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Making a streamer with Intel Nuc/how

Berwhale

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I don't get it anymore. I thought that you don't needed an i3, and that a Celeron was good enough for audio?

Daphile runs on a relatively lightweight version of Linux and needs little resources. The suggestion to run Windows 10 and Audirvana will look nice, but cost more and need a higher specification of PC to run (it will also need more looking after).
 
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Bliman

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Daphile runs on a relatively lightweight version of Linux and needs little resources. The suggestion to run Windows 10 and Audirvana will look nice, but cost more and need a higher specification of PC to run (it will also need more looking after).
Maybe I am wrong. But does this mean that I need to install Linux first? Because I have very little knowledge of Linux.
Or is Daphile an operating system? And would that work with my windows 10 downstairs? With the scheme, I wanted to do as explained above?
 

Berwhale

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I have been looking how to best do this.
Would this set up be good?
Intel NUC7CJYH
with intel celeron J4005
4GB DDR4 jetram (2666Mhz)
240GB SSD RAM
and a
WD Elements 4 TB External Hard drive
Around 350€ all
or a
Gigabyte BRIX GB-BLPD-5005R

Intel Pentium J5005
same ram
same SSD
and a
WD Elements 4TB external hard drive
Around the same price.
My thinking is this.
I would use the SSD for the operating system and the external for the music. I have cd ripper software downstairs on my computer. So I would leave the intel NUC or Gigabyte upstairs and only take my hard drive downstairs and put the music on it. And then take it back upstairs. This way if I want to put new music on it. Then I only need to take the external hard drive downstairs.
Does this sound like a good plan? And I would have enough storage space.

Thanks for all the help by the way.

Daphile installs on to a small partition on the primary drive and then partitions the rest of the drive for music storage. You don't need separate drives for OS and music. Daphile is tiny compared to a Windows installation, it will hardly be noticeable on a 500GB or 1TB drive. It also loads very quickly (because it's tiny), so there's little to gain by running it from an SSD.

If you need 4TB, I would buy an internal 2.5" disk as it will be neater. You can buy and external drive, remove it from it's case and mount it internally - this can be cheaper, but be careful which drive you buy as some have USB connections on the drive, rather than SATA ones.

The drive in NUC/BRIX can be made available over the network. You don't need to load it via your PC or move it up and down the stairs.

Either of the barebone units you mention above will work fine with Daphile. The BRIX has the faster CPU because it has more cores, however the NUC has faster cores, so may actually be quicker when running Daphile.

Comparison of CPUs here: https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compa...J5005-vs-Intel-Celeron-J4005/m487063vsm473105
 

somebodyelse

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I have cd ripper software downstairs on my computer. So I would leave the intel NUC or Gigabyte upstairs and only take my hard drive downstairs and put the music on it. And then take it back upstairs. This way if I want to put new music on it. Then I only need to take the external hard drive downstairs.
Daphile can share its drives over the network so there's no need to unplug it.
Maybe I am wrong. But does this mean that I need to install Linux first? Because I have very little knowledge of Linux.
Or is Daphile an operating system? And would that work with my windows 10 downstairs? With the scheme, I wanted to do as explained above?
Daphile is a specialised linux version, but you don't need to know anything about linux to use it any more than you need to know about linux to use an android phone.
 

Berwhale

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Maybe I am wrong. But does this mean that I need to install Linux first? Because I have very little knowledge of Linux.
Or is Daphile an operating system? And would that work with my windows 10 downstairs? With the scheme, I wanted to do as explained above?

You don't need to know anything about Linux to run Daphile. You install it on a USB thumb drive, boot off it on the NUC/BRIX, then install it to the NUC/BRIX hard drive, reboot and remove the thumb drive. That's pretty much it.
 

Berwhale

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If you go the Daphile route, you'll have several options to control it...

1. From the BRIX/NUC - You have to connect a monitor/TV and keyboard for this.
2. From a squeezebox compatible app on a phone or tablet (like Squeezer)
3. From a web browser on your PC. Mine looks like this...

1581890418889.png
 

somebodyelse

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On the CPU speed front, I'll point back to a similar thread. Any pc you can buy new now will be more than fast enough given you're not transcoding DSD. I'd suggest keeping fans and HDDs out of the listening room, but that's a change you could make later if necessary. The most complicated thing with daphile is the number of plugins available for the Logitech Media Server (LMS). It's both a blessing and a curse - there's probably a combination out there that'll get everything indexed and accessible exactly the way you want, but you may end up spending a lot of time on the forum finding out what the options are. You could make the same argument about PiCorePlayer if running the LMS on that, or with LMS running on your Windows 10 box.
 
