Coincidence or not, in about 1.5 hour drive from Taiko Audio another Dutch high end manufacture is located: Grimm Audio. Currently mostly known for its ultra-low jitter clocks (aimed at studio’s with Guido Tent) and LS1 speaker system line up, Grimm Audio has recently launched its MU1 server (€9.800). In short the MU1 is a Roon core server with Grimms oscillators, the inhouse developed power supply, endpoint with an inhouse designed FPGA board as the magic ingredient (which converts / up- or down samples to the desired format). Like other Grimm products, the MU1 is upgradable overtime (upgrade of the existing components and placement of a internal DAC).

The most interesting thing for me is that the FPGA is aimed to match the outgoing digital signal with the ‘default/native’ bit depth/sample rate of the connected DAC. For me this was a new approach, only later I discovered that Auralic has a similar approach with the Sirius G2 Upsampling Processor (€ 6.300). I’m not an expert by any means so I prefer to link to an interview where Eelco Grimm gives a proper explanation (time stamp, English subs). Have I been sleeping for years, or have more servers/streamers applied this DAC matching-approach?

Quick links for a fast introduction/understanding:

MU1 Interview Eelco Grimm (English subs)
The “Pure Nyquist” filters of the MU1

Company overview Hans Beekhuyzen
Productpage and reviews (6Moon has also a review of the MU1 lined up)

In order to test Euphony Stylus I had to set up my system.  What follows is an outline of that setup.  I have created another thread that is a Shootout where I am talking about comparisons.  

The https://euphony-audio.com website is a little sparse and navigation is sort of hidden in the hamburger menu.  Just go to the download page and follow their instructions.

https://euphony-audio.com/installation/

You should have an 8GB USB stick and if it is faster that is a good idea for testing.  If you are running AL like I have been the computer needs to be changed to run Legacy Boot or the Euphony OS will not boot.  I would suggest that you have a keyboard, mouse and display hooked up to whatever you are running on.  You will see the normal Linux boot stuff go by and after a short bit you should see this on the display of the computer.

After that it is time to head over to a control device of your choice. Just a web browser is all you need to run with.  Go to euphony.local and the server should show up!

I hooked up my external USB drive to the endpoint and also linked in my NAS.  I am not pulling from the NAS only the local drive for now. 

It will take a bit for the Stylus software to index and load your music.  Here are some screen shots.

IF you are hooked up to your DAC via USB you should be ready to play with the Stylus Player software.  OH and setup 100% buffer

I am sure that there will be Q&A.  The Eupony folks have a trouble ticketing system, but this is not bad to stop at all.

Bob

I have just put my "endpoint" back into the system and left Stylus running.  I connected the software to my NAS and then added it to the library.  I made a small mistake so it is getting 200K + tracks that have MP3s and a back of the main library before we worked on metadata.

NOTES ON FURTHER SETUP 3/13/19

• This is a commercial software release do you NOT have Root access
• By default, the internal audio devices are turned off in the OS.  There is a flag to turn them on.
• If you are setting up a Roon system with two Euphony 3 systems, you will have the Roon Uniuque_ID problem (put in a ticket to have them fix your system)
• I suggest that if you have multiple systems running Euphony that you change the hostname on them to eliminate duplicates.
• It is easy to switch endpoints between Roon and SQlite
• I have not setup bridging yet.  I am told it can be done.  
• My endpoint is running off of Optane and my server is running off of NVMe stick
• The support team is very responsive and the ticketing system really helps keep things in order
• They are fixing some UI issues on the IOS control software.

Here is the link to their KB : https://euphony-audio.com/hesk/knowledgebase.php

Notes as of 5/27/19

Frequency scaling does not work on the NUC 7i7

Bob Fairbairn and a few others are now using Euphony Stylus on a single box as our player.

*** i suggest that you read their manual ***

I used a microRendu and UA Ultracap LPS-1 for a few years with a remote fileserver, but always felt like it lacked the sense of timing and very low noise floor that I’d had with a CD transport-based system. So, in 2022 I switched to an Audiolab 6000CDT transport, started spinning discs again and was rewarded by what I’d been missing. After a year or so with that I wondered if I could get to that same sound with a file-based player without many boxes and 10x the price of my disc spinner, so started experimenting and using my recent experience with the CD transport as a reference.

Most of these ideas are not novel but are spread across many threads, but those threads are often focused on upsampling and/or cost-no-object solutions. My budget requires me to set different goals, plus I wanted to put these together in one place. And I wanted a headless system, so no screen interfering with the acoustics.

