A new Voyage Linux MPD platform. CuBox.

Natural Sound · 15046

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Offline Natural Sound

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on: November 02, 2013, 10:45:35 AM
I wonder if these boards have the same problems with high speed USB streams like John Swenson mentioned exists in the Beagle Bone Black. http://www.bottlehead.com/smf/index.php/topic,4825.0.html I suspect it does not. There is mention of, "Two independent and powered USB Hosts." And Fast Ethernet that is independent of the USB ports.

Sounds very interesting. I may have to grab one of these to play around with. It would be nice to have another Linux based alternative. The fact that the folks at Voyage Linux have ported an OS specifically for this board gives me high hopes. I'm not giving my ALIX up any time soon though.

http://mubox.voyage.hk/
http://www.solid-run.com/general/75-mpd


Offline John Swenson

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Reply #1 on: November 04, 2013, 12:54:04 PM
The one to use is the new CuBox-i, it is way more capable and has a much better USB implementation. They are not out yet for the general public so you would have to wait, but it should be a MUCH better computer for music playback.

John S.

John Swenson
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Offline BNAL

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Reply #2 on: November 04, 2013, 02:44:39 PM
John,

I have been looking around for another music computer to use in place of my SB Touch, so this topic is very interesting to me. I looked up the CuBox-i and see that there a 4 different versions and wanted to know if you thought one was better than the other?

Thanks,
Brad

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Offline Jim R.

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Reply #3 on: November 05, 2013, 10:22:42 AM
Tom,

Thanks fr bringing this to our attention. Yes, it does look really interesting -- enough that I'll probably pre-order one myself.

Though I would be interested in John's response to Brad's question. Still not sure there'd be enough horsepower to do realtime sample conversion, though that's probably not a real issue for me personally.

-- Jim

Jim Rebman -- recovering audiophile

Equitech balanced power; uRendu, USB processor -> Musette DAC -> 5670 tube buffer -> Finale Audio F138 FFX -> Cain and Cain Abbys near-field).

s.e.x. 2.1 under construction.  Want list: Stereomour II

All ICs homemade (speaker and power next)

Offline Natural Sound

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Reply #4 on: November 06, 2013, 01:12:03 PM
Probably the base model would be sufficient. I cant imagine Voyage MPD taking advantage of a dual core processor. The ALIX boards are a 500mhz single core processor. I'm assuming that the CuBox-i1 running a single core 1 Ghz processor is overkill for MPD. That said, it might be a good idea to talk to the folks at Voyage. I'd recommend signing up for their mailing list / forum and ask questions there.


BTW, Rumor has it that PC Engines has the next-generation embedded PC board in the works. The folks at Voyage Linux MPD have a pre-production sample and will have an OS ported for the new board when it is released to the public. The new PC Engines board is going to have a dual core processor. So maybe my assumption of the dual core version of the CuBox-i1 isn't accurate.
http://www.pcengines.ch/apu.htm


Offline dw

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Reply #5 on: November 06, 2013, 01:44:52 PM
Well, I pre-ordered a CuBox-i 4 processor box. I'm hoping to use it to stream to the BH dac, and/or my current EMU dac.
But, now a question. I have EMU drivers on my MAC that interface withe the EMU DAC. Will I need to install a driver for the
BH DAC? Will there be one for mac, linux, ...? Sorry if this has been discussed before.

Thanks,
Dave


Offline Jim R.

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Reply #6 on: November 06, 2013, 02:03:45 PM
Dave,

The new BH dac is UAC2 compliant so no drivers needed for mac or linux. Only for Windows if you want more than 24/96 resolution.

So, the cubox1 should bee plug and play with the bh dac.

HTH,

Jim

Jim Rebman -- recovering audiophile

Equitech balanced power; uRendu, USB processor -> Musette DAC -> 5670 tube buffer -> Finale Audio F138 FFX -> Cain and Cain Abbys near-field).

s.e.x. 2.1 under construction.  Want list: Stereomour II

All ICs homemade (speaker and power next)

Offline dw

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Reply #7 on: November 06, 2013, 02:11:48 PM
Thanks, Jim!


Offline John EH

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Reply #8 on: November 09, 2013, 01:43:01 PM
If you guys are interested the November issue of Linux Journal has a pretty lengthy article on the CuBox.

I'm interested but don't know if I'll make a buy or not.  I have 6 R Pi's and 3 Nexus 7's that I use for digital sources.  Too many toys.

But knowing me I'll probably get around to it.


Offline John EH

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Reply #9 on: November 11, 2013, 01:11:35 PM
I got around to it.  Ordered a Cubox -i4 yesterday.  Company told me it would ship near the end of the month.


Offline madbrayniak

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Reply #10 on: January 02, 2014, 12:52:05 PM
Slightly off topic but kinda the same thing.

I want to build a HTPC that is all for my digital music, streaming and movies and run it on XBMC.

I was thinking that I could run JRiver through XBMC as well.

I was thinking I would do this with a small ITX motherboard and a Streacom case but would something like this Cubox-i be a better or equally as good but cheaper option?


Offline Alonzo

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Reply #11 on: January 02, 2014, 04:01:59 PM
I built something similar with an Intel NUC, running Linux and XMBC.  This is networked to my server with music and movies.  This is waiting the new dac to be finished.  Simple, quiet, easy.

Alonzo
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Offline Natural Sound

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Reply #12 on: January 03, 2014, 06:24:50 AM
Quote from: Alonzo on January 02, 2014, 04:01:59 PM
I built something similar with an Intel NUC, running Linux and XMBC.  This is networked to my server with music and movies.  This is waiting the new dac to be finished.  Simple, quiet, easy.

I think that the Intel NUC is a nice powerful small computer. The thing that turns me off is the fact that it has a fan. Even a quiet fan in the listening room, is a big no no for me. That's why I use a networked ALIX with Voyage Linux MPD. Even the my hard drive is in another room. That's just me, YMMV. Let us know how it works out for you.


Offline madbrayniak

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Reply #13 on: January 03, 2014, 06:39:01 AM
Natural Sound,

I have a solution for you in regard to the NUC:

http://www.streacom.com/products/nc1-fanless-chassis/


Offline Natural Sound

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Reply #14 on: January 03, 2014, 07:15:47 AM
Quote from: madbrayniak on January 03, 2014, 06:39:01 AM
Natural Sound,

I have a solution for you in regard to the NUC:

http://www.streacom.com/products/nc1-fanless-chassis/

Yup, that would do it. Thanks!


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