Intrigued but confused

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I have in the past year had the pleasure of hearing a couple of music servers which sounded positively stunning. The improvement in the presentation of the performance when compared to the original shiny drink coaster it was copied from was profound. That is the intriguing part.

The confusing part is that when I asked how I could achieve similar results I was left treading water in a turbulent sea of incomprehensible software jargon and feeling that I would need a degree in computer science just to get disappointing results.

I feel that I don't quite have the information necessary to know which questions to ask to learn about this subject as it seems there is as yet no sticky 101 post of basic information for neophytes like myself.

So here is a stab at a few basic questions whose answers will hopefully begin to clear the fog for me.

1. What hardware do I need?
2. What playback software do I need?
3. What transfer software do I need? or, Is this a function I would find as part of the playback software?
4. It must be possible for someone with no technical background, "my wife", to make it play music. If this criteria can not be met then the project is doomed to failure before it begins.
5. The server output will be fed to my DIY 2 channel SET playback system.

Hopefully this will get the ball rolling. I could use a good project for the rainy winter season.

Scott
 
The Apple MacMini is a great place to start. Proprietary direct output applications along with the correct configuration of iTunes will allow for bit perfect playback via a USB port of the mini to an external asynchronious USB DAC. Other than that, there's nothing to it where the mini is concerned. For an affordable DAC, look towards the Musical Fidelity V-DACMK2 and for controllablitiy without the need for a display or keyboard, the iPad, iTouch or iPhone running the REMOTE app are about the nicest user interfaces available. For additional storage, and external USB HDD will work fine. Look for one with it's own power supply and NOT the mini's BUS power.

There are equally excellent Windows PC options as well but a bit more OS/software configuration might be required for direct playback and the Mini does it all so well for not a lot of $$$ and saves quite a bit of space.

As per the wife and controllabiltiy......If she can use a cell phone, she can control the music...complete with Album art, titles, track lists, FF/REW, Playlists, Net Radio, Pandora, LastFM, and so on and so on and so on and so on............
 
I aspire to a MacMini.

I have an old G5 iMac (iMac free, RAM, drive & a set of caps cost a bit). 1 TB USB drive. Edirol FA66 FireWire ADC/DAC. iTunes with PureVinyl.

dave

Dave, mate, you gotta do it!! as you know i also was running a g5 until recently, but having just moved over to a 2011 mac mini with a 24" LED LCD (getting a second one as well), upgraded it to 8gb ram, installed a 120gb OWC 6GB/s SSD to replace the 500gb internal HD and moved that plus another 1TB external. i couldnt be happier!!. i also use puremusic/itunes for playback and crossover, with my ipad for remote, so basically the exact setup described above; except i'm running a multichannel usb-i2s convertor 4 x 32/384 into a pair of ackodac AKD12P sabre dacs, each with a different IV stage tuned for bass heft and control (D1 IV stage with vcap CuTF output caps) and currently working on the SEN/CEN jfet IV stage for the tweeters. its a superbly functional, attractive and zippy solution

the D1 equipped dac is set to feed an aleph JX (with semisouth lower outputs) and a semisouth circlotron on the highs. these will probably end up mixed so that each 'monoblock' has one channel of each amp in it to feed the woofers and tweeters respectively of each left/right channel.

i have 4 channels of 'the wire' chip/lateral fet hybrid lined up for testing and probably running some subs perhaps with a less hardcore pair of dacs, or move the circ to a set of mids in a 3 way and use the wire for tweeters and subs, still weighing up my options, but getting the 2 ways finished properly is first up.

the dacs are done bar final casework, the discrete amps are mostly too (again final casework needed) just waiting on some IXYS FREDs for the AJX. 'the wire' amps are a little way off and are secondary; embarked on to compare high grade discrete CLASS A to one of the highest measured performance designs i've seen available

for now i've been driving my headphone amps and studio monitors with the dacs so knew it was worth pursuing to the N'th

no way is the above output solution needed for great output and the OP obviously is already set up with speakers and an amp, so just choose a nice dac and youre good to go
 
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frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
Paid Member
Dave, mate, you gotta do it!! as you know i also was running a g5 until recently

It only takes money. My whole front-end cost me less than a bare-bones mini.

My desktop is a dual 2.5 GHz/8GB G5 with 2 24s. Laptop is a 17" MacBook (old one).

