New Media Server Build

[teknikk7]

Hello,

I am looking to build a media PC, currently weighing my options between Roon in Windows, Roon Core on Linux, Mock, or some other type of Linux music server? Currently using FooBar with kernel streaming because it sounds the best to me. I already purchased the Fanless Streacom FC10 case, I'm still looking for the rest of the components. There is no budget for this build.

I am looking for something more modern than Amir's build, only because I noticed the thread was a bit dated. Also weighing if I need a sound card? I will be hooking this straight into a Chord M Scaler which then goes to my DAC. Music library is under 1TB and I do some streaming from Tidal, etc.

Thanks!

 

[dfuller]

If you have a dac already then no, no sound card needed.

Go as low power as you can reasonably justify - a AMD Athlon 200GE would be a good choice as it's low enough power (35w TDP) that it could fairly easily be passively cooled given a beefy enough air cooler. The only issue I can see is a potential issue with motherboard compatibility. That case looks to be quite old (2012 given the reviews) and it probably isn't compatible with AM4 mounting.

Considering how little storage you need, I'd go for a solid state drive - they have no motor to make noise and draw far less power than spinning magnetic drives.

Any decent B450 mATX or ITX motherboard should do nicely.

 

[teknikk7]

Going to be fanless. I'm looking for an Intel solution.

https://www.quietpcusa.com/Streacom-FC10-ALPHA-HTPC-Chassis

 

[BillG]

If you're merely building a server, just about any PC will do as that's not particularly resource intensive in all but the most demanding of use cases - Ex. streaming to > 20 devices simultaneously. However, if that server is going to perform any demanding DSP then its CPU will require some additional consideration.

A soundcard isn't necessary on a server, and contemporary motherboards have sufficient enough audio subsystems anyway. Just attach the server to the DAC via whatever digital output one prefers.

 

[BillG]

I've a question for you, though, what's the requirement for the M Scaler? It's not going to improve the source material in any meaningful way other than applying some filters that one might find pleasing.

 

[dfuller]

Going to be fanless. I'm looking for an Intel solution.

https://www.quietpcusa.com/Streacom-FC10-ALPHA-HTPC-Chassis

Intel will be slightly trickier - they tend to be higher power draw as of late. But, a Pentium G5400 or similar should be well within the capabilities of this case to cool (54w TDP).

Should you reconsider AM4, it looks like StreaCom has an AM4 adapter.

 

[teknikk7]

I've a question for you, though, what's the requirement for the M Scaler? It's not going to improve the source material in any meaningful way other than applying some filters that one might find pleasing.

I have a lot of mixed audio, some older hard to find stuff in low bitrates. This definitely evens everything out, makes it more pleasing, don't have to adjust the volume knob as much, etc. I get the argument shit in, shit out, but to me this makes a real difference for reasons I fully do not understand. Some say that increasing the bandwidth allows the filters to work better. I wasn't a believer until I heard it. But I don't think the price justifies that last 3%, I may get rid of it down the line...

 

[Silver1omo]

I would go with AMD for this, perhaps a 3200G and under clock/volt it to be super safe that passive cooling is enough.
If you do not mind tinkering with the OS, LMS in a Linux distro should work nicely, it is free and there are plugins for almost any streaming platform.
For a library of less than 1TB a SSD would be definitely great.

 

[BillG]

As for Linux, here's an audio specific distribution that many enjoy - I'm tempted to review it myself one day:

https://www.daphile.com/#features

 

[Silver1omo]

As for Linux, here's an audio specific distribution that many enjoy - I'm tempted to review it myself one day:

https://www.daphile.com/#features

Uses LMS and squeezelite, a lot like the defunct VortexBox. Wonder what distro they are based in.

 

[teknikk7]

As for Linux, here's an audio specific distribution that many enjoy - I'm tempted to review it myself one day:

https://www.daphile.com/#features

This is what I am looking for. Just need a compatible current hardware list to run it on.
Thanks!

 

[Silver1omo]

X86 Linux distro should run in almost any X86 cpu/mobo combo.

 

[BillG]

This is what I am looking for. Just need a compatible current hardware list to run it on.
Thanks!

You're welcome...

Unfortunately, the distro's maintainer refuses to create one, due to the overwhelming selection I suppose. I'm not sure what I'd do in this particular instance; perhaps contacting various motherboard manufacturers regarding whichever model I was interested in to see if there are any known incompatibilities with general Linux distros, and hope for the best. However, as Silver1 just wrote, almost any x86 cpu/motherboard combo should work.

 

[Chromatischism]

I would go with AMD for this, perhaps a 3200G and under clock/volt it to be super safe that passive cooling is enough.

I would actually look at the 7nm chips since they run quite a bit cooler than the 14nm 3200G.

AMD has their 4000-series APUs (G-series, 7nm) coming out soon which will be like the 3000 series but with the integrated graphics so you can skip the GPU. It's odd that their G-series APUs are always one-gen behind their normal CPUs (3200G is like a 2000-series chip), but that's how it is. The 4000-series non-G will be the next-gen architecture, but you would need to add a GPU.

This would be much better than getting a lower performing chip, especially if this box will also serve up video...and especially if it's ever asked to transcode.

 

[JustJones]

I run Roon on a fanless NUC running ROCK. I attach flash drives to it you could use an external SSD. I keep this in my office connected to the network. I use a raspberry pi4 running Ropiee as a bridge in my stereo rack. If you use roon you can run Tidal through it. To me this has been the easiest way of doing a headless system with roon.

 

[teknikk7]

Here’s another, anyone use this one?

http://wtfplay-project.org/

or

https://volumio.org/

 

[JustJones]

I've used Volumio I found it a bit clunky but that's been a while ago I believe they have polished it up. It had a tendency to drop out or freeze during playback. I had to reflash it a couple of times. This was using it with a Minidsp SHD Studio so it was a custom OS which could be set to be used as a roon bridge which is how I eventually used it.