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Bliman

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Daphile installs on to a small partition on the primary drive and then partitions the rest of the drive for music storage. You don't need separate drives for OS and music. Daphile is tiny compared to a Windows installation, it will hardly be noticeable on a 500GB or 1TB drive. It also loads very quickly (because it's tiny), so there's little to gain by running it from an SSD.

If you need 4TB, I would buy an internal 2.5" disk as it will be neater. You can buy and external drive, remove it from it's case and mount it internally - this can be cheaper, but be careful which drive you buy as some have USB connections on the drive, rather than SATA ones.

The drive in NUC/BRIX can be made available over the network. You don't need to load it via your PC or move it up and down the stairs.

Either of the barebone units you mention above will work fine with Daphile. The BRIX has the faster CPU because it has more cores, however the NUC has faster cores, so may actually be quicker when running Daphile.

Comparison of CPUs here: https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compa...J5005-vs-Intel-Celeron-J4005/m487063vsm473105
Ok thanks.
It is still not clicking with me. Ok I think I could install Daphile just fine I think. The way I would do that is connect my monitor to the com port on the Gigabyte. I don't see a way to connect it with the intel to my monitor. I can buy an internal drive of 2TB for the Gigabyte too. But here is where I am stuck. I have no monitor upstairs or keyboard and such. My thinking was that I would turn on the Gigabyte upstairs and then control my music by smartphone. Is this possible? Or would I need a mouse and keyboard to operate it initially upstairs every time I start it and then I can control it with a phone? Because that would pretty much ruin my whole thinking.
And my thought would be if maybe I have an external drive then I can rip my music downstairs and store it on the external drive and connect it upstairs.
Or is it possible to rip it downstairs and sent it upstairs to the Gigabyte but control the whole process with the phone? Or now I see. I would maybe see the Gigabyte on my computer downstairs and sent it wirelessly upstairs to the Gigabyte? Is this possible? That would be great. Would they see each other? Because I have windows 10 downstairs. And can they talk to each other? Very sorry for all the questions.
 

somebodyelse

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Daphile runs happily headless - no monitor, mouse or keyboard. IIRC that's actually its default mode. You have full control through a web browser. Apps like Squeezer will do all the playback control - the everyday usage stuff - but won't do config changes.

Daphile can share its drive so that Windows 10 can see it over the network, just like it would see a NAS or a Windows share on another PC.
 

Puska

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Forget about Daphile. Just buy Audirvana and install it on nuc i3. Audirvana will monitor your audiophiles plus have access to Tidal Qobuz. No need old technology.
 

somebodyelse

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What do you mean by "monitor your audiophiles"? Daphile has access to Tidal and Qobuz too. From their web site it actually seems less capable than Daphile, at its own price plus the cost of Windows. What am I missing?
 

Jmudrick

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Daphile runs on a relatively lightweight version of Linux and needs little resources. The suggestion to run Windows 10 and Audirvana will look nice, but cost more and need a higher specification of PC to run (it will also need more looking after).

Hmm my 9 year old $200 Thinkpad X220 runs Audirvana without issue (windows 10).
 

Puska

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Guys I suggested a simple solution. You need to complicate its ok.
 

Jmudrick

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Not with thousends of flac files co curentlly.

???. I keep 400GB of FLAC files on a micro SD card in the Thinkpad. Copy of same on another card in my phone (LG V30) No playback issues on either. NUC is nice but many of have old machines that work just fine.
 

Hayabusa

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I have been looking how to best do this.
Would this set up be good?
Intel NUC7CJYH
with intel celeron J4005
4GB DDR4 jetram (2666Mhz)
240GB SSD RAM
and a
WD Elements 4 TB External Hard drive
Around 350€ all
or a
Gigabyte BRIX GB-BLPD-5005R

Intel Pentium J5005
same ram
same SSD
and a
WD Elements 4TB external hard drive

You don't want your audio player to be completely silent?
I would then add more SSD, or access you music by LAN so that the HD is somewhere else making noise.
 

Berwhale

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You don't want your audio player to be completely silent?
I would then add more SSD, or access you music by LAN so that the HD is somewhere else making noise.

You think a 2.5" HDD will be noisier than the blower fan in the NUC?

1581940696978.png


The fan in my Acer Revo is a little noisy up close, but is inaudible at listening distance.
 

Hayabusa

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You think a 2.5" HDD will be noisier than the blower fan in the NUC?

View attachment 50564

The fan in my Acer Revo is a little noisy up close, but is inaudible at listening distance.

Fanless NUC solves also this :)
2.5" disks are mostly quiet enough, but sometimes you can have bad luck and have a resonance/tone just above the hearing threshold at the listening position.
 
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