These are items that received my attention:

• Choice of processor
• Power Supply
• Local storage vs networked storage
• SSD vs HDD
• Fan vs fanless
• USB2 vs USB3
• CPU frequency
• Status update frequency
• Processing & Volume control
• Hyperthreading & Turbo on/off

For software, I tried JRiver Media Center and Euphony Stylus on a NUC, sometimes with the files in a separate NUC as server and sometimes as a separate drive inside the player.

Choice of Processor

If going with a player that doesn’t upsample or use Roon, processor power doesn’t seem to be an issue. So, I reasoned that a Core i3 should be sufficient for anything 5^th generation or newer, certainly no more than a Core i5. The greater the power capacity the item is designed for, the more electrical noise is likely to be an issue, effecting the noise floor. It’s the type of noise you never notice until it’s gone. Yes, a mini-Itx allows for aftermarket USB or SPDIF cards, but they also require a stronger power supply, with its issues of noise and cost both for the computer and power supply. If cost is no object, you can find lots of threads here pursuing best sound down that path.

But I wanted a one computer solution, headless, that could use a high quality ultra low noise power supply that didn’t need to handle 4A or more. So I looked for an i3 or i5 NUC that had a low power requirement, less than 26W, so I could use a 19V 1-1.5A linear power supply. Since I couldn’t find any fanless cases to fit a 5^th generation NUC, I chose a refurbished 7^th generation i5 NUC. I also needed a NUC spec’d to support two internal drives rather than one. My cost was £200 between the NUC and an Akasa Plato fanless case.

Running Euphony Stylus, it never even gets close to 1A except during the boot sequence.

Power Supply

General consensus seems to be to get the best quality low noise power supply you can afford. It makes a big difference to the sound quality.

As mentioned, I wanted a high quality 19V linear power supply that could well handle 1-1.5A and chose one based on the Studer900 PSU phantom power design. That has excellent low noise performance and cost around £150 including the board, case, transformer, and supplemental capacitors. One could buy it complete on Ebay for less but suspected it might not be properly spec’d (espec. transformer) to support this voltage/power combination.

SSD & Local storage

One friend with loads of experience in the very high end (design, use, measurement) recommended I store the files on an interior drive instead of a network server and that I use an SSD rather than an HDD.

This ran counter to most of what I’d read, since SSD’s are thought to be electrically noisier and best to get file storage away from the player. But he said that an SSD requires less current than an HDD and so allows the computer to generate less noise, compensating for any electrical noise from the SSD itself. I found that to bear out in SQ when I changed from HDD to SSD on the storage drive. Of course, I used separate drives for OS and file storage.

He also said that wired networked devices will tend to add noise to the system unless a lot of care and expense is put into galvanically isolating them from the player. So, I used a dedicated WiFi 4G router just to enable use of a remote and to have access to the internet, required by some player software. I again found his recommendations to bear out in the resulting SQ.

Fanless case & USB2

I moved the NUC into an Akasa Plato fanless chassis, which had a good result to SQ in addition to now being physically silent running. The Plato also allows connections from the USB2 options on the board and I found those to have more accurate transients than the USB3 ports either front or back.

CPU Frequency

I’ve also heard from multiple sources that setting the CPU frequency is important to the SQ performance and I found this critical in order to get close the disc spinning performance. Fortunately, Euphony’s Stylus software allows easy switching of CPU frequency on the fly for immediate comparison.

In my comparisons, changing the frequency could affect: transients, sharpness, midrange, handling of complex passages, dimensionality of images, timing, etc., and I found that the best setting often changed when I changed anything else on the computer and required a lot of comparison testing.

For instance when in the original case with a fan, the best CPU Frequency seemed to be 13000 and the timing sounded off when below 10,000. But when in the fanless case, 6000 sounded best in my setup.

Status Update Frequency/Processing

In Euphony, one can change how often the song position is updated when playing. There was a marked improvement in SQ when it was set to less often and I settled on “never”. This was nearly as significant as the CPU frequency setting. (Euphony: Settings/ Music Service/ Playback Options/ Song Pos Update). Similarly, if using JRiver, the volume control should be Disabled and DSP bypassed.

Hyperthreading & Turbo

I did not control my experiments optimally but it seemed that it was better with Turbo on and Hyperthreading off. It’s worth popping into UEFI/BIOS and trying them both ways.

