My new 3 watt dead-silent USB Linux music server. - Page 2 - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

ephrank · 05-20-2008, 12:49 PM

Does the Linux / ALSA mixer outputs bit-perfect digital audio? Anyone tested that yet?

nyc_paramedic · 05-20-2008, 02:20 PM

Originally Posted by ephrank

Does the Linux / ALSA mixer outputs bit-perfect digital audio? Anyone tested that yet?

As far as I know yes. I don't even have ALSA mixer enabled on my server. It just outputs directly to the Trends UD-10 with no conversions or mixing.

scompton · 05-20-2008, 03:21 PM

I'd love to do something like this. However all of my music is Apple Lossless and AAC. Is there any Linux software that can play Apple Lossless?

nyc_paramedic · 05-20-2008, 05:11 PM

Originally Posted by scompton

I'd love to do something like this. However all of my music is Apple Lossless and AAC. Is there any Linux software that can play Apple Lossless?

I don't have any experience with the Apple codecs, but the MPD sites sts MPD can play: MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP4/AAC, Mod, and wave files.

Here: MPD: Features

ephrank · 05-21-2008, 07:49 AM

Originally Posted by nyc_paramedic

As far as I know yes. I don't even have ALSA mixer enabled on my server. It just outputs directly to the Trends UD-10 with no conversions or mixing.

AFAIK, ALSA is the default sound driver for the Linux kernel so your Trends UD-10 is likely to be controlled by the ALSA USB sound module (snd-usb-audio)

minktoast · 05-21-2008, 04:47 PM

Fantastic information - many thanks for sharing. I'll be ordering a board soon and have a go myself (familiar with Debian).

Brewmaster · 05-21-2008, 05:16 PM

For the ultimate in low power it would be great to pair up one of these systems with an external USB drive for the media storage, and then use a MPD client on your phone to control the device.

It would probably have a pretty good payback in an area where power is expensive.

nyc_paramedic · 05-21-2008, 05:29 PM

Originally Posted by ephrank

AFAIK, ALSA is the default sound driver for the Linux kernel so your Trends UD-10 is likely to be controlled by the ALSA USB sound module (snd-usb-audio)

Yes. You are correct. I was oversimplifying for the sake of some of the non-Linux techies here.

nyc_paramedic · 05-21-2008, 05:43 PM

Originally Posted by Brewmaster

For the ultimate in low power it would be great to pair up one of these systems with an external USB drive for the media storage, and then use a MPD client on your phone to control the device.

It would probably have a pretty good payback in an area where power is expensive.

You know, I thought about that but decided against it for several reasons:

1. I wanted to avoid one more LED in my usually dimmed listening room.

2. I usually rip new CD's on my bedroom desktop (where the 750GB disk is setup as NFS), and copying them over to the NFS disk would be much easier than having to unplug the USB drive constantly. Editing tags is easier this way too.

3. The possibility of hearing the 750GB disk (seek noise, platter spin) during quiet passages. The ALIX with compact flash is dead silent.

4. I didn't want any other devices on the ALIX's USB port possibly contributing to sound degradation.

5. I might buy another ALIX connected to a small amp to play music in the kitchen. Having the NFS disk on the desktop makes it a lot easier to administer this type of network. With the GMPC client on one device, you can have different profiles for different MPD servers and label them accordingly, i.e., bedroom, kitchen , basement. Each ALIX in a different room of the house being it's own MPD server, and each one fetching different music from the same NFS or NAS server.

This being open source software, Linux is supremely flexible. I'm sure my setup isn't the only way to set up MPD; just works for me.

Brewmaster · 05-21-2008, 07:30 PM

Originally Posted by nyc_paramedic

You know, I thought about that but decided against it for several reasons:

1. I wanted to avoid one more LED in my usually dimmed listening room.

2. I usually rip new CD's on my bedroom desktop (where the 750GB disk is setup as NFS), and copying them over to the NFS disk would be much easier than having to unplug the USB drive constantly. Editing tags is easier this way too.

3. The possibility of hearing the 750GB disk (seek noise, platter spin) during quiet passages. The ALIX with compact flash is dead silent.

4. I didn't want any other devices on the ALIX's USB port possibly contributing to sound degradation.

5. I might buy another ALIX connected to a small amp to play music in the kitchen. Having the NFS disk on the desktop makes it a lot easier to administer this type of network. With the GMPC client on one device, you can have different profiles for different MPD servers and label them accordingly, i.e., bedroom, kitchen , basement. Each ALIX in a different room of the house being it's own MPD server, and each one fetching different music from the same NFS or NAS server.

This being open source software, Linux is supremely flexible. I'm sure my setup isn't the only way to set up MPD; just works for me.

I hear you on the ambient noise issue of having a hard drive in the room. Perhaps a little NAS hard drive located elsewhere in the house. I just love this concept. Having small, low cost computer boards certainly opens up a lot of interesting ideas.