Cheap solution for music in silence

[somebodyelse]

I assumed it would be headless too (no monitor, mouse or keyboard). Daphile operates that way by default, although you can enable screen etc. You configure it via a web browser, and control it either via a browser or using one of the many control apps for squeezebox / logitechmediaserver. Volumio is also controlled via the web browser. Either should run on those cheap intel machines.

 

[daftcombo]

I would just make it headless and control it using my mobile phone. no screen/keyboard required.

storage --- 32gb is already much bigger than phones. if you need extra storage like I do, an NAS works a lot better and you can put it in your garage/basement. Useful for you to stream video/photos as well.

I'm not familiar with mobile phones used as remote control. By bluetooth? wi-fi? USB? It's an idea.

The Sonic Transporter I5 is too expensive (near 800$). Same for Microsoft Surface GO.

 

[caguilar91]

I'm not familiar with mobile phones used as remote control. By bluetooth? wi-fi? USB? It's an idea.

The Sonic Transporter I5 is too expensive (near 800$). Same for Microsoft Surface GO.

Surface Go 8GB RAM + Type Cover is going for $650, sometimes theres a 15% coupon for up to $100 off. Could land it for $550 or less depending how well you search. There's also de 4GB version but it's not a 128GB SSD but a 64GB eMMC. I know there are some comparable tablets for less, but performance isn't that good.

 

[somebodyelse]

Wifi usually, on the same network as the player / server. I control mine through a browser if I'm at a computer, or with Squeezer on a phone. There are other control apps though.

 

[yue]

I'm not familiar with mobile phones used as remote control. By bluetooth? wi-fi? USB? It's an idea.

The Sonic Transporter I5 is too expensive (near 800$). Same for Microsoft Surface GO.

I personally use MPD and it can ben controlled by any client anywhere.
foobar seems to have this but I've never used it --- http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_beefweb and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cav.foobar2000controller&hl=en_US

 

[Soniclife]

It's worth bearing in mind that ambient noise in a quiet home is around 40db so anything with a fan that makes less noise than that should be inaudible.

The 40db will be mainly for low frequencies, at the frequencies fans create the noise floor is likely to be much lower, my living room frequently drops below 0db for a lot of the audible range.

 

[Soniclife]

You could try a Raspberry Pi with Volumio and a hat-based dac or spdif output. It may work with usb dacs too, but there are reports of glitches when combined with convolvers. The odroid boards are said not to have the glitches with usb dacs, but cost a bit more.

This gets my vote. Totally silent, controlled from your phone, cheap, flexible, what's not to like.

 

[daftcombo]

This gets my vote. Totally silent, controlled from your phone, cheap, flexible, what's not to like.

Is it possible to do convolution with this solution?
For me it is essential, since my speakers need to be corrected in frequency response and in phase.

 

[Soniclife]

Is it possible to do convolution with this solution?
For me it is essential, since my speakers need to be corrected in frequency response and in phase.

Follow the link that was in the bit I quoted, it says yes. I've not done convolution in volumino, and I don't use volumino anymore, so I cannot comment from personal experience.

 

[Biblob]

Is it possible to do convolution with this solution?
For me it is essential, since my speakers need to be corrected in frequency response and in phase.

Depending on how computational intensive your amount of convolution is, you should base your processor on that. Acourate themselfs say it can work on a Intel Atom processor (like the PC @yue mentioned) to an i7. A Pi will most likely be not powerfull enough, an Odroid C2 which is a more powerfull alternative, may be sufficient.
I think to be save, the Intel i3 on the newest NUC's provide a good balance between cost, processing power and noise/heat.

If you have Roon, you could buy an NUC and let the convolution take place on it, from another room and let a Pi only stream it to a DAC, so you would have a best of two worlds. But that only counts if you already have Roon and have control over your local netwerk.

 

[somebodyelse]

I'm going to have to try the convolver on the pi myself now, just to see first hand how it copes. I usually use picoreplayer for playback without a convolver. The reports I've seen suggest the pi can cope with typical room correction convolutions, but that it causes timing issues in the USB subsystem that may or may not be a problem depending on the characteristics of the usb dac. Pro audio dacs are usually optimised for low latency, so are more likely to suffer than typical consumer dacs apparently. The i2s interface used for the hats seem not to have this problem, and the Odroid is said not to have the usb problem. There's a thread about it here somewhere, but I can't find it right now. The only hat I have is the HifiBerry mini amp, so not exactly a quality option, the usb interface is low latency, and I don't have an odroid, so everything should be against me. I can also try on an old netbook (atom 230?) and an even older centrino laptop which should be slower than anything @yue linked to.