Let me start with some of the high level requirements:

• One box solution to eliminate some of the clutter.
• Optimized for Streaming (Tidal / Qobuz).
• The best quality USB output.

I came up with the following specs:

• Motherboard: ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX changed to ASUS Z390-I ROG Strix Gaming Intel LGA 1151 mini ITX motherboard
• CPU: Intel Core i9-9900 changed to Intel Core i9-9900K
• RAM: 2 x 4GB Non-ECC Apacer RAM (Apacer D11.2318FS.004) changed to 2 x 4GB ECC Apacer RAM (D31.23185S.001)
• OS Drive: 32 GB Optane
• Chassis: 2 x Streacom FC9
• USB Output: PinkFaun USB Bridge with ultraOCXO clock
• Network input: JCAT NET FEMTO
• Operating System: Euphony running Stylus, switchable to Roon

Some other specs:

• 6-rails of DC power 
• All wiring will be done with Mundorf silver/gold wire (and JSSG360 shielding where it makes sense)
• Isoacoustics Gaia feet will be used on both chassis
• Some but very little EMI absorbing material to be applied at strategic places.
• All connectors will be treated with Walker Audio Quantum Silver Contact Treatment with Nanocrystal Technology.
• Resonance controlling material will be applied on the chassis.

Power Supply:

Given the specs above, we came up with 6-rails - 3 for the ATX connector, 1 for the EPS connector, 1 for the PinkFaun USB card, and 1 for the JCAT NET card.

He acquired a 4-rail Sean Jacobs power supply, which I customized for him. 3 rails used for the ATX connector and one rail for the PinkFaun USB card. 

The EPS connector will be powered by another 12V Sean Jacobs DC3 LPS he already has.

The JCAT NET card will be powered by various spare linear power supplies he has, tbd which works best. 

There are two goals with the customization of the 4-rail LPS:
1. Shortest possible cable path from the double regulators to the components powered.
2. Good heat management to keep things cool.

We decided to use two black Streacom FC9 chassis. One chassis would be hosting a big 400VA toroidal transformer, Schottky diodes for rectification, Mundorf caps, etc. The second chassis would be hosting the motherboard, CPU, RAM, etc. and some of the DC regulators. 

I decided to install the regulators for the ATX connector in the motherboard chassis. That would meet the first goal.

For the second goal, I left the regulators for the PinkFaun USB bridge in power supply chassis. I calculated that the path from the regulators would be almost the same length as if they were in the motherboard chassis. But we have an available heatsink to use in the power supply, so I opted for the better heat management. 

This may resemble a little bit the power supply of the Innuos Statement described here - http://www.the-ear.net/how-to/power-supply-design-innuos-statement. 

It’s not a coincident, and some of the ideas were taken from there.

It’s also good to mention that Sean Jacobs would not do a power supply like this. Due to his contract with Innuos, he is not doing ATX power supplies. The only way to build his power supply inside a computer is to go the DIY route.

This server will look a little like the Innuos Statement. But to be honest, I am aiming higher than that.

One can buy a Statement instead, but there are a few things I don’t like about the Statement - the low powered CPU does not sound as good as this configuration; the SSD drives are too noisy, and I don’t want to have any in my servers; Apacer RAM is a must; the wiring (silver/gold wires used for everything) cost $1,500 alone… if the Statement had the same wires and cables, it would probably cost $5K more just for that… that’s not including the amount of time, it takes to do all the JSSG360 shielding and every small detail. And those cables make a big difference.  I’ve heard the Statement in a few occasions and liked what I heard. But I’ve never had one in my system to compare with a DIY server like this. 

Stay tuned. I am planning to post a lot of pictures and comments as I make progress. 

Here is the final result and a review from the new owner after a couple of weeks of listening to the new server:

Can someone share some info about the new SCION and their new OS?

Thanks

This is not a Comedy, but for some, it would be, thus the title!

I have been improving the sound quality and reducing the cost of my music servers and streaming.  I have found an exciting mix for building a Roon Server (or alternative) and making it sound better.

I have a spare 2012 i7 Mac mini with 16 GB of RAM, but it's not doing me any good. You can buy one at MacSales.com for about $250 in a similar configuration. You can try to get one with a boot SSD; it doesn't have to be large, as we can use an external USB SSD for storage.   I have one of these, and the price has been dropping:  Microcenter Inland USB SSD.  NOTE: You only need this to store an extensive library on the machine.

