Building A Basic Music Server: A Beginner's Guide/Commentary - Part 1
I put that background information up front because one of the driving forces in selecting music servers is their ability to deliver accurately timed data streams. If you don’t at least intuitively “get” that timing can be critical, much of the discussion seems like technogeekery run amok.
Decision 1: Dedicated Music Server or Existing PC/Mac
One of the attractions of computer audio is that you have most of what you need already (assuming you have a PC). You can confine attempts to get better sound to simple steps like changing DACs or trying new headphones. Using your existing PC is a low cost approach and works quite well.
If you are interested in taking the next step toward high-quality audio, there can be advantages to using a dedicated music server. Primary among these is the fact that there is less competition for resources on a dedicated server than on you existing PC. If you are working on a photograph in Photoshop at the same time you’re listening to a music track, the PC may have to swap data from RAM to disc and back. Similarly, on you existing PC there is more likely to be competition for processor time from your various USB ports (USB, unlike some other ports, generally makes use of the processor). This resource competition is primarily an issue because of the timing sensitivity of the music data stream.
For this series of blogs, we’ll go down the dedicated server route to illustrate how that works.
Decision 2: Packaged Music Server or Custom-Built
There are a number of excellent packaged music servers from brands like Sooloos, Qsonix and Sound Science. These have several advantages. First, the company has done the work of putting the server together. Second, the company has, in most cases, created a user interface that you may prefer. And third, the company has figured out a combination of technologies that works well.
You may only appreciate how significant that last sentence is after you’ve read the rest of this series! That’s because we will be exploring ways to create a custom-built music server, something that can be more complicated than it first appears.
The advantages of a custom-built music server come down to price, flexibility and fun. You can probably create your own music server for less than one of the top-flight packaged servers (which only makes sense – they’re doing some of the work for you and they need to get paid). We’ll see how much you save, and I expect it may be less than we think. Building your own server is also likely to give you a more modular system in the end. In an age of rapid tech change, a modular approach should make upgrading easier (and potentially less expensive). Finally, and to me this is a big point, you probably should only create your own server if you can see doing so a being somewhat fun. It involves real work (and with computers inevitable frustrations), so there needs to be some compensation besides saving a little money.
Decision 3: PC or Mac
Like Brett Favre’s (a U.S. football star) retirement, this is a subject that gets tiring pretty quickly. That’s because differences between Macs and PCs are often distinctions without a difference (that, and the fact that people who like to argue about those distinctions are so charming).
I would suggest that you will want to use a Mac or a PC largely based on which operating system you are familiar with. There will be enough complexity here for most mortals without having the added effort of learning the conventions of a new OS.
I’ll actually be building both Mac-based and PC-based servers. Not because I imagine the fundamental differences to be earth-shattering, but because of differences I see in the way Apple and PC makers go to market.
Specifically, I’ll start on the Mac side of things because it is simpler. That simplicity lends itself to building a basic dedicated music server. By contrast, I think the choices on the PC side of things mean that we may be able to construct a pretty mean machine, but that effort naturally is more arcane and thus comes later in the series (if I live and the bosses don’t shoot me).
Even though this first group of blogs is about a Mac-based server, I hope the logic applies pretty well if you wanted to build a basic PC-based server.
Note: in the remainder of the blog I mention specific products that I selected. The point is to illustrate the real decisions you have to make, not to endorse specific products (which may be out of date mere seconds after this is posted). I also display, particularly in this first installment, a bias toward readily available off the shelf items that are more or less plug and play. I have a lot of work to do (probably like you) and I'm having enough trouble trying to learn the basics, much less learn everything there is to know about non-mainstream computing.
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Comments
Man, pretty good so far. I have used macs for years but am not a techie. I have high end stereo gear and am aiming towards a mac based server. I cannot understand much on Audiogon, Audioasylum, Computer audio, Weiss homepage, etc. but this is much better, more basic, step by step.
Couple of ??'s:
So, OS on Mini, use Mini superdrive to rip, I want to use bit for bit, non compressed (Flac? Wav? ....?). When I rip cd's, where do I direct them to? The Mini's HD? the external drive? I thought the back up was the mirrored Lacie 2 TB; what is this NAS thing and where does it fit in, how is it attached?
Role of Drobos? (more simplistic RAID for us simpletons?)
So when the music plays back into the dac via firewire, it is playing from the Lacie drive (in your example)?
