Music Server to Aurender

[Bartype]

In fact Antoine is right. I am offering my "products" to other "SQ-freaks", too. But my main intention is not to make money. Instead I am hoping to spread better SQ and less frustration among those who are seeking the route towards nirvana.

I have gathered my knowledge from several related forums, from my visits to manufactureres, try and error games and 30 years of wasting big money on buying and selling PNP-gear.

With the purchase of my first D-Premier the hunting started. An amp with a wireless PC connection! From now on everything was supposed to be easy.... But why did we notice that the two notebooks we used sounded so differently?

Soon we learned that it is not simply about the transport of 0's and 1's. ITunes sounded worse than JRiver, JRiver worse than JPlay, etc.
Windows sounds better than Apple, Server OS are better compared to Windows Home or Pro. As a next huge step we started using Audiophile Optimizer.
Additionally we took care of the hardware as well. Intel XEON E3-1200 processors sound better than I7/5/3's....
SSD sounds better than HDD...
Parallel we improvd the main power supply (PS Audio PP) and the power cables. Next was the connections and cabling within the PC (SATA and USB cables). JCAT/Bakoon showed us how important the power supply of the SSDs is. We ordered also dedicated hifi-grade PCI-E USB-cards from JCAT and hey, the sun starts to shine!
At that time the idea of using dual optimized JPlay servers came up and proved to be the right way, too.
But now we had to deal again (like before with LINN DS) with the connection of two PCs by ethernet cable again, which we learned the hard way is no good idea at all. So the solution is fibre connection in between the two PCs. But stop, how about the connection to the wifi router for remote control? Ah, wifi sounds better than ethernet....
Next huge step was the introduction of the fine MUTEC gear. MC-1.2 and MC-3 were introduced but needed two more of the mighty expensive FURUTECH mains cables...
So I decided to get some help from a professional company concerning the powersupply of all the seperate PC components. Soon I was told that we will need seperate PSU's for each component and that a linear PSU will work better than a switching or even a batterie operated PSU.
So I decided to place the order for the construction of my own LPSU. The required special transformers were ordered and the layout was programmed. After some month (and a hefty payment) the first prototype arrived. It needs only one of the expensive FURUTECH main cables and it supplies all the PC components plus a MUTEC MC-3+USB with clean power. The improvement was dramatic and passed our expectations.
Since that time we only changed some software and some settings (all free of charge) and the improvement of SQ goes on and on.

Yes, some of the parts are really expensive (especially the LPSU) but the result is worth it.

Compared to a D800, some nice speakers or even fancy cables the complete source is a bargain. Due to its very clean signal it improves the performance of any Devialet chain to such a high level that even acoustic room problems are massively reduced.

To me the developement of our source was the most impressive SQ improvement I have ever experienced in my life.
And as I mentioned before I am eager to do another comparison somewhere in Europe similar to our meeting in Malmö (Sweden) some time ago.

@Antoine: We plan to install the MUTEC in one of the cabinets but the MC-3+USB is a really difficult piece of gear. It requires good shielding and it reacts very much on placement. At the moment we put the board back into its original housing and back on its own "shelf" in the ARTESANIA rack....

In Dubio Pro Audio

Jan

Well, a quick price check of the components you mentioned for this ultimate PC solution learns the total costs are in the neighbourhood of the 10.000 euro price point and i am propably forgetting some (expensive) components. This is not by any means cheaper then the best Aurenders and Melco's out there. On the contrary, you may expect no less then the best for this amount of money.

Besides the money there are two other things to consider:
- You still have to build and tweak the thing, good for weeks on of nerding, something you really have to like doing.
- One of the other reasons people here (including myself) like the Devialets besides SQ is getting rid of a rack full of seperate cases. With this Ultimate PC solution alone i already count 4 cases and i am propably forgetting one or two...

This doesn't mean it's an very interesting experiment, but i don't think it's a realisic solution for most of us...