While at Microcenter or the like, you can grab a faster USB Stick. USB 3.2.

When you return home, download Balena Etcher and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS live CD to your favorite working computer.  Install and run Etcher.  It will ask for the ISO file and the USB stick to flash.

Hook up the Mac mini to a keyboard, mouse, display, and wired network—there is no WiFi for you!

Put the USB stick in the Mac, hold the Option key down, and press the power button while keeping the Option key held down until the Mac shows the drives to boot from.  Then, select the USB stick as the boot drive.

Once it boots, follow the instructions to install Ubuntu on the internal hard drive (bye-bye MacOS)…

OK, I know what you are thinking. Do you need dedicated operating systems you can use? You could try GENTOOPLAYER, AUDIOLINUX, and more.  First, a machine with a desktop and a web browser is your friend.  Second, the Mac you just bought is not supported by Apple OS updates, so have at it, live a little, and learn more!

If you have gotten this far, the next bit will be even more fun. The Roon folks still need to keep their Linux install pages up to date. Go to their forum, and you will find this.

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/ubuntu-roon-server-install-tips/52226/2

From one of the mods, here is the work to do:

It’s in the guide, but here’s the bits you need.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ffmpeg cifs-utils alsa-lib
curl -O http://download.roonlabs.com/builds/roonserver-installer-linuxx64.sh
chmod +x roonserver-installer-linuxx64.sh
sudo ./roonserver-installer-linuxx64.sh

Do this from the terminal app … open the dash and type terminal. You may cut ‘n’ paste each line.

• The first line tells the machine to update the package lists.
• The second line downloads and installs three utilities Roon needs
• The third line downloads the script you need.
• The fourth line makes the script executable
• The last line runs the script to install the Roon Core.

I cannot help folks if this does not work, so visit the Roon Community above and ask.

Now, here is the fun part.  Over on Head-Fi, there is a long thread about making Roon sound better.  The folks in the Roon Community will ridicule you if you talk about it there.  All of these items are simple and reversible:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/roon-optimization-guide-for-increased-sound-quality.968792/

They turn off the processes that scan the local files for level balancing, etc.  It only needs to be done once and does not run on streaming files.  The following section turns off some of the DSP stuff and improves the sound by not being there. The final section is only to have ONE endpoint installed in Roon.

Again YMMV.

You can also install minimserver or Lyrion Music Server for your local files and skip Roon.  Your ears and your budget will thank you!

NOTE: you may want to install an alternative OS dedicated to music playback.  Check out Audiolinux and Gentooplayer, for example.

Welcome to my world! Come on, the water is fine. It's too bad UpTone Audio has discontinued its Mac mini Power Supply replacement board—ahh, history.

RJF

-- Wait till I start the write-up on the Raspberry Pi5 with 4TB of NVME.

Edit:

As Rajiv rightly points out below, the initial response to the SQ benefits of the NUC endpoint was that the server tweaks no longer mattered. With time, we have learned that server tweaks are as important as ever. The reality is that the NUC endpoint just moved the baseline in one big step, and despite using various isolation techniques between the dirty and clean sides, additional SQ gains can be made on the server side as well.

Here is my setup:

• Source Roon Nucleus One with SotM LPSU (fully upgraded model with silver wiring and stuff).
• Roon send raw/unmodified data to a HQ Player rendering PC with i9 12900KF + RTX3080 and I installed a JCAT Net Card XE on this machine currently with power from my PC’s PSU via Molex on the back of JCAT card. PC has normal 850 Watt Thermalright modular PSU.
• Holo Red, acting as an NAA.
• Holo May KTE connecting with Holo Red via USB.
• Ethernet switch is Melco S10 with another SotM LPSU (fully upgraded model with silver wiring and stuff).
• All AC/ethernet cables are of good quality.

Previously, with the Ethernet form my Mobo and I didn’t truly have any complaint on SQ. However, I ordered the JCAT hoping to see improvements.

After a week of evaluation, my finding was that… with the Ethernet output from JCAT card, music surely sounded more refined… separation was better and I could hear fine details better. HOWEVER, I find that music lacked dynamic and punch. I felt that dynamic range seemed to have reduced comparing with using my MOBO’s Ethernet.

How could this be possible? Does the card need more “beak-in”, or would upgrading the PSU (feeding the JCAT card) give me better result? I have Optimo Nano in the mail and should receive it later this week, but I highly doubt this will improve my situation.

