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Antoine's system
@Gui, yes I hope you're right! Smile The Windows 2016 support in AO is still in beta and a large part of Phil's customers uses Roon so I'm hoping he'll find a way. Of course 2016 is the future as 2012 will become end of life/end of support some day.


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Updates; yesterday afternoon the brightness/unnatural edge was gone again. Huh  Now yesterday I did receive and install the Coboc 18" SATA cable, the "declared winner" of the cheap SATA cable test I discussed earlier but this does not yet explain why when using the previous same SATA cable performance was great one day after I powered down all devices connected to the Hynes PSU and not so one or a few days later. I haven't kept track when I exactly installed each cable when (I tried three cables) so I really need to do that to know what causes what. It could even be, besides the difference these SATA cables themselves make (yes I know it sounds crazy Big Grin ) burn-in effects since with the Coboc installed now things sounded a tad dark. I'll just keep the Coboc cable in for now and also migrate that to the new music server. I'm sitting down for some music listening later this afternoon, who knows how it'll sound today. Wink


Talking about this new music/Roon server; I should receive all the parts of the new server this coming week. The CPU perhaps early in the week after as this comes from the UK (second hand Ebay). I'll update this topic with some pictures of the build process.

I've ordered some parts to make a new DC cable (and some extra for any future "projects"), nothing really fancy. With the SR7 I received one high current cable (and three lower current ones) but I'd like to keep using that on the SMS-200 (lower resistance) so I'm going to make a new one for the music server. The SR7 has 4 pole XLR connectors and these plugs accept wire gauges up to AWG16.

2m Jantzen Silver teflon cable mono 16 Awg black
2m Jantzen Silver teflon cable mono 16 Awg red
2m Jantzen 6N copper Solid core 2*1.0 mm² (AWG17) speaker cable
2 x Neutrik NC4MXX BAG XLR plug 4p male (silver plated pins like in the plugs Hynes also supplies)
1 x Oyaide DC-2.5G (5.5x2.5mm DC plug)

Yesterday I hand twisted the black and red AWG 16 cables. Never done that before. I read that using a drill puts too much stress on the cable but that surely would have been quicker. Tongue Then I  soldered the Neutrik plug on one side. Easy peasy! The Oyaide DC plug comes from Spain (EBay) so it will take a while before that'll arrive. I'll make the cable as short as possible (with a bit of margin) once everything is in the low board so I know exactly which lengths I need.
PS Audio P3, Shunyata ΞTRON Alpha Digital and HC/Furutech power cables, Paul Hynes SR7EHD-MR4, DIY Roon Server & Roon Endpoint running AudioLinux Headless, Phasure Lush^2 USB cable, Audioquest Diamond RJ/E ethernet, Uptone Audio etherREGEN, Mutec MC-3+ USB, Shunyata ΞTRON Anaconda Digital XLR AES/EBU, Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI, Nordost Tyr Reference LS cables, Von Schweikert VR-5 SE Anniversary Edition, Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0, JL Audio Fathom F112. More detail here.

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Mission accomplished! No more metallic shimmer not supposed to be there riding on the highs. I think it was the SATA cable, the entire system with this 4$ Coboc SATA cable now sounds better than even. Smooth, relaxed and natural while still very detailed, dynamic/powerful and transparent. Again very happy, now hoping it stays this way. Perhaps I should cancel the new server parts orders! Big Grin
PS Audio P3, Shunyata ΞTRON Alpha Digital and HC/Furutech power cables, Paul Hynes SR7EHD-MR4, DIY Roon Server & Roon Endpoint running AudioLinux Headless, Phasure Lush^2 USB cable, Audioquest Diamond RJ/E ethernet, Uptone Audio etherREGEN, Mutec MC-3+ USB, Shunyata ΞTRON Anaconda Digital XLR AES/EBU, Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI, Nordost Tyr Reference LS cables, Von Schweikert VR-5 SE Anniversary Edition, Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0, JL Audio Fathom F112. More detail here.

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(01-Mar-2017, 22:35)Antoine Wrote: Out of the options I wrote up earlier I made the decision to build a new music/Roon server myself and just ordered the following stuff. Made some changes to the original list of stuff, mainly to save costs. The Streacom is cheaper and I found the Skylake i7 6700T CPU used for less than the Kaby Lake i5 7600T CPU I mentioned earlier. Differences between Kaby Lake and Skylake are minor and not really worth it, especially in this case where it'll run in a headless server.


Case: Streacom FC8 Alpha Optical Fanless Chassis - Silver (http://www.streacom.com/products/fc8-alp...s-chassis/)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110TN-E (http://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-H...-rev-10#ov)
RAM: Crucial DDR4 2133Mhz CL15 - 8GB (kit 2 x 4GB)
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700T (2.8GHz-3.6GHz, quad core, hyper threading, 35W, 8MB L3 cache)
Arctic Silver AS5 - 12grams (thermal compound)

This costs me ~573 euro's, a lot less than any commercial seller would charge. 

