Post your computer source setup/specs here
Feb 2, 2004 at 3:24 PM Post #31 of 56
Quote:

Originally posted by realityclouded
but I've seen too many hard drives fail, and actually had two in the same system fail on me at once, so I'll only ever use RAID1


You have UPS and adaquete cooling?

Quote:

Originally posted by Edwood
Nevermind. Experimental setup is a bust.


Yeah mine didn't go well either. I need a new microATX PIII mobo.

Quote:

Originally posted by Ctn
True but chances are your cpu and psu fans are louder.

I cant even hear the dual fans on my gf4.


True but they are different frequencies. I can deal with lower pitched noise. The smaller fans tend to have higher pitch.
 
Feb 2, 2004 at 3:48 PM Post #32 of 56
Quote:

Originally posted by lan
You have UPS and adaquete cooling?


Ahh yes, forgot about that.

APC 1400 UPS

Linux temps: 50-55C
Windows temps: 50-56C

"Mobile racks" for one side of each mirror on the Linux box. None for the Windows box.

Temps vary depending on load. Not sure about hd temps, but I'm not worried since my entire setup is mirrored, save the Windows box. I don't keep anything critical on my Windows box so I'm not concerned.

Eventually (bank account permitting), I plan on upgrading my mirroring system to a partial 3way mirror. What I mean by this is I'll periodically swap drives on one side of each mirror, keeping the third drive at work - about 10 miles away. This way, if my place ever goes up in smoke, I've still got all my data sitting in a drawer at work. There have been about six fires (and about 20 false alarms) on my block in the past year, two of those in my own building. The only downtime I'd suffer would be the wait for new system parts to arrive.

As far as privacy goes with that plan... Not many people have 3ware raid cards on hand at work (or at home), so I'm not too worried about someone hooking up my drives at work at poking around.
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Feb 2, 2004 at 6:38 PM Post #33 of 56
hardware:

athlon xp 2500+ cpu
epox 8RDA3+ motherboard
1GB PC3200 RAM
220GB WD hard drives
m-audio audiophile 24/96

software:

winxp pro
foobar2000 (kernel streaming output)
monkey's audio compression

audio gear:

bolder digital cable to...
bel canto dac2 to...
eric343 nitrogen interconnects to...
stax srm-313 (very soon headamp kgss) to...
stax sr-404 (stax omega II later this year)

overall:

I'm very satisfied. Wonderful sound.

Improvements: I might like to get a card with optical output sometime. What I really need is more hard drives. I have RAID built in on my motherboard, but I'm not sure what to do. All my IDE channels are filled, so I suppose I could go with SATA, or (what I'm thinking) external firewire drives. Can you get 4-hard-drive firewire cages? Would RAID work with a setup like that? Anyone have any ideas?

- Chris
 
Feb 2, 2004 at 8:23 PM Post #34 of 56
Quote:

Originally posted by minya
Can you get 4-hard-drive firewire cages? Would RAID work with a setup like that? Anyone have any ideas?

- Chris


Instead of looking for an external drive cage, for a few hundred more you might consider building a network storage server. Having a lot of hard drives together can be noisy, and can cause heat buildup, requiring more fans, generating more noise. You can put a storage server in another room or closet so the noise won't interfeer with your music. You wouldn't really need a fast computer to act as a storage server if only one or two people will be accessing it, so the additional cost would not be that great...

Invest in nice case, psu, drives, and raid card (or simply card with more drive ports). THen throw in cheap old mobo, cpu, ram, decent network card. Put on linux or windows with filesharing, and you'd be set.
 
Feb 3, 2004 at 7:59 AM Post #35 of 56
Hm, very interesting. How exactly would this fileserver thing work? Does this mean I could have all my music in a separate, small, noisy server and hide it in the closet? Wouldn't access / writing speeds be drastically decreased? In the end, I think this would probably cost more than having a 'silent' HTPC with all the necessary mods.
 
Feb 3, 2004 at 9:03 AM Post #36 of 56
Quote:

Originally posted by asdfeproiu9
Hm, very interesting. How exactly would this fileserver thing work? Does this mean I could have all my music in a separate, small, noisy server and hide it in the closet? Wouldn't access / writing speeds be drastically decreased? In the end, I think this would probably cost more than having a 'silent' HTPC with all the necessary mods.


To have a fileserver, you would need to have a local area network with your music machine and fileserver attached. The server is simply a no-frills computer with file sharing turned on. It is pretty easy to turn on the file sharing in Windows 2000 and XP, as well as most of the Unix-type OSes.

You could put the server anywhere power is available, and where you are willing to lay network cable. It probably wouldnt be a good idea to put a hot computer in a small closet do to heat buildup, but a large walkin closet would do, I imagine.

Yes, access speed will be reduced, but it will still be very reasonable. 11 megabytes/sec is the average speed on 100mbit/full duplex network, in my experience. That speed is overkill for compressed audio, and even for playing uncompressed WAV files in real time.

Yes, it will definetly cost you more if you only wish to use one or two hard drives. If that is the case, just put the hard drives into your music machine. But if you want to have a RAID setup with many hard drives, or if you have run out room for new drives in your music machine, I think adding a network fileserver would be a worthwhile investment.
 
Feb 3, 2004 at 10:11 AM Post #37 of 56
Hardware:

550 W Antec Truepower
ASUS P4800-E Deluxe
P4 @ 3.23 GHz
1 GB PC3200
Radeon 9800Pro
2 x 36 GB Raptors @ RAID0
140 GB HDD for storage
Hauppauge TV-Card

For sound:

Audigy2
Logitech Z-560

Software:
WinXP Pro
Winamp 2.81
EAC
WMP9 (watch a lot o movies)
Games

Improvements:

Will get Sennheiser HD600 tomorrow.
600smile.gif


Will buy an amp and a new soundcard as soon as I can afford it, and feel like I know what is what in the amp/soundcard world.