 

[daftcombo]

The easiest and cheapest solution still seems to get a dedicated fanless mini-laptop PCwith Foobar or JRiver, convolution, plug the Topping D10 and let's go.
New it would be 200$, a bit older and used there are a few at 100$.

I can't see what could go wrong?

 

[Biblob]

I'm going to have to try the convolver on the pi myself now, just to see first hand how it copes. I usually use picoreplayer for playback without a convolver. The reports I've seen suggest the pi can cope with typical room correction convolutions, but that it causes timing issues in the USB subsystem that may or may not be a problem depending on the characteristics of the usb dac. Pro audio dacs are usually optimised for low latency, so are more likely to suffer than typical consumer dacs apparently. The i2s interface used for the hats seem not to have this problem, and the Odroid is said not to have the usb problem. There's a thread about it here somewhere, but I can't find it right now. The only hat I have is the HifiBerry mini amp, so not exactly a quality option, the usb interface is low latency, and I don't have an odroid, so everything should be against me. I can also try on an old netbook (atom 230?) and an even older centrino laptop which should be slower than anything @yue linked to.

Cool, let us know what your experience is when trying the Pi with a convolver.

If it works correctly, I guess you're settled.

 

[Krunok]

Hi,

I'm after a completely silent PC, tablet or whatever to play music on JRiver or Foobar with a convolution plug in (convolver) or anything else similar.
My smartphone with Android has the Foobar app but can't use a plug-in like convolver. The JRiver app neither.

I know about totally silent PC which cost around 1 000$, but I'd rather get something cheaper.

Does it exist?

Thanks!

This one is completely silent (fanless) and will do the job perfectly for 169 EUR.

I'm using very similar model with Volumio and BruteFIR convolver plugin for room EQ.

 

[daftcombo]

This one is completely silent (fanless) and will do the job perfectly for 169 EUR.

I'm using very similar model with Volumio and BruteFIR convolver plugin for room EQ.

Thank you for the link and for the BruteFIR tip. Is 2Gb enough for phase correction down to 30 Hz?
I've read somewhere on a forum that for JRiver, 4Gb would be safer.

Can BruteFIR auto-switch between sample rates, once an impulse is loaded?

 

[Krunok]

Thank you for the link and for the BruteFIR tip. Is 2Gb enough for phase correction down to 30 Hz?
I've read somewhere on a forum that for JRiver, 4Gb would be safer.

Can BruteFIR auto-switch between sample rates, once an impulse is loaded?

My PC which runs Volumio and BruteFIR has 2GB of memory and 2GB SSD for installation. I have set BruteFIR to work at 96kHz and 65536 taps, my guess is that 2GB is enough for more than that but I don't think it is necessary.

Convolution engines work on a single sample rate so everything gets resampled to that rate. In my case I have chosen 96kHz and 65536 taps is enough for EQ at that sample rate.

 

[daftcombo]

Thanks for the details.
Do you know if it's the track that is re-sampled, or the impulsion? (if it even makes a difference)
JRiver resamples the impulsion. Foobar2000 resamples the track (with SoX or other).

 

[Krunok]

Thanks for the details.
Do you know if it's the track that is re-sampled, or the impulsion? (if it even makes a difference)
JRiver resamples the impulsion. Foobar2000 resamples the track (with SoX or other).

BruteFIR resamples music files to the target sample rate.

 

[daftcombo]

I'm still not sure why it would be better to use Volumio than a standard mini-PC with JRiver if both are silent.
The mini-PC with 2Gb Ram costs less than 200$ new, 100$ used. It has a keyboard and a screen. It could also be used for other purpose like watching movies.
The Volumio can be controlled with a remote control, that is to say a smartphone. I have one but it's not as convenient for storing files, etc.

 

[madmax2069]

Many people overlook used thin clients, many of them powerful enough to be a media box and can be had for around $30-$40, and quite a few of them are fanless, heck even ones with a fan in them are pretty darn quiet. And most thin clients will run whatever OS you want on them (full blown windows install, or a flavor of Linux).

I bought a HP t620 plus (which has a AMD Gx-420ca quad core 2ghz) which does have a fan (I got lucky and scored it for $40), installed a GT 1030 ddr5, with 8GB ram, 1tb SSD, 1TB external USB and taxed it for hours and it remained whisper quiet. They seem to fetch around $100 now since a few YouTube channels had videos about them. Stock they don't do YouTube quite well (which is why I installed a GT 1030 in it), and thanks to the GT 1030 it'll also playback 4k60 videos.

I use it for listening and watching music and video, and lite gaming. At full load it only consumes around 40w-50w in total with everything installed.