Will add the 1TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD and entry level server grade PCI-E Intel I210 ethernet adapter I already own to make the system complete.

To be continued! Smile

Hi Antoine,

I hope you are doing good Smile

I have two short questions for you:
  • I was considering following into your steps of building a new server and was contemplating the configuration you published a few days ago. I tried to sum-up the prices I found for the components on the internet and could not really recoup with the total price you announced here. Could you kindly share with us the providers you are using to source your components ?
  • I am following-up the developments of Romaz on the US forum. He is using a Chord-Dave DAC which he is feeding through USB, which might explain why he is so eager to provide a correctly time-framed flow to the DAC. Do you have any clue whether this kind of optimization would apply to a system like yours which is feeding the flow in asynchronous mode to a Mutec ?
Thanks in advance Wink
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Hi SwissBear,

Doing fine (though much too busy) thank you! Smile

I always use a Dutch computer and computer related news website for enthousiasts (tweakers.net) which allows its members to make lists of components. These can then be saved/shared whatever but can also be used to automate the price comparison process, calculate shipping costs etc. In the end I ordered all stuff from the Dutch webshop www.afuture.nl except the CPU which I bought used from EBay.

This the BoM (bill of materials) Smile
AFuture.nl:
Streacom FC8 Alpha Optical Fanless Chassis - Silver   € 131,90
Gigabyte GA-H110TN-E   € 127,80
Crucial DDR4 2133Mhz CL15 - 8GB (kit 2 x 4GB)   € 65,40
Arctic Silver AS5 - 12grams   € 18,20

EBay:
Intel Core i7-6700T € 230,25

Total including shipping, vat, etc,:  € 573,55

It's all been delivered today BTW, so I can start the building and optimization process! Cool
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Regarding your second question; I don't think the situation with a Mutec in the chain (which also uses the USB input)  is very different than Romaz's Dave DAC. I even suspect the USB implementation of the Dave to be better on many points than the one in the Mutec. I've seen Romaz mention many times that Chord and its designer Rob Watts states that the USB input is the best input on the Dave.

Also re-clocking as we do with the Mutec is not the silver bullet, yes it improves a signal but doesn't make it perfect the first go. There's people who employ multiple Mutecs in series for example and still report further improvements beyond the first. I think it's still best to prevent the "issue" than repair it at the end. Whether there even is an "issue" or better said whether I can hear improvements in my situation using a better upstream computer source is something I do not know at this moment. I need to try and thus build the thing first! Smile

However the fact that this direct connection made a significant improvement suggests the upstream stuff does matter. Same goes for the network cable I used between FMC and SMS-200 (or actually I compared it only with my previous microRendu) and even the SATA cable and software configuration of my current machine. I really wish it didn't but it does, or so my brain tells me! Rolleyes Wink


In any case I'm going to find out now that the stuff has been delivered. It will be a continuing/interative process though. I'll start with building the PC but later I may for example add a separate PSU for the SSD. I've been looking at 10gbs network cards (won't use it at those speeds but these have better clocks/more strict tolerances). Perhaps I'll change/upgrade the/some clocks in the machine using a SOTM or Pink Faun clock board, etc. etc. I may even decide it doesn't work out or improves too little too warrant the hassle of adding an extra machine downstairs.

So as you can many things are still wide open and I don't have many answers yet, let alone explantions why some things even seem to matter. Smile Anyway it's all part of the discovery and this computer audio thing nowadays is simply part of this hobby for me so I enjoy it as well, most of the time that is! Wink


   
PS Audio P3, Shunyata ΞTRON Alpha Digital and HC/Furutech power cables, Paul Hynes SR7EHD-MR4, DIY Roon Server & Roon Endpoint running AudioLinux Headless, Phasure Lush^2 USB cable, Audioquest Diamond RJ/E ethernet, Uptone Audio etherREGEN, Mutec MC-3+ USB, Shunyata ΞTRON Anaconda Digital XLR AES/EBU, Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI, Nordost Tyr Reference LS cables, Von Schweikert VR-5 SE Anniversary Edition, Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0, JL Audio Fathom F112. More detail here.

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Hi Antoine,

Thank you so much for your time and your detailed answer.
I really appreciate Smile
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Well it took me a lot of time but the system is up and running again! Cool

The building of the new music server didn't take very long but placing it in the system did. To fit it all in the lowboard I'm using I had to modify it and shuffle things in it a bit. In the process I took the chance to clean each and every cable and device on the outside and also treated the all contacts and plugs. All in all this process took me around 6-7 hours.

This is the low board I'm using, it's a Just Racks JRL-1650 (=Spectral). The Devialet is on top of it in the middle but eveything else is in it.