Can always use more harddiskspace, as it is now I have to throw away much when they are full, at least if I want new stuff.
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Will switch the Intel retail-cooler for my Thermalright SLK-900U and Papst @ 7V, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Might isolate the chassi as I did with the last one, reduces the sound significantly, have a Coolermaster now and it's smaller than the Chieftech I had before, so it's a little bit trickier to isolate it properly.

That's my AIW-machine.
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Feb 4, 2004 at 5:42 AM Post #39 of 56
Hm, right now, I'm using an old Athlon Thunderbird 1.4 GHz with 512 Mb of DDR SDRAM as an HTPC. I have two rather noisy IDE hard drives, 140 Gb in total. I plan to upgrade next year, when I leave for university. Right now, my fans and hard drives are quite loud, loud enough that I listen to music mostly through closed headphones. Anyway, my sound card is at the top of the line - an RME HDSP-9652 Hammerfall, connected to an external, custom, non-oversampling DAC using a glass optical cable. I also have a word clock output on the DAC to connect back to the RME, to achieve syncrhonisation.

On to the main point: my college system. I plan to re-use the soundcard, but that's about it; everything else will be changed. Would a high-end HTPC based on one of the Antec cases with all the Zalman 'silencing' features be quiet enough to be inaudible under the desk? Or should I go with an Mini-ATX system (with the RME and a high-end Radeon card) plus a fileserver? I plan to get 3 120 Gb SATA Barracuda hard drives for the system. I realise the top of the line now will become old news in a year, but I'm just considering my options now.
 
Feb 4, 2004 at 6:47 AM Post #40 of 56
Quote:

Originally posted by asdfeproiu9
Anyway, my sound card is at the top of the line - an RME HDSP-9652 Hammerfall, connected to an external, custom, non-oversampling DAC using a glass optical cable. I also have a word clock output on the DAC to connect back to the RME, to achieve syncrhonisation.


I'm just curious.. Which DAC are you using?
 
Feb 5, 2004 at 5:23 AM Post #41 of 56
My set-up

Computer: P4 2.4
80GB Hard drive (soon to add additional 120 GB)
Audigy 2 Platinum (for gaming and Midi)
M-Audio Revo (for music)

Stereo: Coax digital out of Revo --> 30 ft cable --> Audio Analogue Maestro CD player (has coax digital input) --> Acurus pre-amp + power amp --> Infinity Alpha 50 speakers

Headphones: analogue out of Revo --> Sony D66 Eggos

Very happy with my stereo set-up. The Maestro CD player makes a good external DAC, with the advantage that if I feel like it I can play CDs directly. But to be honest, playing APX MP3s via the digital out of the Revo, there is minimal loss of quality compared to playing the CD directly in the Maestro. By the way, the digital out of the Audigy 2 is definitely quite noticably worse than the Revo.

Will be upgrading my headphone setup over the next year or so as cashflow allows. Thinking of getting Senn HD580s and maybe the Perreaux amp that is getting such good reviews.
 
Feb 5, 2004 at 5:51 AM Post #42 of 56
Quote:

Originally posted by asdfeproiu9
On to the main point: my college system. I plan to re-use the soundcard, but that's about it; everything else will be changed. Would a high-end HTPC based on one of the Antec cases with all the Zalman 'silencing' features be quiet enough to be inaudible under the desk? Or should I go with an Mini-ATX system (with the RME and a high-end Radeon card) plus a fileserver? I plan to get 3 120 Gb SATA Barracuda hard drives for the system. I realise the top of the line now will become old news in a year, but I'm just considering my options now.


I really like the mini-ITX format. However, It may not provide you the power that you might need in a HTPC. Especially if you try playing DIVX or XVID movies.
I thought about using my current PC and silencing it with something like this muffler tweak. http://www.silentpcreview.com/module...tid=103&page=1
I eventually decided it better to muffle the sound than sacrificing power for silence with a smaller PC format. Also you won't have to buy too much new hardware since you can continue to use your current system.

I may just put the computer in the closet for music and get an ibook for lugable music listening. Getting longer cables are a lot cheaper than buying all of that expensive silent stuff. Notebook computers are kind of like mini-ITX computers but designed by professionals instead of an amateur like me. Plus a built in screen on the go is a major plus.
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Feb 7, 2004 at 1:43 AM Post #44 of 56
P4 3.2Ghz
Audigy 2 ZS
1GB RAM
GeForce FX5950 Ultra (256MB)
120GB HD
XP Pro
Logitech Z560's
15" ProView TFT Flat Panel Monitor
DVD 16x
CD-RW 32x
Firewire
150kbps Cable

I need a faster internet connection...
 
Feb 7, 2004 at 8:46 AM Post #45 of 56
My specs are as follows.
AMD athlon 1800+
768 MB DDR PC 2100
128 MB Radeon 8500 video card
Modded SBlive 5.1 X gamer soundcard.
Onboard AC97
40 GB currently ( getting 160 GB disc in a matter of few days )
17 inch flatscreen samsung 753DF
Logitec Optical
Philips HP 890 cans
Headphone amp


Satisfaction - Not too satisfied with my current soundsetup , ordered a Revo 7.1 card
will arrive in a few days.

Also getting an Altec lansing 621 speaker set the next month.

Then i will happy
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