Do you need a keyboard/monitor at all or can everything regarding the ripping be controlled from another Mac (say, a Macbook using Apple remote desktop; and if so, how?)
Some sites state with the Mini being used as a dedicated server, it should be configured and certain inherent programs (bluetooth and others) be trashed before beginning to rip cd's. Correct? & if so, what should be gotten rid of?
How should one prepare cd's prior to ripping? (professional cleaners? demagnatize?
I am sure you will get to Amarra later; lots of ???'s there.
Lots of scattered queries; they reflect my ignorance of the whole process but I encourage you to continue as this has been enlightening thus far.
I plan to go into configuration of software in the next phase, so I hope you can wait.
For now, let me clarify my plan (I've also edited the main text in hopes of making this clearer). The primary copy of each music file resides on the external hard disk in this setup. So, I'm playing files from the external drive, which is sitting inches away from the Mac Mini and is connected via Firewire. The operating system is on the local hard disk. My reasoning is to have the primary music files on a separate box that can be easily transferred to another computer.
I chose to have the external drive be RAID. That means the first line of backup is on the external drive sitting next to the Mini. RAID simply doesn't raise the price enough in my mind to make it rational to skip it. But as I said, don't let me spend your money.
NAS is network attached storage. It is just a hard drive with an interface that allows it to send files over a network. In this case, the NAS drive sits next to our network router and is plugged in there. It is connected to the Mini via Ethernet. If you're following, the RAID is primary backup, the NAS is a second backup. Who you callin' paranoid? Actually, the NAS is entirely optional in my view, but I like the ability to access the NAS from other computers.
You could run music files from the NAS, but I don't like the idea of possible lags in that system. 100 Base T has a theoretical throughput lower than Firewire 800, but it also has more resource competition (other stuff on the network, and routers and such to go through). Apogee and others with more experience than I have caution against network drives as primary storage. Others who've tried this say it works fine and your network may be Gigabit Ethernet, but latency is a concern more than data rate and, well, the external disc is pretty cheap.
AVGuide webmaster and general drudge
Very well done. I'm very interested in building a home music server, but many of the articles are just hard to understand and to get concrete, actionable advice from. This article may be the best I've read so far. Keep it coming.
I've been using a NAS for sometime hooked up to my wireless router means I can access my music from any device in the house. Freenas is ummm FREE and works well. I've also been looking at Windows Home Server but is not as resilient as the options on Freenas. I suggest you look at this for building a server it won't cost $2K! more like $300 ! as you make it out of practically any old PC and has software raid so I have 3 x 1TB making 2.2TB of storage.
Keep the blog coming and send me a mail when the next installment is ready.
I would like to say that the silly iPhone tuned me into a MAC head. AppleTV can easily stream FLAC or WAV (and the dreaded MP3) to your sound system if it has wireless (or wired) capability.
I never touch CD's anymore and I let my controller's DAC do the converting.
AppleTV becomes even more flexible when you add Fire Core's ATV Flash to it!
I have been an audiophile for over 40 years and I am so grateful that I can stream music, see album art and select what ever I want to hear from AppleTV.
Cheers!
Larry
Hi Larry
I dont know if u ever read this .
Please advise about how can apple tv play FLAC as apple does not support FLAC .
Secondly I don't understand this part of your comment( my controller's DAC do the converting).
Pls advise
Cheers,
Mohammad
Going back to the option of using my existing PC, I am using iTunes to manage my files and use the digital audio output to feed this to my Anthem D2v processor digital audio input. The problem is that the music quality decreases substantially. Would using a ASUS Sonar Essence STX card correct the sound, or am I a long way off?
Thanks,
John.
Good article so far. I have a Mac mini as my music server. Files are stored on an external drive (I went with 1TB Glyph - a costlier option but I've had 3 cheap externals die within one year - 2 WDs and 1 GTech - Glyphs are used by pro musicians who want to ensure their precious tracks are safe). Mac outputs via Toslink to a Bryston DAC (awesome if you can afford it). Only issue with the mini thus far is its inability to handle 88.2 kHz - perhaps due to deliberate software limitations..this is not the case with an iMac - and anything over 96 kHz. The later is much of a problem since there's little content with that high a sample rate and I suspect the difference is imperceptable. The 88.2 limit is a bit frustrating since 88.2 sources wind up being upsampled by iTunes to 96. Other hassle is having to manually set sample rate and bit depth via the midi tool everytime they change. Also requires an iTunes restart. At any rate, glad to see to letting people know there is a much better, less costly way to go digital than buying overpriced dedicated music servers.
