless install Minimwatch on any network connected PC/MAC and control Minimserver remotely.

Then if you like, run something like Bubble DS NEXT on an Android table/phone to remote control.

It's all pretty cool IMHO and sounds more complex that it actually is.

Hook it up to a network and good to go.

drop me a PM if you'd like a little ''practical help'' to get things running PI wise.

BTW all of the software and Raspbian is free to download so nothing to lose cash wise on that.

I've also use a PI as a renderer running Moode Audio player.

http://moodeaudio.org/images/moode-twitter-header-v2.png

With decent sounding results into my Buffalo3/legato/wave io.

Pretty impressive considering he low cost.

I've also tried Moode as a music player with just a DAC and Powered HDD connected with decent results.

IMHO Moode as a renderer or player whilst not the ultimate in quality sets a pretty good standard which would be hard to beat at twice the price in commercial land.
 
As a network server, the PI is good, but would be much better with a native SATA interface. I am not a big fan of USB drives
 
davidsrsb said:
As a network server, the PI is good, but would be much better with a native SATA interface. I am not a big fan of USB drives
Click to expand...

Yes agreed

And I'm sure that no one is pretending that the PI used as a NAS is the ultimate in quality (I'm not). It does have a great bang for buck factor which is hard to beat IMHO.

Yes SATA would be better but at a greater cost.

my Qnap cost around £350 (from memory but it was some time ago).

is it £200 better than the PI NAS?

Not to my ears.

As a music player with moode cost around £50 to set up and another £? for whatever HDD. is it the best to be had?

No not to my ears but is a PC running Jriver worth the extra expense?

Nope. not IMHO.

so it's horses for courses IMHO and the PI wins hands down as the everyman (or woman) server/renderer/player in my experience.

The SQ is pretty good but maybe does lack a little measured excellence but that's another discussion (hopefully):)

I've tried most of the windows based players BTW and the PI comes out pretty well compared to most of those.it also gets up with some of the commercial big boy streamers which may be more of a reflection on the quality and implementation of some of those boxes.

As an aside

The PI is also a little more DIY which is nice.
 
Thanks shoom, for all the info
As I mentioned I have Linux running successfuly on my Mac mini using a usb port to asyn DAC, any thoughts on the raspberry pi being an improvement over the Mac?
 
dave thomas said:
Thanks shoom, for all the info
As I mentioned I have Linux running successfuly on my Mac mini using a usb port to asyn DAC, any thoughts on the raspberry pi being an improvement over the Mac?
Click to expand...

TBH Dave I have no experience of MAC use other than at college many years ago so maybe a MAC user can chip in with some thoughts.

Which Linux Distro/player are you using BTW?
 
Dave you might be interested in giving WTFPLAY a whirl. You can download it here http://wtfplay-project.org/ There is a thread on diyaudio and tirnahifi on it. Minimalist linux install that you can boot from cd or usb key.It runs on ram and tiny footprint. Has a basic gui and command line for 'purists' like moi. Developer is polish living in Dublin. Lot of development over a two year period in his spare time and we think he has developed a winner
 
dave thomas said:
Thanks shoom, for all the info
As I mentioned I have Linux running successfuly on my Mac mini using a usb port to asyn DAC, any thoughts on the raspberry pi being an improvement over the Mac?
Click to expand...

Very little hardware grunt should be needed to play out audio via Asynch USB. Most of the work would be 'adding water' to things like flac files to get the LPCM to send. So I guess the main improvement would be that a Pi would be smaller and cheaper.

As I think has been mentioned, for best results either way, use ALSA as 'direct' as possible. Cut out any 'middlemen' like Pulse if you want plain quality with no fuss.
 
The Raspberry Pi with an IqAudio Dac+ connected directly on the pi via it's I2s interface running Moode 2.6 is much better that using an usb dac.
 
halx00 said:
The Raspberry Pi with an IqAudio Dac+ connected directly on the pi via it's I2s interface running Moode 2.6 is much better that using an usb dac.
Click to expand...

Well the IqAudio Dac+ is good, in fact outstanding for the money (~£25 IIRC), but unsurprisingly doesn't beat a top async DAC. I have both an IQDAC + Pi combo, and a Chord 2Qute. Actually in the end I found it necessary to abandon the Pi for driving the 2QUte as I found a few issues (regular drop-outs) with the USB interface on the PI, even driving an async DAC. I ended up using a Wandboard. THis is probably highly DAC-specific - I could drive other models via the Pi interface with no problems.
 
I built a HTPC with an Asus fan less mobo and a solid state drive
I did put in a fan and a DVD rom drive but they are normally unplugged so no mechanically moving parts so its silent
I initially installed linux but for me it was pants and poor sound quality.
Windows 7 and Jrivermedia was a revelation by comparison.
I only use this PC for music playback and it sounds superb via async USB into my M2tech young DAC.
All of my music is stored in Flac on my Synology DS415 NAS drive in my study and the the HTPC is hardwired in my music room. Result is stunning IMO and romote control Via Gizmo app on my tablet

HTPC 6 by Alan Towell, on Flickr

.HTPC 9 by Alan Towell, on Flickr


Alan
 
337alant said:
I built a HTPC with an Asus fan less mobo and a solid state drive

I initially installed linux but for me it was pants and poor sound quality.
Click to expand...

Those who have not tried Linux should be aware that there are *many* different Linux distributions, and the user front / desktop / etc varies a lot. And that "linux" doesn have a "sound quality". That'll depend on your choice of software and how the system is set up. i.e. Just like other platforms. TANSTAAFL.
 
Suggest daphile or vortexbox free linux based software packages installed on any old laptop or PC.

Recently I've switched to a Gigabyte Brix with an SSD running Winserve 2012, Jriver and tuned with audio optimiser.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
Those who have not tried Linux should be aware that there are *many* different Linux distributions, and the user front / desktop / etc varies a lot. And that "linux" doesn have a "sound quality". That'll depend on your choice of software and how the system is set up. i.e. Just like other platforms. TANSTAAFL.
Click to expand...

Just to reiterate the reply above tried linux previously and it was 'pants' as posted above but as Jim advises there are different versions. The one I linked is specifically tailored for audio playback that is all that is installed. You can try it without impacting any of your original configurations as it runs in ram on start up. No changes or interaction with your hard drive. Free also and if 'pants' throw away the burnt cd or overwrite the usb key. What I found so effective about this was losing w2012 and optimizer and all the other tweaks to strip out 2012 to get it to run in core mode.
 
The questions I'd tend to ask in such cases are:

What versions of which distro did you try? And what, more specifically, was 'pants' about it? You'd also need to say what player software and output device you used for anyone else to try and find out why the result was "poor sound quality".

Note that - as with other OSs - many distros come with something like Pulse running as a 'mixer'. That, along with imperfect ways to send the audio to the hardware, can easily mess things up because they don't set up the details right for high quality playback.

Anyone who is newbie to Linux hifi playback/recording and is interested may find these pages useful.

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Linux/ALSA/ALSAforUsers.html
http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Linux/ALSA/NoMoreSilence.html

FWIW I routinely get bit-perfect results using a decent USB DAC with a distro like xfce mint or before that xfce ubuntu. Neither of which was aimed at audio use. Didn't find any need for a special distro. But in general the key in my experience is to get playout working as directly as possible via ALSA.
 
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