Someone just gave me a G5 tower, gonna soup it up as much as feasibe and see how it works out as music server.

dave
 
the thing that was the last thing to push me over the edge was that the g5 cannot run 10.6 or after and there were significant changes to the audio midi setup in 10.6 ie. the usb audio codec 2.0 which enables native multichannel hires audio and external clocking, so several avenues i was looking at for my system were dead ends unless i upgraded

I rent, so room treatments are not an option, so room correction and digital XO are a boon

also its pretty easy to write off as a business expense if you work in audio and all things considered the mini is fantastic value. its not the sort of thing i can just buy on a whim like many on this board, its not dedicated, i'm typing on it right now and i do all my work on it to the time saved will pay for it, but the whole system is only now starting to come together after nearly 2 years of buying and building things piece by piece.
 
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Well when I posted this I had no idea that the response would be so one sided favoring Apple hardware. I had imagined that both camps would be equally represented. Both of the servers I mentioned in my previous post were PC based. I had hoped to re-purpose one of the many microsloth windoze machines I have lying around. These are readily available raw material just waiting for a project to dust them off. I would prefer not to purchase another computer and have to learn it's intricacies as well as the playback software if I can avoid it. I have been tinkering with Intel based hardware since before their was such a thing as windoze and have never owned or used any of the Apple offerings or their phones. Perhaps someone from the same side of the trailer park as me will chime in with some guidance.

Scott
 
frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
Paid Member
the thing that was the last thing to push me over the edge was that the g5 cannot run 10.6 or after and there were significant changes to the audio midi setup in 10.6 ie. the usb audio codec 2.0 which enables native multichannel hires audio and external clocking,

My DAC is FireWire... as long as the data can come off the USB drive fast enuff older USB is fine.

Eventually an Intel will fall off the bottom. I actually have a 17" Intel iMac supposed to work other than scrambled video.

dave
 
Well when I posted this I had no idea that the response would be so one sided favoring Apple hardware.

Because the PC guys have their system set up and running, enjoying their PC based server likely using foobar2000 for anything from library management to tagging and playlists, that was developed based on the windows system and beats any other player out there. They don't need to boast.

Al you need for PC is a machine with enough storage, rip your cd's in flac, ( I have close to 40k songs on a 1.5 TB hdd internally, backed up by a 2 TB external unit just for the music files and another 8TB rackmount raid based storage to backup 2 more computers, all wireless)
40k songs in flac use about 900GB storage, so tailor you machine accordingly. Get a good soundcard and install foobar2000.
With foobar you can run your main machine as a server for other computers without the need to download anything to the secondary machines.
You can run foobar as uncomplicated or as loaded as you want. My player runs with roughly 60 or so foobar2000 components, from biography display to lyrics display, vst wrappers to run various vst based equalizers and spectrum displays, to ambiophonics.

I run in asio, bypassing the windows stack, but you should use a soundcard supporting that format. Or you use winsapi, which does the same.

I also upgraded from xp to windows 7, and have no problems with anything.

I actually went one step further and run spdif directly to my kef 104/2 powered by hypex amps with build in converters.

But you can also feed from your soundcard analogue out to an amp.

For better info about server based systems check out Hydrogenaudio Forums (Powered by Invision Power Board)

Way better info on all things PC or apple related than you will find here.

as to foobar: foobar2000

I have run PC based for the last 2 1/2 years and no looking back to analogue.
I have tried the lot of players and found what I need. I even run my TT's through my soundcard through foobar streaming so I can use the ambiophonics decoder on record playback.

If you have more questions away from the apple hyper fanboys - use the messaging system. No interest in further discussions here.
 
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OK , you answered all my questions except one, maybe you can clear this up for me. Do I need a DAC?

I have a 3 year old HP with 1.2TB, Windows 7, 2x20" LCDs and the FACTORY sound card. It has digital out or analog split up into stereo/surround/sub-center.

Would there be much of an upgrade in sound with an external DAC? I think I want one, but don't really need it lol, however lot's of people are using them.

So DAC, better soundcard or just leave it alone and install foobar?

One of my tube amps is pretty high gain so it picks up a bit of noise from my Nvidea GT-9800, it's right beside the soundcard. Not the end of the world, I was going to tweak the amp a bit or install shielding, although I'de rather not do the latter.

What are your thoughts?
 
Well I just installed foobar2000 after a bit of research, looks like I can use apples remote app with it so that's cool beans.

I already like that I don't have to "add" music to foobar every time I download something new, I was surprised that when I edit folders in Windows 7 it's updated instantly in foobar.