Nice article. I'd like to emphasize and expand on your first point - timing of the digital data (i.e., the issue of jitter, principally "pre-echo"). I read somewhere in the last six months a great explanation of this critical issue. Here goes my summary: our neuro-physical perceptions and processing of sound is quite accustomed to "echo" - that is, a form of trailing edge to a particular sound. What is quite unnatural to us is an "echo" that precedes the particular sound and it is this element of jitter (basically, the mis-timing of the data containing the sound we intend to hear) that has been the primary bugaboo of audiophiles who claim that digital music (CD's principally) is "hard" or "edgy" sounding when compared with analogue (principally vinyl). Take away the "pre-echo" and, with adequate bit/sample rates (all other things being equal), you restore the natural sound characteristics that we are accustomed to hearing in nature. So, it becomes critical to determine those components of a hi-def digital sound system that can contribute to jitter and evaluate what they do to eliminate it - especially "pre-echo". In this regard, I'd appreciate it if you would devote one of your upcoming installments to this topic and how your systems are addressing it.
Secondly, I think that solid state storage devices are important and becoming a much more relevant topic as the cost associated with these devices is coming down quickly and their capacities are increasing. They are quiet, stable and (seems to me) a perfect medium for music server storage. I'd appreciate your thoughts on this topic as well.
Thanks again for a very nice article and I hope that this is the beginning of regular, ongoing committment by the major audiophile pubs to cover this most significant form of music playback - IMHO, THE future for our hobby.
Kind regards and happy listening!
I think a separate piece on SSD may be warranted. Right now, SSD is a little pricey but that will change. There is a secondary issue, which I cannot quantify, which is that SSDs are limited to the number of read/write cycles they can do before data errors occur. No idea if this is a non-issue (read errors will occur, but just before the sun goes dark) or something to actually be concerned about.
BTW, this article and others does indeed represent an ongoing commitment to cover computer audio. Playback as a brand now focuses on computer audio, headphones/earphones, and desktop audio.
AVGuide webmaster and general drudge
When will your part-2 be published? Couldn't wait ;o(.
I have used an old 2nd hand Dell laptop from eBay and two external drives (one strictly for backup) for storage as a dedicated 2 channel (stereo) music server for 4 or 5 years. The music from the computer's usb 1.1! port goes to the usb input on a Pioneer Elite receiver, which converts it to PCM and re-clocks it, so jitter should be as good as the Pioneer's clock, which I would argue is essentially as good as that of most fancy usb DAC's. All files are stored as lossless. Total cost (for the computer and hard drives) was about $500, and the quality is - to my reasonably educated professional audio ears - at least as good as directly from the CD's from which I ripped the music, and I have complete data redundancy. I don't see how spending any more could possibly increase the quality significantly given the limitations of redbook CD's.
After trying virtually all the software music players, I finally settled on iTunes operated by wi-fi remote from an iPod touch which has an elegant user interface, album art, and instantaneous control without the kluge and inconvenience of a big sound reflecting touchscreen, wires, or computer keyboard near my listening position. I will be most surprised if a more convenient, better sound quality or more data secure server can be had regardless of cost, although some people will no doubt prefer the big and fancy graphics that can be had with some commercial servers.
I do listen to a fair amount of DSD SA-CD and DVD-Audio direct from optical discs, and the best of those do sound better, especially with multi-channel sound, but that material isn't really a viable option for storage and playback from a simple music server. The recent availability of downloadable 96 kHz 24 bit audio 2 channel high resolution audio files may finally force me to hook up an old firewire professional sound card that's been hanging around, as the usb 1.1 bus can't handle those, but I don't see any point, other than bragging rights, to upgrading anything else .
Very pleased to see this article and I will follow the series with interest. My main concern will be the critical audio path (yes I know that all audiophiles are critical, but I am referring to the 'critical path' whereby the audio quality is determined.)
I am quite interested in Hewlett Packard's MediaSmart series of home media servers running Microsoft's Home Media Server software. This is a readily available, mostly pre-configured system which could be a good basis for the server function, though it doesn't have a Firewire port for a DAC, but does have USB Ports.
I note that PS Audio is working on an interface bridge for their PerfectWave DAC which should only require an ethernet connection.
I look forward to the next installment!!!