   

When I received the Hynes PSU I had already modified the drawer to give me extra shelf space that came in handy again. The Mutec, SOTM SMS-200, DSPeaker Anti-mode and music server are now in the middle. The Lyngdorf power amplifier and Tag McLaren surround pre/pro (both for surround duties only) are on the right.

I moved the Hynes PSU to the right where it's on top of my PS Audio P3 Power Plant. I might make an extra shelf myself to separate the two a bit. For now I've used small pieces of cork.

   

   

I wanted to make extra holes in the lowboard to improve cooling through natural convection. For this I of course had to empty the entire thing.  Undecided I made two circular holes in the bottom and an additional four up in the back of the middle compartment. I once already made holes in back of the right compartment. Cool air can enter from the bottom and leave top back.

This seems to work great. I left the fronts closed since I powered everything up yesterday and just checked the temperatures with everything running overnight up to now.

   

As you can see the temperatures are actually suprisingly low, CPU temperature in the music server is only 38 degrees. I had expected much higher temps. Not seen in the screenshot is the PCH temperature inside the music server which is at 48 degrees, this is the "chipset" on the motherboard which is always the hottest component in a computer since it's passively cooled. The system temperature is 41 deg and the Samsung SSD 34 deg. Nice, no need to worry about temperatures!! Cool


In the next post, a bit more about the music server.
PS Audio P3, Shunyata ΞTRON Alpha Digital and HC/Furutech power cables, Paul Hynes SR7EHD-MR4, DIY Roon Server & Roon Endpoint running AudioLinux Headless, Phasure Lush^2 USB cable, Audioquest Diamond RJ/E ethernet, Uptone Audio etherREGEN, Mutec MC-3+ USB, Shunyata ΞTRON Anaconda Digital XLR AES/EBU, Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI, Nordost Tyr Reference LS cables, Von Schweikert VR-5 SE Anniversary Edition, Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0, JL Audio Fathom F112. More detail here.

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In a previous post I mentioned and showed the music server parts that were delivered last Thursday. This Friday I took a day off from work to build and configure the server.

This all went very well and things fortunately worked at first power-up, so no DOA's or other issues! Cool Unfortunately I forgot the make pictures of the process but it's actually all very straghtforward and Streacom (another Dutch company, like Spectral) provides an excellent and detailed printed manual with the case. (http://www.streacom.com/file/fc8_alpha.pdf) It details the build process, which exact screws to use where etc. Anyone who doesn't have two left hands can do it! Smile 

The trickiest part (I build a Streacom FC-5 system before too), which could end up very messy too is the part after where you apply the heat paste/grease to the four heat pipes and attach these pipes to the CPU and case. This requires some adjustments to make it all fit so if you're not careful you'll end up with heat paste (nasty stuff which stains like hell and is very hard to remove because of the very small (nano?) particles in the grease) everywhere! The question always arises did I use too much or too little, I think I and other people tend to use too much which is not helping at all. Though not perfect I was happy with the result.

   

The tiny Intel i210-T1 network card:
   

   

I forgot the make a picture of the system after I completed it but there's little inside the system besides what is show. I removed the black USB cables and only added the SSD on the drive tray, SATA signal and power cables.

General comments, this stuff is small. I'm used to working with ATX and microATX components but this thin mini ITX really is tiny! NUC stuff of course is even smaller.

Build quality of the Streacom cases is high. Perhaps not as good as HDPlex but very good nonetheless. It all fit like a glove and felt quite solid.
---

Fortunately I had not yet siold my HDPlex 100W 12/19V PSU so I could use that to power the system while setting it up in my office/study room.

While building the machine I mirrored the contents of the 1TB NAS SSD to a 500GB one. The 500GB is now in the NAS PC (which was my Roon/music server before) and the 1TB is in the new music server. Since nothing changed software wise for the NAS PC it booted fine from the 500GB SSD. I latery merely tuned it down (in OS and BIOS) for maximum power savings.

I thought I was forced to reinstall the operating systems on the disk that went into the music server but hoped this wasn't necessary and surprisingly it wasn't. Thank you Microsoft, you usually dissapoint me! Big Grin Both the Server 2012 R2 and Windows 10 Pro partitions recognized, installed and configured most new hardware. For some I had to install drivers but after that it simply worked. Roon hasn't even noticed it now runs in a new machine! Cool

Over time I'll experiment more with the different settings in the BIOS surround CPU settings, power saving etc. For audiophile purposes these can matter. In general too much power saving tends to be not good for SQ, one want frequencies and power usage to be stable as much as possible. So no turbo speeds, dynamic CPU speeds etc.

For now I disabled any device I don't need in the BIOS (e.g. the onboard sound card) and I've made the usual audiophile related settings in the BIOS so disabled the different C-states, EIST, Speed Shift, turbo speeds etc. The CPU runs on it's stock 2.8GHz now, though I could configure it anywhere between 800 - 3400MHz.