Any idea of what could have caused this? I mean it wasn’t really a “downgrade” as I could hear some improvements, but I seem to lose something in the process.

Thanks!

Essentially is a computer with modified windows and Jriver. The outputs are SPDIF, USB, connectors for USB drives. They do have a propriety method of preparing streams or digital files with the ultimate aim of reducing jitter to nil. It is possible to buy the server on its own with all the goodies, however, the technology is available to install on a computer system or existing music server.

Their quote from the website: ' Originally exclusive to The Memory Player, these technologies are now licensed individually, and can be purchased and installed in any music server or computer audio system.'

One technology is convert CD to a 64bit wav file and playback 32bit, there are a few more interesting concepts the review says most of it. Also has a PSU that fits in an ATX plug, so not just limited to hardware.

There's also a mini version for about 30% of the Player 64, also worth looking at. The brand has been around for 2 score, so not a new company. Lots to read about this machine, the attention to jitter is something worth reading about.

e.g. HDPlex 400 LPSU has a ripple/noise of 2 millivolts, but if that relatively clean power is then passed to a switching pico ATX 24 pin PC mobo connector with a ripple of 70 millivolts, has the improvement been lost at the final hurdal? Will the mobo 'read' 2 or 70 millivolts of noise?

When running Ropieee, I use my SGC Sonic Transporter I5 for Minimserver or Roon.   I have also been testing the new Linux version of Audirvana on the server.  

I have been researching this for some time so thought I would share for other Innuos owners who might have been considering HQPlayer but like to keep their nice Innuos HW.

I just upgraded my Zenith mk3 and it is one of the best upgraded I have ever done to my system for the small price of a HQPlayer license!

1: Download and install a Disk Image writer like Win32 Disk Imager on a PC (https://win32diskimager.org/). Don’t know how to do this on a Mac but I am sure someone else can help out.

2: Download Miska´s embedded HQPlayer Image (https://www.signalyst.com/embedded-install.html?)

3: Write Image to a USB drive (should be quite narrow to not interfere with the dac USB)

4: Connect keyboard and display to the Innuos (only needed in step 4+5 and maybe the display in step 6 the first time to see it working)

5: Change the boot priority in the bios to USB first (will still boot to the normal drive if there is no USB attached)

6: Boot Innuos with USB inserted

7: Configure HQPlayer over web interface (I am using PCM, Sinc-Mx, LNS15, 1.536M

8: Configure you player (I am using Roon from a ROCK server)

9: Enjoy the sweet combination of HQPlayer and your upgraded Innuos device!

Anyone here happening to know a viable option for a great quality I2S output I'd be happy to learn more about it, or if anyone is up for a DIY initiative ....if there is a suitable chip making something work should not be that hard anymore these days, at least that's what I think ;-)

Designed from scratch, XACT S1, is a purist’s dream for those in the know. Based on JCAT’s ZeNA (Zero-Noise-Architecture) motherboard, the S1 does not rely on switching DC-DC converters. Instead, super-low-noise linear regulators are used exclusively making XACT S1 the world’s first music server running on linear power alone.



The market lacked a genuine audiophile-grade motherboard. Most of the available streaming products are assembled using general-purpose PC motherboards. According to Marcin Ostapowicz, JPLAY & JCAT Founder, such motherboards with noisy switching converters all over the place should not be used in a high-end audio system.



XACT S1’s proprietary motherboard, apart from linear regulation, features extremely low-jitter OCXO clock with ±5 ppb frequency stability. The extensive power supply section based on JCAT’s renowned OPTIMO linear PSU delivers 140 000 uF of capacitance provided by Nichicon’s flagship Muse and Fine Gold capacitors series.



Software is custom made and finetuned personally by JPLAY’s Founder, Marcin Ostapowicz, who promises superb sound quality and ease of use via included brand new JPLAY iOS app which combines Qobuz, Tidal and local content in a single beautiful interface.



According to Wojciech Pacuła, chief editor of High Fidelity, the sound of XACT S1 is 'insanely difficult to distinguish from an analog source'. Come and hear it yourself.


When: 28-30th October


Where: Warsaw, Poland. Radisson Blu Sobieski Hotel, Room 718

There are a few options for a UPnP server:

1. NAS with or without linear PSU

2. NUC in a fanless case, with or without linear PSU

3. Raspberry Pi, with or without linear PSU

Since the signal sent over UPnP/DLNA protocol is data only (please correct me if I’m wrong), different rules should apply. Many people say the hardware choice for such a server is irrelevant as long as it works, as it shouldn’t or won’t affect sound quality, especially if the signal travels through an optimized network path (fiber optical isolation, OCXO switches, lan filters, etc.). 
 

