My Touchscreen Jukebox build log

[HaLo6]

Alright... This has been my project for about a year now and its slowly coming to fruition through a couple of different builds...

I started out with a normal PC / PSU ... way to noisy... audible over my speakers...

In my eyes any truly functional jukebox for viewing a decent CD collection (>100CD's) needs to have a touchscreen. I purchased a 17" ELO 1739L off ebay, this is the first half of the cornerstone of the system. Second half of the cornerstone is the software and after much searching I decided on Albumplayer

My system is a Two PrimaLuna Prologue 6 monoblocs pushing two Zaph Audio Revelator towers (awesome BTW!!) DAC is a Twisted Pear Audio Buff32. I was using USB in but now am working towards I2S via an ESI Juli@

Ok after that small prologue... I then went to a Via Epia PicoITX board using both their PSU and a PicoPSU. The PicoPSU is the quietest (audibly, I dont have a 'scope...yet). The Epia was a bit underpowered for the software I was using.

The current iteration is the following... I am installing these components into a Par metal case 20-16124. I have a Aaeon ITX Socket M motherboard with onboard graphics (Intel 945G chipset), a T2300 Mobile Core Duo CPU, (which I'll undervolt a little, 2x1GB SODIMM, an ESI Julia (Digital section only for I2S). Hard drives are indenpentatly powered by a Twisted Pear LCDPS supplying 5V to a OCZ Core V2 32GB SSD (system drive) and a 320GB WD Scorpio Blue (music drive). I will occassionally network the PC up to transfer CD's as I rip them from my main PC, but all other peripherals on the mobo are turned off (parrallel, serial, IDE, audio, Nic)

I am attempting th build a AMB Labs Sigma11 to supply 12V @ 5A to the PicoPSU but heatsinking it is a little bump in the road...

I plan on using either WinXP Home or Win7 , I am undecided yet, leaning towards Win7 though... I have used both so far with little discernable difference between either using ASIO.

My inspiration for looks has been the AudioVolver, which is a DRC machine based on a Via Epia NanoItx board.

I also have read cics :The Art of Computer Transports" and the cPlay build log too, Greg Stewart's CMP2 mod thread has good info there too! All smarter people than I, I just implement...

This is the beginning of my build log so I'll post more later

[T in AZ]

Nice , if you get the ESI Juli@ I would be interested to know what you think about it.

[Theo404]

Nice project. May I ask how/where in your listening room you plan to mount the touch screen? Have thought about touch screens a lot, but always come to the conclusion that a remote is what feels comfortable in your listening chair(s) and short of some kind of articulated arm a touch screen wouldnt really work...

I plan on using either WinXP Home or Win7 , I am undecided yet, leaning towards Win7 though...

Why not linux? You go to the trouble to create a very custom hardware build and choose not to with your software... aside from the claimed audio benefits (I'm a believer, but I wont bring that into this) why would you want to run a heavy bloated os on the rather minimal hardware your talking about... with a basic linux install you could do the same thing a windows box could do many times over on the same hardware... I imagine touch screen finger taps dont feel very satisfying if there are big lags and waits...

I know there is a contingent of folks who swear by 'stripping' windows and using voodoo 'kernel' drivers to bypass resampling they have no idea if is on or not, but why would you take something large and take away load and loads of stuff you dont need when you could start with something small and efficient and only add the (very few) things you need.

I believe touch screen display support is also very good with linux....

PCI digital sound hardware with I2S out is where I'm heading... just feels like the right direction to me, even though I have nothing concrete on why properly isolated usb -> i2s -> dac wouldnt be the same or better. Keep us informed with how you get on with your juli@!

[fb]

Originally Posted by Theo404

why would you want to run a heavy bloated os on the rather minimal hardware your talking about

Win7 isn't heavy, and foobar2k has ASIO output support = no need to worry about windows resampling.

[Theo404]

Originally Posted by fb

Win7 isn't heavy, and foobar2k has ASIO output support = no need to worry about windows resampling.

Running 7 on my main machine right now (hey, I play games sometimes)... the slimmed down streamlined version of vista that was promised was marketing hype! Its just as slow and bloated as vista was....

[T in AZ]

I’m using XP SP3 with nLite for the slim, No games on it so 7 isn't needed.

[HaLo6]

I have the Juli@ already, I'll review it once its installed, I had a M-AUdio Audiophile which sounded great so I don't expect it to be far off that since its the same chipset!

I would use Linux if my knowledge on how to was better, I have to have WAF as well as its in our living room and she uses this too! Thats why I love albumplayer, its so user friendly and supports ASIO...

[HaLo6]

XP SP3 after nLite is an awesome OS... very quick... I was trying to research using XPe .. that may be for another project... I defintely need to figure out how to use minlogon instead of winlogon as I have heard the resources/footprint used are drastically reduced.

[gooki]

Once you have everything setup how you want it, I'd highly recommend looking into patching in EWF and HORM from XPe into Windows XP.

mp3car.com forums are a great resource on getting XP to boot fast from full power off.

[HaLo6]

Cool I'll look into that! That EWF looks like a great add-on... I think MS made a utility that is like that as well... its called SteadyState!