billg

I play local music using Jplay Femto output via usb to Matrix and Dac. I use Bubbleuppnp on an android tablet. This all sounds great. I'm interested to see whether the Jplay app on an ipad would sound better in my system. Both apps can be configured to minimize network traffic. @The Computer Audiophile can you please compare the sound of these two control points or do you only use an apple device? I see you use Minimserver. Have you tried the control points with Jplay Femto and how do they sound with that server/renderer?

I think you're looking for a DEQX box, probably one or two HD-Active Preamp Processors DEQX Products These do digital crossover, driver correction, time alignment and room correction.

You could try my method. This assumes there's no wireless adapter in the server. Connect a wireless access point device to the server pc using an ethernet cable. I use an old Cisco AP 541N WAP with a linear power supply. Give your server a static ip address. You can use the subnet of the home lan subnet for convenience so you can browse the internet on the ipad while playing music. Disconnect the server's ethernet cable from the home lan. Select the wireless connection on your ipad and select jplay server in mconnect and you're good to go. For complete separation from the home lan, you can use a separate subnet for the server and wap. You assign a static ip address on the wap and your ipad in the same subnet. I set the static ip address on the wap while it's attached to my router. Once it's set you can't access it on the home lan, only via a pc on the same subnet (your music server). Set the Jplay registry settings for femtoserveripaddress to the static ip address of the server. This gives me a nice boost in quality.

I'm more interested in the sound of the drive than just its' speed. I use an internal sata hdd on quiet external power to avoid electrical noise. As it's the only sata device in the box there's little or no contention/jitter. I also read the thread on audiophile nvme ssds with external power which try to address these issues (but too small capacity for me). I wonder whether anyone has done any testing of these aspects of the very fast drive/interface options?

Hah, Good idea but there's no M.2 slot on my older i5 audio pcs.

I run the entire windows server 2019 and music software in ram. The Firadisk driver is used to trick the system to use ram instead of a hard drive. There's only one sata disk installed and it only holds music. The system boots into ram from a usb stick that's removed after booting. Here's the original how-to on the Jplay forum RAMdisk with Windows Server 2016/2019 - Configuration Guide If your music is on an external usb or a nas you can disable the sata controller for even more benefit. The best disk drive is no disk drive ;-)

@NZLowie If you didn't need AO to help load your dac driver then it's pretty simple to install over the existing setup, following the instructions. If you did need the AO driver assist it can be a little more work but really it should all be ok. You can always take a backup image of the existing disk before starting, just in case. A separate ssd is a bit more work but completely safe. If you want any help, just send a pm. I'm in NZ and maybe local.

Hi Felipe, Here are some of my travels. I added HDPlex 400w ATX DC-DC adapters to both of my pcs and was amazed at the improvement. I previously used the nanoPSU. I shielded all internal power cables but didn't listen to see if I could hear a difference. I built my own sata cable (for music hdd) with Kimber silver wire on the data lines, shielded twisted pairs, external shields, plus chassis ground connectors. This was an audible improvement. I recommend ifi power x for the pcie cards. These give a nice benefit over lpsu in my system.

After teaching modern politics I'd need 2 cats too.

A couple more ideas... Have you set static ip addresses for your devices? That can improve network stability/reliability. Do you use jplay? If you changed jplay settings to a higher daclink that might also cause problems.

I converted my music server pc (Lenovo Thinkcentre M92) to fanless operation. I love the passive cooling in my other audio pc (Streacom) but wanted to see whether I could make an workable solution for an standard desktop case. The Lenovo gives me full height for pcie cards and plenty of room inside. It sits horizontally and looks ok in my hifi rack. But I can't add copper pipes or amplifier style heatsinks unless I modify the case. I achieved fanless operation by 1. replaced the psu with HD 400w dc-atx with an external ac-dc supply 2. replaced the cpu cooler & fan with a Dynatron fanless cooler 3. disconnected the remaining case fans 4. vented the top of the case above the cpu cooler. I needed to do this as there's very little convection cooling in the case when it sits horizontally with no fans running. The 77w i5 cpu runs at 53-60 C. I'm waiting for a 45w xeon cpu to arrive that should reduce this further. I think the HDPlex cases would be improved by additional ventilation in the bottom and an (optional?) grill top, like many class-A amps. This would assist with cooling all components: mobo, ram, psu and hard drives. The passive cooling could be made more flexible by - enabling 3rd party passive coolers to be attached to the cpu cooler mounting plate, such as the very efficient and compact Dynatrons - ability to piggy back additional sets of heat pipes so both sides of the case could be used to cool a single cpu.

I was a software guy too until I retired recently. I guess with your background you'll want to tinker with hardware and software over time. If that's your thing, you'll want to buy a case with plenty of room for adding linear psu, audiophile network and usb cards, hard drives, noise filters, acoustic dampening, etc. I really like fanless pcs but made a mistake and bought a low form htpc case (Streacom F5). I should have gone for the HDPlex H5 v2 as the Streacom won't allow me to mount pcie cards directly on the mobo (riser cards are not ideal). They're both real pretty.

I use computer server/player and it's really good. Why not upgrade the pc you already have? If the fan noise is annoying try passive cooling. Try a fanless cpu cooler and silent fans, or a fanless case (or complete pc ). Take a look at the Streacom cases for any size of motherboard https://www.quietpc.com/htpccases If your mobo/cpu run too hot they can be replaced relatively cheaply with modern low-power components.

An android app for changing the digital filters would be nice. Possibly an add-in for bubbleupnp? It'd be nice to be able to compare settings from my armchair.

I'm surprised Jplay Femto isn't listed. I appreciate what Roon does with metadata but for the very best sound it's got to be Femto.