fredster

Thanks Quest So from the sounds of it, if i took a normal laptop and disabled its fan I would very soon have a burnt out CPU. Adding a heatsink to a laptop is not the easiest thing in the world due to the compact nature ! So that means a desktop with heatsink added and fanless PSU may work but only for a relatively cool running CPU. Think I had better shelve that idea. It just seems very costly to build a dedicated server type PC when the processing power of an old laptop should suffice.

It has been suggested to me that a PC based music server being managed with an Android remote control screen and therefore just processing windows 7 and J River for example and outputting via a USB dac will not generate enough heat in the cpu to warrant needing a fan. To me this means that you could use any laptop, or desktop with a non fan based PSU, install a small SSD, a couple of TB of external USB HDD, disconnect the fan and turn off the screen and have clean, pure, RFI free playback. Sounds too simple to be true ! Does anyone have any experience / opinions here ?

I have spent hours going through other threads and websites desperately trying to find a way to get the Mediamonkey plugin for ASIO and thus ASIO4ALL to run on my XP pc. It seems I am by no means the only one. I have tried opening the zip file that Chris provided on an earlier posting and no matter why I try and open it within MM or drag it into MM I never get the ASIO to appear in the output plugins within the MM tools options. Is there something I am doing fundamentally wrong or is my machine/version of MM just never going to work. I have tied the usual japanese downloads and WINAMP5 but none of them will go into that plugins list. Please help before I go back to CDs !

I guess it will be a long and slow process to drag the masses away from quantity over quality. We are like the food industry but with only 5 Michelin star venues and they only sell 2 dishes !

I have spent hours looking through this and other sites looking for a source of 16/44 downloads of newly released popular music but failed miserably. The C.A.S.H list here is a prime example, it seems to me the only music available with a reasonable choice is classical, jazz or 70s rock. Is there any sign of the mass market waking up to even just CD quality downloads let alone high res ? If there are sites out there but I just havn't found them yet a list would be a massive help.

Hi Has anyone had any experience of either of these DACs, I can't find much info on the usual searches.

I had been planning on an Atom AT310, have you tried the 310vs510 ?

Well I for one feel you have been above all very open and helpful.

Thanks all, I've got some really good input here, much appreciated. I will put up a post of my final spec and design and then later how it compares to any other PCs and servers I can borrow from family and friends. One last question, what material makes good shielding ?

The problem is I dont want Apple.

I guess it wont be too long before the mainstream producers catch on and start making lean, mean music machines at low cost, but for now I am happy to have a crack at building one myself. Partly for the experience of it and partly to give me the flexibility to change things as the world of computer music changes and develops. Would you suggest any changes / improvements to the spec i set out earlier ? Should I be going NAS for the disk storage or is that unimportant and costly ? Sorry Ive started a row by the way !

It is my plan to try a Wavelength since the ASYNC concept makes a lot of sense to me. Plus the sound seems laid back, and vinyl-like without the fatigue of some DACs. If I dont get on with this then yes I would look to try SPDIF via an added soundcard of the type you suggest.

I have been looking at the ASUS Atom 330 AT310nt-1 and the deluxe version mobos, being mini and fanless they seem ideal for building a music server. I do wonder if the deluxe would actually be a worse choice since it probably just adds potential RFI and circuitry I dont need. They both have SPDIF out according to the spec but I must say I cant see the SPDIF on the photo of the non deluxe model, but then I would expect to have to add a better soundcard for SPDIF playback anyway. Having done a lot of reading I fancy trying an async USB DAC and hopefully the signal from this mobo will be clean enough not to need to add a soundcard. If I dont get on with USB I can always add a soundcard and try SPDIF as an alternative later on. My plan is to go Win7 and J River. Ive found a Fortron Fanless PSU which seems ideal or maybe I can find a brick type PSU powerful enough to run the server since it shouldn't be drawing too much power. I can get 4GB of RAM on that mobo so that just leaves me to sort out how I control things. With HDMI out I can use my TV and a USB keyboard & mouse for ripping from an external optical drive or downloading via ethernet, and it looks like xpTunes should give me several options for an iTouch or PDA type touchscreen control for playback. That just leaves storage space, this machine will not be in the same room as my listening room so I dont have to worry about noise too much. Should I go internal hard drives or NAS ? Am I right in thinking NAS will give a cleaner output since it mean less going on within the mobo element and will reduce RFI ? If it makes no difference then internal drives are cheaper. So what have I missed out ?

I see a lot of Mac users on this site using standard Apple computers as servers. Are there any PCs that offer the same kind of clean, RFI free output straight out of the box or would I have to build one myself ? It is my plan to go ASYNC USB DAC so I feel that in theory I should just be able to buy a PC, J River a DAC and off I go. Is life not that simple ! ? !

I will do a bit of research on HTCP PC, maybe I can save myself a lot of work by not having to build my own, are they likely to be heavily loaded towards video playback however ? I guess I have been thinking of the Dell type machine as the same as a Mac, but of course they are completely different price scale.