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Building a music server...

post #1 of 16
12/27/04 at 4:01am
Thread Starter 
Okay, the next step in my setup is the cd player. I sat and thought about it for about 5 minutes until i remembered that i hate finding cds when i can just have all my files located on a computer.. time to build a music server!

Budget is set at "reasonable".

What kind of stuff will i need? A computer with a low powered CPU (any recommendations of how low is safe?), running linux, with a nice soundcard or DAC, big hard drive and nice CDROM? Network card. Is that correct?

I figure it will need a nice cdrom in order to make sure the files are ripped in high quality. Is that correct, or will a standard cd rom rip music fine since the music isn't played in real time when ripping, unlike in a cd player?

The big hard drive is to hold the files.

The network card is because i have a home network and it would be nice to be able to access the music server from other PCs in the house, and vice versa. Also, i would be able to use things like freedb to get cd info when ripping

Is there any main advantages of running linux or windows? Linux is traditionally less problematic and can run on slower PCs, but may have soundcard compatibility problems?

Does the music playing software make a difference to soundqualiity, or will one program sound the same as the next?

Soundcard.... Could anyone please recommend what is good? My amplifier is a n Onkyo TX-SR502. It has optical in, rca in, coax in.. and maybe some more inputs too. It seems pretty complete (also has things like 5 s-video inputs etc)

A slow cpu would presumably make ripping very slow? If cd rom doesn't make a difference to rip quality i could easily rip on my computer (3.2gighz) and send the files over the network to the server.

Is there anything i'm missing? Thanks
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post #2 of 16
12/27/04 at 4:21am
I'd advise putting your larger hard drives on another computer, since it'll generate quite a bit of heat and require more cooling. If you're up to the task of tweaking, you could get a Socket A mobo/cpu and underclock/undervolt it, like a mobile barton running at 1volt and around 1ghz, which may run without a fan. I personally am hoping to undertake a project similar to yours very shortly when the funds become available, only I'm opting with mini-itx and completely passive cooling. My motherboard/cpu for this task will be Via's eden line, preferably the M10000 when it becomes available online. The motherboard has most things integrated, such as network and video, along with a 1ghz epoxied cpu, meaning you won't be able to change it. Since this computer is comparatively slow to my main rig, I won't even have a cdrom drive to rip. I'll use one temporarily to install Windows, then remove it and stream all music over my network.

As for the best sound quality, a soundcard's digital output to an outboard dac will yield best results.
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post #3 of 16
12/27/04 at 4:46am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by skitlets
I'd advise putting your larger hard drives on another computer, since it'll generate quite a bit of heat and require more cooling. If you're up to the task of tweaking, you could get a Socket A mobo/cpu and underclock/undervolt it, like a mobile barton running at 1volt and around 1ghz, which may run without a fan. I personally am hoping to undertake a project similar to yours very shortly when the funds become available, only I'm opting with mini-itx and completely passive cooling. My motherboard/cpu for this task will be Via's eden line, preferably the M10000 when it becomes available online. The motherboard has most things integrated, such as network and video, along with a 1ghz epoxied cpu, meaning you won't be able to change it. Since this computer is comparatively slow to my main rig, I won't even have a cdrom drive to rip. I'll use one temporarily to install Windows, then remove it and stream all music over my network.

As for the best sound quality, a soundcard's digital output to an outboard dac will yield best results.
Ah, fans are a really bad thing ey? Too noisy? I may considering keeping it fanned anyway though, because I may at some stage want to use it as a small webserver and movie server. I might try and put it in another room though and just run some long cable, though, to make sure the fan noise isn't too annoying

soundcard -> dac sounds expensive
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post #4 of 16
12/27/04 at 5:06am
Fans are bearable if you get em quiet, and then undervolt them to make them even quieter. I think the panaflo l1a is a great fan, and runs at a specced 21db. With a fan controller or a variable resistor, you can run it at 7v (or even better, 5v), which is barely inaudible. Still, when my new audio computer goes in my room, I don't to hear a thing.

However, if you get a regular heat pumping desktop cpu, you're going to need a monster of a cooler, such as those manufactured by Thermalright. Some of the best heatsinks out, and most newer models accept 92mm fans.
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post #5 of 16
12/27/04 at 5:15am
Thread Starter 
True.

Well i'm not completely sure if that's what i want. i'd rather go low cost and just hide the pc in a cupboard so it's quieter or put it in another room where it can chug along all day as a webserver in it's spare time.

My main concern at the moment is my questions about the cd rom and the soundcard
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post #6 of 16
12/27/04 at 8:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by skitlets
However, if you get a regular heat pumping desktop cpu, you're going to need a monster of a cooler, such as those manufactured by Thermalright. Some of the best heatsinks out, and most newer models accept 92mm fans.
The XP-120 is an excelent heatsink that uses a 120mm fan. Just hook it up to a rheobus and dial in the speed/noise you want

hugz:

I have a setup you are thinking about. All my .wav files (or you can use lossless compression) are on a server and streamed over the network.
On the server you dont need a soundcard, or a decent cdrom. Have those things located on your main pc.
You just basically need a motherboard, cpu (with heatsink/fan), ram, power supply, and large hard drive, and network card (if the motherboard doesnt have onboard network). You dont even need a case for it, my first music server was just sitting on a shelf in a closet, caseless.

