My windows music server

[Lee Hankins]

Since the mini mac route seems overly complicated for this chemo brain of mine, I built the server put together by Computer Audiophile magazine.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Computer-Audiophile-Pocket-Server-CAPS-v20

Rest of system:
Centrance DACmini (outstanding sounding DAC especially considering its price)
Locus Design Group Polestar USB cable
Windows 7 (as in article)
external 1T USB drive
JRiver 17 (only used as a front end)
JPlay version 4.1

There are no moving parts in the CAPS (I did install a DVD driver for copying CD's) , and it is not hooked up to the internet, all data is downloaded into memory for playback.  Is this the way the Mac mini works?

One on the better things about this server is the separate USB card and power line filter, the USB card completely isolates the USB signal from the rest of the computer, read article for details.

This is a wonderful sounding server and a side benefit has been that it some how matches up perfectly with my passive autoformer preamp, better than any other source ever has, match made in audio heaven!

Cordially,
Lee Hankins     

[Yoder]

Cool. The perception of the mini as being overly complicated is not true at all. The biggest problem incurred by Windows users when migrating over to OS X, is the simplicity of OS X. It is so simple initially that it is somewhat overwhelming. Yes, it is a strange but I have seen it for years teaching both hs students and adults on the Mac platform. The biggest advantage of the Windows platform is that you do have the option of making hardware mods.

The biggest disadvantage for me with your system would be the inability to run Amarra on Windows.

The DACmini is a sweet piece of gear from what I have read. I would make one suggestion and that is to buy a FW card like they suggested in the article and run your hd through FW800. One of the biggies with audio servers is that they suggest that you do not run the DAC on the same type of port on which your music is stored. So, you could run the Dacmini using USB, and then use FW800 for your hd. They say that not all USB ports are created equally, so you should plug your DAC into the different ports and find what you think is the best sounding one.

You could also get an external DVD http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MRF82SD22/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=shoppingengine&utm_campaign=googlebase drive and just power it up when you are ready to burn some music. The advantage of using a FW800 DVD is that you could daisy chain it to your FW800 hard drive and, like I suggested earlier, power it up only when you want to use it I realize you already bought your gear, but you should be able to return it if it was a recent purchase.

How much did it cost you to build the system (for comparison purposes)? Also, what audio codec are your burning your audio to?

Sounds like a kick-ass set-up. Have fun.

[Lee Hankins]

Yoder, the DAC and HD are connected to the SOtM tX-USB which is installed in the single PCI slot.  I moved the HD to one of the USB ports on the motherboard, this should isolate the two USB devices.  The HD is USB only.

I am not familiar with Amarra or any other mac software.  What is different from the mac software from my JRiver/JPlay combination.  JRiver is just the visual front end for the music stored on the HD.  JPlay is the "high-end digital transport".

I did not follow the advice of the article, I installed a DVD drive for downloading music instead of using a thumb drive, or by moving the HD to my main system and copying from there.

I have no idea on cost.  There is one vendor that has been given permission to sell the CAP 2.0, I belive their cost was $1400, so I should have less than $1000.00 invested, and this could be reduced to around $750 with a different computer case, the one recommended was $320 plus freight, a big saving could be made here.  Another $331 savings could be made by not using the rather expensive USB card and sub with the recommended $8.00 firewire card, but one would have to have a DAC that was FW capable.  Also a smaller SSD could be used saving another $100 or so.  With a different case and having a FW DAC one should be able to put one of these together for around $600-$700.

My HDTracks are of course Flac, normal CD's are burned in Wav, some say that is sounds better than Flac, who really knows, I am not worried about the larger file size.

[AudioDave]

Thanks for your post Lee,  for me personally I think your setup is a better way for me to go vs. the mac mini.  The main advantage I like is that I can build it myself which is what I have done with my last couple of desktop PC's.  For my external music storage I am planning on using a 1 TByte Seagate GoFlex with FW800 connection.  Do you see any concerns with that?
All I am waiting on is the Bottlehead USB Dac!! 
Thanks again for your very helpful post!
Dave

[Yoder]

Another $331 savings could be made by not using the rather expensive USB card and sub with the recommended $8.00 firewire card, but one would have to have a DAC that was FW capable.  Also a smaller SSD could be used saving another $100 or so.  With a different case and having a FW DAC one should be able to put one of these together for around $600-$700.

My HDTracks are of course Flac, normal CD's are burned in Wav, some say that is sounds better than Flac, who really knows, I am not worried about the larger file size.

I have purchased some USB/FW800 PCI cards in the past for less than a hundred. Being a computer DIYer, then I am sure that you are familiar with New Egg.