I like the equalizer better. Itunes distorts if you don't turn the preamp down. No foobar can sound a little funny if you crank one of the sliders up, but used in moderation it's much better the itunes. I can finally add a touch of bass without messing up the higher frequencies. If you added a bit of bass(in iTunes) it seemed to really cut the highs out. With the foobar EQ the highs seem to be unaffected, which is how it should be.

I'm glad I tried it.

I will see if syncing with the iPad works tomorrow, but like I said earlier, I don't mind keeping iTunes to manage my portable devices. Don't really want to go all "3rd party" on my iPad yet, it's to slick as it is. :)
 
Well when I posted this I had no idea that the response would be so one sided favoring Apple hardware. I had imagined that both camps would be equally represented. Both of the servers I mentioned in my previous post were PC based. I had hoped to re-purpose one of the many microsloth windoze machines I have lying around. These are readily available raw material just waiting for a project to dust them off. I would prefer not to purchase another computer and have to learn it's intricacies as well as the playback software if I can avoid it. I have been tinkering with Intel based hardware since before their was such a thing as windoze and have never owned or used any of the Apple offerings or their phones. Perhaps someone from the same side of the trailer park as me will chime in with some guidance.

Scott

The truth of the matter Scott is that Mac thought a wee bit more about audio playback than the Windows camp. That's not to say you can't achieve comperable or equal performance, it just takes some more tweeking to get there and we all know what tweeking brings....instability.

Repurposing a windows machine as an audio server is fine, especially if you already have most of the hardware. If you're going to use an external USB DAC (highly advised) there's the added advantage of HDD storage on the SATA ports, keeping the USB bus clean for the outbound data stream. That's how i'd approach it. As for processors, even the oldest duo cores can handle audio processing.........in their sleep.

Just keep the USB bus as clean as possible and the software minimal, shutting down as many unused services as possible.

And please DON'T ignore the user interface! Being able to operate the system without a display is really the key to PC audio.....convenience.
 
Well I just installed foobar2000 after a bit of research, looks like I can use apples remote app with it so that's cool beans.

I already like that I don't have to "add" music to foobar every time I download something new, I was surprised that when I edit folders in Windows 7 it's updated instantly in foobar.

I like the equalizer better. Itunes distorts if you don't turn the preamp down. No foobar can sound a little funny if you crank one of the sliders up, but used in moderation it's much better the itunes. I can finally add a touch of bass without messing up the higher frequencies. If you added a bit of bass(in iTunes) it seemed to really cut the highs out. With the foobar EQ the highs seem to be unaffected, which is how it should be.

I'm glad I tried it.

I will see if syncing with the iPad works tomorrow, but like I said earlier, I don't mind keeping iTunes to manage my portable devices. Don't really want to go all "3rd party" on my iPad yet, it's to slick as it is. :)

Best not to do ANY DSP/EQ in the software side of things. Let it happen outside the machine in the playback gear if you must. None of these front ends have what it takes to do this properly. And as always a rule of thumb, max volume from the PC. Control the analog volume outside.
 
External DAC will be better than onboard sound card. I also recommend to install WASAPI component on the Foobar, it will help to produce better sound quality.

To control foobar from ipad/iphone/android, install the foobar web interface or even better install the uPNP component. That's the way I built my headless server. It is possible to play the music directly on the server, it can also stream music to other uPNP compliant device (like my plasma TV). Read the whole story here : http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/pc-based/193331-my-poor-man-music-server.html

I imagine that I will now find that the consensus is that my caveat of being PC based is incompatible with being user friendly.

Not agree.... it can be done on Wintel machine, you don't have to be a geek but you must invest some time to find an easy (and cheap) way to achieve that.
 
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Great thanks for the tips guys.

I will stop using the EQ, I have open baffles and free air woofers in boxes for speakers, not really ideal but it's pretty good. I will be changing that soon enough.

Thanks for the advice and the links, and to the OP, sorry for jackin your thread!
Al
 
Opps, just to clarify, I will crank my "media players" volume, but if I crank my "Master" volume, I won't be able to control it with a remote if it is pinned all the time. Plus my amp does not have a volume control. I suppose I could add one, I guess I will just have to try it see how it sounds. Not sure how to get around that yet.
 
If you have more questions away from the apple hyper fanboys - use the messaging system. No interest in further discussions here.

real funny Kraut, so people that enjoy their computer and recommend it as a clean, attractive, simple, purpose built and pretty much ready to go out of the box solution to the OP are fanbois, but you who feel the need to also rubbish the other side are not? :sour:

hilarious and so typical

btw foobar also runs on mac, either native or...i dunno...by running windows on the mac.....
 
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