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  1. Roch, My note was not directed against you or your post in any way. If this is how it came accross, I appologize but I just had to vent my frustration against Core Audio and their so called "experts". Those couple of articles they have on their site and echoed on some other computer audio related sites are nothing but missleading. That is pretty much why I want nothing to do even with their PSUs that in fact might not be bad at all but by far overpriced. Huh, feel better now.
  2. This might be OT but I would issue a serious health warning against the second reference from Core Audio. That article ticked me off more than anything else I have read related to computer audio. The first part gives some useful references on RAM/CPU but that can be found on any decent gaming site that teaches you how to overclock your system. The latter part that claims that we need nothing but a supercomputer to listen to high-end audio is simply preposterous. I will stop here before Chris bans me for being indecent.
  3. Could be, i did not read the entire tread.
  4. If you want to go the VNC route, then Real VNC is the way to go, although a bit costly (~$40 for VNC and $10 for iPhone app)
  5. To me, Amarra GUI has some idiosyncrasies that I really dislike. I am a Decibel and Audirvana user. Both of them without any iTunes interface. My only music management system is the Unix file system itself, select, drag and drop into either one of them in integer mode. Lately I am finding that A+ is a bit more stable and sweeter sounding than Decibel.
  6. Well, I am a sort of thermal related engineer (in different field though) and my point is this: CPU cooling is implemented by thermal conduction in fanless cases. Convection happens here only by free flow of air trough and around the chassis (unlike the fanned cases where air is pushed around providing more efficient cooling). Cooling by pure conduction works well only if the heat sink is of large enough capacity to, well, conduct unwanted heat away from the source and be cooled enough by little convective air movement in the room and radiation to dissipate the heat. In our case the size (mass) of the case coupled with little air draft should provide enough cooling power (95W for FC5) to keep the CPU in the normal operating range of 50-60 C. However, what conducts the heat from CPU to the case are the copper pipes. If the pipes are connected to the CPU only partially the heat conduction between the pipes and CPU (or the plate on top of CPU) slows down and temperature of CPU goes up. You can think of the connection between the pipes and CPU as a tap - fully connected and the tap is wide open, partially connected the tap is partway shut. If one wants to be annal about this, one can purchase extra set of QuickCool heat pipes, bend them using something like Spring Type Tube Bender from ebay which they use to bend copper pipes on air conditioning units since they kink easily and customize the length of heat pipes. Off course, this is all academic since Chris said that it really didn't matter since the temperature of CPU was normal. If one is patient enough to wait for i7 i3770T or use i5 or i3 3220T (my preference) it is even less important.
  7. I tend to agree with i3-3220T. I was going to use it for my CAPS and Intel DH61DL but that board has a weired CPU and 12-pin power placement, so it is out. Anyway, I exchanged some emails with Vinnie from Red Wine Audio and he said: "When the switch is in BATT mode, it only runs on the internal battery packs. If you switch to AC mode, it will charge and play at the same time (not as clean as BATT mode since you'll be using the charger). When it needs charging, the red light on the power switch will begin to blink. At that time, you can switch to AC mode if you want to keep on playing, or shut down your server and then switch off your BL to allow it to charge." I don't think there is any smart logic in BL to power down the server properly.
  8. Nice Chris. This is the setup I envisioned for my CAPS (sort of). One note. Is it just me or the copper pipes of FC5WS-EVO are not long enough to cover the entire CPU where is located on DH77EB board. It seems that the pipes are covering only about 50% of CPU. This will somewhat diminish cooling efficiency. Please correct me if I am wrong. On the other note, if your input is higher than 12V into PicoPSU, could you not use the Wide Input version of Pico ? Not sure if it is available in 150W though, I have seen 120W.
  9. OK, I am bitten by the CAPS bug now after seeing the Carbon server. I fully intend to build one in FC5/E4 enclosure with different components though. I think I figured pretty much everything I want to do except for the power supply. I would probably need 150W for P88Z77 mother board I intend to use. I would love to be able to use Seasonic X-400 but it wouldn't fit inside the case. Has anybody built anything similar that required board to be powered by 24-pin ATX connection on the PCB ? How did you do it and what hardware is need besides standard cabling etc. I would appreciate if anyone can send me some pictures of their own setups so I do not wander in darkness any more
  10. Peter, without any intention to steal your tread, may I ask you or anyone else for that matter what disk are you considering to put into that enclosure. The enclosure you are referencing is almost perfect for my needs: it is the right colour, size, fanless and FW800, among other things. I am considering Hitachi 5K4000 but that drive is difficult (if not impossible) to find. I have 4 7K3000 in my NAS but it is difficult to judge their loudness from associated fans. In specs for 7200rpm drives, most are rated by their acoustics at 2.9 bells in idle mode. 5400rpm drives should be cooler and less noisy, but I am just not able to find an appropriate one in >3TB size.
  11. I have (had) 4TB version of it, and the source of noise is the fan not the drive itself. I have tested that by sticking a plastic pin into the fan exhaust thus stopping the fan from rotating just when the drive is connected to mac mini. If you do that the drive is really quiet, however, I do not recommend that procedure to anyone. As for the physical size, the drive is exactly the size of new mac minis 7.7" x 7.7" even the same height so stacked up they look great. However, the drive was not quiet enough for me to switch from my old Iomega minimax that is virtually silent.
  12. I have Mac Mini with Iomega Minimac 2TB FW drive that is whisper quiet (fanless, I guess). However, I reached the capacity of the external drive and wanted to upgrade. So, I tried NewerTechnology MiniStak 4TB first. The drive is quiet but still has a fan that creates more noise than my old Iomega, which was unacceptable for me. Then I tried Hitachi G-Raid 7200rpm 8TB, but that was way noisier that either of the previously mentioned due to larger fan in the enclosure and higher RPM. I have returned that one too so the search continues. So, a direct answer to your question would be - no, it is not suitable for music server unless you keep it in some kind of cabinet that will muffle the noise. My racks are open and therefore I need a really quiet drives. I guess I can give a try to Lacie (fanless too) but lot of people are unhappy with them also. Not really sure what is the solution here for an external drive in >3TB range.
  13. Nice report, can't wait to read more on some specifics. The one thing that is really new to me is Ayre's QA9 Analog to Digital Converter (can we call it ADC ?). That is quite interesting and I would like to know more about it. Does it come with a dedicated software (Win, OSX, Linux) or no software is needed at all. For someone with large vinyl collection that just might be the thing. <br />
  14. Well, I was not really too interested in ripping SACDs for simple reason that I have only one SACD. But being a geek as I am, just couldn't resist the challenge. So I found miself a perfectly working PS3 with 80 Gig HD and OS 3.15 from a guy who didn't realize what he was selling for $100. After educating myself in the gaming hardware and software and updating to kmeaw 3.55 software and installing SACD ripper, I managed to rip my one and only SACD to .ISO and convert it to PCM. How exciting. I might be buying more SACDs now, thank you Mr. Wicked As Tommy Lee Jones said in MIB: "I will have to buy the White Album all over again"
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