WAV and AIFF are not compressed like FLAC files. You can convert FLAC to AIFF or WAV with different types of freeware out there. Also, if you have some crappy CDs then try using iTunes to burn your CDs with "error correction" turned on. Here is a link that shows you how define audio quality in iTunes: http://co-bw.com/iTunes_Define_Audio_Quality.htm

Here is another link on how to import music to a specific drive using iTunes: http://co-bw.com/iTunes_Import_from_CD.htm

@AudioDave: I have been an advocate for Seagate for years. If it is one of those drives that stands on its side, then make sure you lay it flat or it will get knock over sooner or latter.

Here is a pretty sweet drive. Glyph's have a great warranty and are bullet proof. They cost a bit more, but are worth the cost: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/GPT50-2TB

[AudioDave]

Yoder,  Thanks for the lead on the Glyphs external hard drives.  I am not familiar with that brand so will do some looking at them.  For best performance with a music server it sounds like I need a hard drive with eSATA.
Dave

[Lee Hankins]

Dave, I do not see any disadvantage with using FW with this server, also it would save $300+.  With the HD it actually might be the better choice, but then you will have to use one of the computers USB ports to connect to the DAC.  It seems to me that the main advantage of this server (beside no moving parts) is the use of the SOtM tx-USB card, resulting in having the best USB signal possible.  Also, if your server software downloads into memory for playback why would it make any difference what interface the HD uses.  The CAPS tries to eliminate any unnecessary vibration, thus the use of an SSD.  I have a small startup SSD and then the external USB 1T drive.   Another site full of good information: http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com  

I have down loaded several 192/24 selections and compared them to their 96/24 versions and came to the conclusion that for some reason in my system 192/24 was not better sounding and thus to me was not worth the extra cost.

Yesterday I realised that the CEntrance DACmini is only 96/24 over USB and 192/24 over SPDIF, I knew this but it just didn't sink in.  So I have actually never listen to any 192/24 music via the DACmini even though 192/24 was being played via JRiver/JPlay.  I was using the DACmini because it contains a headphone amp and the Crack was being used in another system.

I have an asynchronous Cleo USB DAC which is 192/24 and has a tube output stage, the Cleo has never been hooked up to the music server, it had been used with a SACD player as source.  Needless to say that there actually is an audible difference between 192/24 and 96/24, not sure yet if it is enought improvement to justify the extra cost, but at least everything is working as it should.

The biggest plus here is that I now get to reinstall my Crack back into the main system, and get to have a future battle of DAC's to determine which is the better sounding.  

[Doc B.]

Not to meddle, but I will suggest that anyone who uses a PC platform try Reaper. It's not music player software but rather a DAW. Thus it is not practical as server software. But the audio that comes from it sounds very good and might give a good point of reference when evaluating other, more useful players

[Noskipallwd]

Lee, regarding your comparison of 24/192 and 24/96 versions of tracks, I have found that many of the 24/192 versions available for download are just upsampled from the lower resolution files. The shame is you have no way of knowing which tracks are upsampled and which are not. In my experience the native 24/192 files sound really good.

Cheers,
Shawn

[denti alligator]

I'm using J.River 17 with a Juli@ sound card doing the DAC, running in an old HTPC with Vista on it. The machine itself is big and a little noisy, but not enough that I feel obliged to build another one. Yet. The sound is rally fantastic, so I'm curious how an external DAC would improve it. Looking forward to adding the BH DAC at some point.

All my files are FLAC. Those who say they can hear a difference between FLAC and WAV are self-deluded. FLAC is a great space saver. And J.River is a great program, so I'm pretty happy.

[Yoder]

Yoder,  Thanks for the lead on the Glyphs external hard drives.  I am not familiar with that brand so will do some looking at them.  For best performance with a music server it sounds like I need a hard drive with eSATA.
Dave

The Glyph's come with eSATA, USB, and FW800.

[Yoder]

All my files are FLAC. Those who say they can hear a difference between FLAC and WAV are self-deluded. FLAC is a great space saver. And J.River is a great program, so I'm pretty happy.

I have not heard many say that one is better than the other. FLAC is harder to find software that will play it back, and it also uses more CPU resources since it must be decompressed. Storage is so cheap anymore that I just always burn my music in uncompressed form. The only time I use FLAC is when it is being downloaded from the Web, and then I immediately convert it to AIFF, not because it sounds better, but just because I can and I like consistency.

[Natural Sound]

Here is a pretty sweet drive. Glyph's have a great warranty and are bullet proof. They cost a bit more, but are worth the cost: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/GPT50-2TB

Yoder, do you have one of these drives? I notice it has a small fan. I usually shy away from audio components that have fans. Unless of course someone can convince me that the fan is silent or near silent.