As for how powerful you need the computer, dont really need an uber one. Hell a 500mhz rig would do. You should get at least 256mb ram for it, I found streaming .wav's on xp pro with only 128mb doesnt work very well. It works but skips every once in a while.
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post #7 of 16
12/27/04 at 8:41am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ReasonablyLucid
I have a setup you are thinking about. All my .wav files (or you can use lossless compression) are on a server and streamed over the network.
On the server you dont need a soundcard, or a decent cdrom. Have those things located on your main pc.
You just basically need a motherboard, cpu (with heatsink/fan), ram, power supply, and large hard drive, and network card (if the motherboard doesnt have onboard network). You dont even need a case for it, my first music server was just sitting on a shelf in a closet, caseless.

As for how powerful you need the computer, dont really need an uber one. Hell a 500mhz rig would do. You should get at least 256mb ram for it, I found streaming .wav's on xp pro with only 128mb doesnt work very well. It works but skips every once in a while.
I dont want my music server to just store music, i want it to replace my cd player on my home system. So it will need a good soundcard to output into the amp.

The cd rom could go on any computer in my house, depending on where i want to rip the files, but i considred that maybe i should keep it on the server so that if i just want to listen to cd rather than own it, i can just play it straight off the cd into my system rather than ripping it, sending it over the network, and then playing it.

Does anyone know if i will need a good cd rom, or will just at standard one be just as good at -ripping- the file? My justification for this is that rather than having to reproduce the cd into signal in real time, it will just have to read the data on the disk at it's own pace- something that is surely very easy for even the cheapest cdrom. But that's just my hypothesis based on no real info.

In case i didn't make myself clear initially: i think i need to buy a new cd player, but i think i could better spend that money by building a pc that serves no purpose other than to rip, store and play music.
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post #8 of 16
12/27/04 at 10:17am
well, now, most of the cd-rom would be quiet good to listen to music.
But if you want to rip music, you will need a good one like the plextor cd-rom.
good ripping of music is done via Exact Audio Copy (AKA "EAC") in secure mode. Like that, you will have a 100% exact reproduction of your cd tracks.
And after, you can transcode them in lossless format like flac or monkey audio wich is like ".zip" but for music. You get a fidel reproduction wich don't cut some freqquencies but have the advantage to be smaller than .wav.
Some cd-rom drives are better than others for that. Some are faster than others.
You're gonna find all the answers in the forum of
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/
surf in the sections "lossless codecs" and "CD Hardware/Software"
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post #9 of 16
12/27/04 at 12:50pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by tuz
well, now, most of the cd-rom would be quiet good to listen to music.
But if you want to rip music, you will need a good one like the plextor cd-rom.
good ripping of music is done via Exact Audio Copy (AKA "EAC") in secure mode. Like that, you will have a 100% exact reproduction of your cd tracks.
And after, you can transcode them in lossless format like flac or monkey audio wich is like ".zip" but for music. You get a fidel reproduction wich don't cut some freqquencies but have the advantage to be smaller than .wav.
Some cd-rom drives are better than others for that. Some are faster than others.
You're gonna find all the answers in the forum of
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/
surf in the sections "lossless codecs" and "CD Hardware/Software"
Okay thankyou.

It seems very odd to me however that you say that normal cd roms will play music well but wont rip it well. Can anyone confirm this because it seems so backwards to me

i'll check out those links though, thanks
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post #10 of 16
12/27/04 at 3:38pm
i'm quite disappointed that you don't trust my advices
you will understand if you read carefully the post @ the link i gave you.
i didn't enter into details as you still need to have more knowledges about all that.
but you need to know that you may be able to rip with all cdrom players but most scratched cd will have defects and you'll hear "clicks" or "pops" if you use a cheap cdrom players.
read and learn, you will understand...
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post #11 of 16
12/27/04 at 4:52pm
typed a long comment for building a music server, only to realise thats not what you're building. you are building a HTPC. ffs get the terms right.
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post #12 of 16
12/27/04 at 5:36pm
You could do what I've done.

Slim Devices Squeezebox + DAC from server in another room. I silenced my server, but with this arrangement there's no absolute need to do so.
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post #13 of 16
12/27/04 at 10:35pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ixeo
typed a long comment for building a music server, only to realise thats not what you're building. you are building a HTPC. ffs get the terms right.
Hey, read my posts before you reply and it shall be clear what i want.
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post #14 of 16
12/27/04 at 10:41pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by tuz
i'm quite disappointed that you don't trust my advices
you will understand if you read carefully the post @ the link i gave you.
i didn't enter into details as you still need to have more knowledges about all that.
but you need to know that you may be able to rip with all cdrom players but most scratched cd will have defects and you'll hear "clicks" or "pops" if you use a cheap cdrom players.
read and learn, you will understand...
No offence was intended to you, it's just that your suggestion goes against my logic, and i have already have one person agree with my logic (off headfi) so i'll need a few people to disagree with it before i can beleive it

However, i looked on hydrogen audio and very quickly found a thread titled "Does rip quality vary with the drive?, Is my laptop drive good enough?", in which people more or less replied "no (if you use EAC), unless the cd is scratched bad". That's pretty irellivent to my situation because all of my CDs are scratch free.

Thanks for providing the link because i didn't know what EAC was before. I think i'll buy a relatively cheap cdrom for my "server", on account of the fact that my CDs are all clean
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post #15 of 16
12/27/04 at 11:47pm
One BIG advantage of a music server that's not emphasized enough is the ability to use a nice digital EQ program with all your tracks. This applies mainly to a speaker system, which is where I hooked up my music server PC to.

I've been playing with my new music server, which uses Lynx Two B pro sound card. It's not until I made several pre-sets with digital EQ to change settings on the fly that I realized how enormous the benefit of digital EQ is. Some CD's are simply recorded like Cr^& and a couple of adjustments really make a huge difference in speaker-room interaction. Don't go crazy, but my EQ settings boost or cut anywhere from 0.5 to 1.5dB at most in several key bands really can improve the listening experience.
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