What do you think? Should I invest in expensive equipment (say a dedicated audiophile server) or is a simple PI4 enough? How important is linear PSU there?
 

Any opinion on why the industry makes the choice not to include Squeezelite as a streaming option on consumer products?

After all, Squeezelite e.g 'Squeezebox et.al' pretty much put networked audio on the map. 

• Roon Core(Roon Server)
  AMD EPYC 160Core320Tread(Dual 9V74 80Core)
  MusicArch Linux
• Roon Bridge(Diretta Host)
  AMD EPYC 128Core256Tread(Dual 7713 64Core)
  MusicArch Linux
• Diretta Target(Diretta Target Soft Ver.Server)
  Intel Xeon64Core128Tread(Dual 8352 32Core)
  Gentoo Linux

The server's space is huge and three-dimensional, but Taiko's space is much smaller.
 

While fooling around, Bernd von fis Audio and I came up with the idea of building a high-performance audio PC with high-quality cabling together. The signal paths should be short. The audio PC should offer enough power to drive even complex filters or DSD EC modulators of the HQPlayer. It should be completely fanless, i.e. passively cooled. A clean linear power supply is mandatory. The case should be protect against resonances.

With this thread I want to report on our project progress. We are grateful for tips.

1. Shopping List

Below I list the components and the reasons that led to the selection. Of course we try not to let our project budget get out of hand. But we also want to install the best parts or at least very good components in the audio PC.

1.1 HDPLEX 2nd Gen H5 Fanless Chassis

This is a comparatively inexpensive and elegant case, which offers space for a motherboard with an ATX form factor. With 43cm width it has the "usual" HiFi format and with 11cm height it should fit in anywhere. The case is available in silver (our model) and in black. The passive cooling looks very high quality. It is intended for cooling CPU's with a power (TDP) of 95W.

1.2 ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XI FORMULA

Choosing the mainboard was not easy. In any case, it should be a gaming board since the power supply is usually better. It almost became the MSI MEG Z390 ACE because it has very good reviews. Unfortunately, it has no HDMI connection, so a graphics card should have been installed. For certain settings, such as BIOS optimizations, a screen has to be connected. So the choice fell on the expensive ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XI FORMULA board. It has some features that are appealing to a passive system. Namely, a very good cooling of important components. It is built very robustly and has an Aquantia 5G LAN connection, which invites you to experiment. Just take a look.

1.3 Intel Core i9-9900K (95W TDP), 3.6GHz - 5.0GHz OctaCore - HD Graphics 630

The CPU is well known to me for its stability and smooth operation. The new flagship i9-9900KS would also have been nice, but since the 5GHz clocking across all cores is not possible with a passive-cooled system, the i9-9900K remained. With this CPU, conversions from PCM to DSD 512 or the use of EC modulators for DSD 256 are no problem at all with the HQPlayer. 

1.4 Corsair DOMINATOR® PLATINUM 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 DRAM 2400 MHz C10 memory kit

Due to their robustness and low latencies, these 16GB RAM are also well-known.

1.5 Samsung 970 EVO Plus MZ-V7S250BW - 250 GB SSD

Two fast M.2 sockets can be used in the mainboard. A 250 GB SSD is sufficient if the music comes from NAS or from a streaming provider. If you want to have the music in the same device, you can connect 2 x 2 TB = 4 TB. If that is still not enough, connect further SSDs to the 6 x SATA 6Gb / s ports. There is enough space in the HDPLEX fanless chassis.

1.6 JCAT USB Card Femto

Experience shows that a dedicated USB card with an external power supply is worthwhile. At least when the DAC is controlled via USB. Other cards are also conceivable as an option. For example from Pink Faun.

1.7 JCAT NET Card Femto

With this card, extremely slim and interference-free network connections can be configured under Windows.

1.8 HDPLEX 400W DC-ATX

An ATX mainboard also requires an ATX power supply. The HDPLEX 400W DC-ATX converter has proven itself very well here.