One thing I wasn't happy about is that I noticed the BCLK (the base clock which the CPU, GPU, memory use as a base clock) fluctuates. This, no doubt is because of 'spread spectrum' functionality which deliberately fluctuates to clock to lower emissions. Unfortunately there's no setting in the BIOS to disable it. I'm used to more high end boards used by gamers/overclockers and these have BIOS's which are much more customizable than this embedded type of mainboard. Anyway, perhaps the lower EMI/RFI emissions it's a good thing and with Skylake Intel first separated the BCLK from the PCIE clock so perhaps it doesn't influence these subsystems too much which may be bad for jitter output. It does seem silly though to replace clocks which are deliberately fluctuating +-5MHz all the time. No conclusions yet, this is a difficult subject, I need to dive in it more...

After boot up and appying AO and some additional manual tuning this is the result. Only 25 processes running (without Roon itself)

   


Now how does it sound? I'll need to be careful because the last time I had everything powered down and up things sounded different than after some settling time. This time each and every device and cable has been touched (cleaned and moved) are in different positions so it'll probably need some settling time again but my first impressions were very positive, better than I expected! And rest assured I myself dislike people who always report huge improvements, even after the tiniest things/changes.

I'll detail on my impressions later after I had much more listening time but the one thing that really and clearly stood out was that things sounded more stable and solid, both in sound staging as tonally. Also a bit more relaxed. All jitter related things I guess.

To be continued!
PS Audio P3, Shunyata ΞTRON Alpha Digital and HC/Furutech power cables, Paul Hynes SR7EHD-MR4, DIY Roon Server & Roon Endpoint running AudioLinux Headless, Phasure Lush^2 USB cable, Audioquest Diamond RJ/E ethernet, Uptone Audio etherREGEN, Mutec MC-3+ USB, Shunyata ΞTRON Anaconda Digital XLR AES/EBU, Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI, Nordost Tyr Reference LS cables, Von Schweikert VR-5 SE Anniversary Edition, Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0, JL Audio Fathom F112. More detail here.

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Final update for the day; I just found the Oyaide 5.5x2.5mm DC plug in my mailbox. Must have been delivered yesterday (and I didn't leave the house yesterday). Smile 

This arrived much quicker than I expected and was indicated on EBay (Spanish seller). Of course I didn't waste any time and soldered it to 50cm of the cable (Neutrik 4 pole silver XLR on 16AWG/1,3mm^2 Jantzen silver clad copper/teflon wire) I prepared earlier and connected it to the music server. Of course I took great care in determining the correct polarity on both sides. One mistake here and it's boom: gone music server and/or Hynes PSU. This didn't happen, it booted up as expected! Tongue

   
PS Audio P3, Shunyata ΞTRON Alpha Digital and HC/Furutech power cables, Paul Hynes SR7EHD-MR4, DIY Roon Server & Roon Endpoint running AudioLinux Headless, Phasure Lush^2 USB cable, Audioquest Diamond RJ/E ethernet, Uptone Audio etherREGEN, Mutec MC-3+ USB, Shunyata ΞTRON Anaconda Digital XLR AES/EBU, Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI, Nordost Tyr Reference LS cables, Von Schweikert VR-5 SE Anniversary Edition, Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0, JL Audio Fathom F112. More detail here.

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Updated system diagram:

(Now looking for replacement of the 9V EBay 'el cheapo' LPSU and an additional PSU for powering the SSD inside the new music server.)

   
PS Audio P3, Shunyata ΞTRON Alpha Digital and HC/Furutech power cables, Paul Hynes SR7EHD-MR4, DIY Roon Server & Roon Endpoint running AudioLinux Headless, Phasure Lush^2 USB cable, Audioquest Diamond RJ/E ethernet, Uptone Audio etherREGEN, Mutec MC-3+ USB, Shunyata ΞTRON Anaconda Digital XLR AES/EBU, Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI, Nordost Tyr Reference LS cables, Von Schweikert VR-5 SE Anniversary Edition, Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0, JL Audio Fathom F112. More detail here.

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Have you tested uptone LPS-1? They are very keen on saying how you get total isolation from the smal part of AC leackage on the DC that normal PSU has.
Speakers:TAD CE-1. Amplifier: TAD M2500mk2. Digital: TAD DA1000-TX, Innuos Statement Next-gen, Innuos PhoenixNET.

Miscellaneous: Qobuz Studio, Ansuz Mainz 8 D2, Ansuz Darkz DTC, Tubulus Argentus ethernet cable, Tubulus Concentus USB cable, Tubulus Argentus V2 XLR cable, Tubulus Argentus V3 + V3 bass, iFi Nova powercables. 

Second system
Qobuz Studio -> Devialet Silver Phantom, Devialet Tree









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