I use HP's Media Smart Server as a music (mostly high quality mp3s encoded with LAME) and movie (uncompressed DVD rips) server. I have 3TBs of storage in it, and it allows you to pick which folders you'd like to back up across the drives. Plus, it does automatic back ups for the PCs on your network (up to some limit). I've been streaming to my laptop which I sometimes hook into my A/V receiver, but I'm planning to build a dedicated home theater PC soon. So far it has worked well for me. The only streaming glitches seem to come from my laptop's wireless; if I connect to my network via wire, it works very well. On the client side, I'm using iTunes and MyMovies (MyMovies also has corresponding software for the server side).
From reading several of these comments, I can see that we need some sort of soundcard/DAC series, including interface issues (S/PDIF, Toslink, USB etc). Thanks for the input, which I will relay to Chris.
AVGuide webmaster and general drudge
"The key reason is that we will be testing a lot of USB DACs. I also think that a focus on USB parallels the current focus of users on USB DACs."
I'll add a vote for more focus on different interfaces. I know I'm not the only one that already owns good quality DACs integrated into an expensive preamp & wondering if toslink from a Mac to it will put me at a sonic disadvantage compared to a USB or Firewire DAC.
Great article... eagerly awaiting the next installment!
I am hoping to share some of my insight in to digital transmission and music servers. I've worked in data networking for 25 years, and have been building music servers for 10 (including having an MP3 player in my car for 10 years)!
Timing and timing accuracy is clearly an area that confuses most audiophiles. There are three areas where timing precision is critical, during the A to D phase, during transmission and during the D to A phase. The former, you can only hope the recording company got right. The latter, is the area where most audiophiles need to apply thought - or should I say, the companies designing the products we use, need to apply thought. The middle one, is interesting - but it shouldn't be for computer based audio. Why, because we aren't using real time interaction and synchronous transmission. I would disagree with Gadgetman's comments that throughput is less important than latency. For real time interactive communications, latency is critical - because we need to interact. For reproduced music, we are not interacting with the source (CD player, disk, PC), we are listening to the music (interacting with it as an art form - but not from a technical pespective), and if it starts 1 second after we press play or 10 seconds - that's latency - who cares? Now if the music moves from 1 second latency to 1.5 second latency and then to .5 of second latency randomly during the same track - we do care, we care a lot - but that's jitter, not latency - more on fixing jitter later.
So transmission over Ethernet or worse, Wi-Fi. Ethernet runs about 40-50% efficiency on a congested network - which most home users will never have. That means it's only about 50 Mbps for a 100 Mbps Ethernet network. However CD quality, uncompressed music is about 2 Mbps - thus we have plenty of overhead. The problem with Ethernet is that its shared data transmission subsystem and cares nothing for jitter. To fix jitter, and it is EASY to fix, is to buffer the signal - buffering basically means "I read the data in when it arrives and store it. I process the data when I need it" the two are ostensibly unrelated, and buffering creates that buffer (sic). As long as my buffer is never empty, the precision of the timing of the data stream is now subject to the clock I use to read the data out of the buffer. So a NAS is fabulous (and cheap) music server (library) - but it is not a replay system (reader). The replay system needs to understand enough of the communications infrastructure to put enough buffering in place to deal with the jitter. If you've used Youtube you've seen the buffering in action (the slow start) and probably failing due to the massive variability in throughput and jitter of the Internet. And this is key - its the music replay application that needs to buffer the music, and it's independent of the source, so whether you use internal HDDs, external HDDs or NAS, or whatever, it simply doesn't matter as long as it's throughput is much faster than the replay speed, or your buffer is big enough (and you wait for it to fill) - and thus the application can grab the data when it needs it. What is more important is that the application can accurately time the D to A stage. If you REALLY cared about that, you'd use a RTOS (real-time operating system), which would guarantee that the replay application could get the access to the CPU when it needs it.
SSDs are a waste of money for a music server - the speed is irrelevant, the seek time is irrelevant, as the music application is the critical piece. And as many users have discovered, the application can mess up so many other more important things - like transcoding between bit rates without you knowing, poor quality digital domain volume controls etc.
So far so simple - where this all falls over again is when we discover that PCs (and I assume MACs as well) are awful at D to A - and instead we want an external DAC. And we have to consider the subject of clocking all over again. But now for different reasons.
Last comment, WAV is disk space wasted, use FLAC, or WMA or Apple's lossless compression - just be aware of where you can't use those compression algorithms due to the proprietary nature of two of them.
When's the next installment?