1.9 Keces P8 Single 20V / 8A + optional 12V / 8A

The HDPLEX 200W Linear Power Supply (LPS), which is known to have dissolved in smoke, has not proven itself. Since then, I've been extremely concerned about security. The Keces P8 series has
 
 Over Voltage Protection (OVP).
 Over Current Protection (OCP).
 Under Voltage Protection (UVP).
 Over Temperature Protection (OTP)

Reading the power consumption is very practical. The LPS are quite handy, flawlessly processed and load stable. With normal use they only become lukewarm. We will also connect a 12V / 8A Keces directly to the 4-pin EATX 12 V Power Connector. This is supposed to bring something good in terms of sound.

The DC power sockets still to be selected on the HDPLEX fanless chassis should, however, be flexible in use so that any power supplier can be connected.

1.10 PC and DC cables

There will be some surprises. Bernd will draw from his broad range of cables. The plug connections are just as important. Gold-plated Molex pin connectors are already set for the 24PIN / 8PIN / 6PIN / 4PIN-Molex connections. Another playground are the DC cables for the external power supply.

1.11 Minimization of resonances

Sensitive electronic devices particularly benefit from stable, resonance-free device feet. We will experiment with different BF Magic Spacers from fis Audio. Balls made of glass, precious metal or other materials are placed on the discs and deflect vibrations.
 

Stay be tuned. 😉

Gabriel

But where to start.. There are so many and i have some fairly unique requirements.

I want absolute minimum number of systems. I want just the exact systems needed for a very stripped down audio server.

I believe less parts on the board is better. So I dont want ANY extra stuff.

1 x 2.5 ( or 10 gbps ) Gbps ethernet OR 1 SFP+ port. I DO NOT want 2 ports.

1 x SATA port

1 x PCIe M.2

I would like dual or more channel RAM slots to 32GB

1 x USB I dont need USB 3, would prefer 2. Need driver support and maybe a known good chip for audio use

VERY minimal graphics, very minimal HDMI. Command line 640x480 is all that is needed.

CPU socket - intel. very lowest CPU needed for audio roon core / UPnP use.

Ideally, all the above with a high end board. This is not about cost savings, its about having the least amount of electronics on the board.

I want to look over the board, so I need pics. As I intend on doing a LOT of mods to it I need to see it. A lot of NUCs its hard to find board level pics. Besides clock chips I also need to look at layout and I need to look at the PWM regulators for a number of reasons.

For OS.. It needs to run some flavor of Linux, it needs to be able to run roon rock and maybe even FreeBSD. I want to be able to do it for roon or for UPnP use. I am also interested in AES67/Dante/Ravenna and so I need to look at any NIC issues or CPU requirements. It would be good if it can do PTP. I think tho I need a serious high powered rig for AES67/Dante/Ravenna use.

You all look to be experts at all this and maybe you can suggest a solution..

Short of all that, maybe you can suggest something close to this outline that is a known good NUC for this use.

Thank you for those interested in purchasing Hi-B cut chokes for Nenon v3 style unregulated power supplies which are intended for use with Taiko or HDPlex DC-DC converters as original highlighted in a build by    @MarcelNL.

After some discussion it was decided that a group buy was not the right way forward, instead it is better for orders to be placed directly with the manufacturer, Mr Martin Mug from the Netherlands.

Outline of the chokes:

Specifically designed for use in DC power supplies 

12mHw/10Adc symmetrically wound choke

Features a HiB c-core, 1.88T pre magnetised core (40% higher than Mundorf VN180-12). 

Dimensions of each choke are approximately L 5 ½” x W 4” x H 3 ¼“

Many thanks

About a week ago I found Euphony.  It is also based on Arch Linux and appears to provide some of the same value as AudioLinux.  There are more features in their OS as it has  Music player software and some other flourishes.  I am a Roon user, and I do not currently intend on changing that!  I intend to try their player software at some point.

I am going to add a small (250GB) NVMe M.2 drive to the server and dual boot between AL and Euphony because I have it and there seems to be a shortage of Optane sticks this week.

One of the first items to note is that Euphony does not use ACPI boot you have to turn legacy back on if you were using AudioLinux.

Euphony basic setup is relatively simple.  Download the image and install it on a USB stick with Etcher on the MAC or their Windows installer.  For Euphony to run you need to register it for a trial.  There is an odd back and forth setup between the website and the program, but you get an email with the trial key pretty quickly.  Then things get weird.  Unless you purchase a license for $289.00 you cannot install the system anywhere.  You have to run off of the USB stick.  This is not conducive to running Roon Core.

I am sitting here springing forward and sleeping on going any further.

Bob