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Show us your Raspberry PIs, Intel NUCs and other mini PCs!

mike70

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Buenas tardes, soy un neófito en la materia y con tanto acrónimo NAS, DLNA; UPNP, LMS, etc... y aun encima mis conocimientos de Linux son casi nulos.

Les explico la situación actual y donde quiero llegar.

Tengo una Raspberry Pi 3b con un DAC de Suptronics X900; funcionando bajo Volumio. Y esto a través un cable RCA lo tengo conectado a un amplificador de los años 70 (ROTELYes) una maravilla, estoy encantado con el sonido.

El problema radica en que Volumio no se ven bien las caratulas. No los Lp's que eso lo hace bien al llevar la imagen dentro de la carpeta de la música, pero los Singles tengo más de 8000 y hacer un montón de carpetas e imágenes es inviable, además que se trata de un error de Volumio), ya que mi biblioteca se ve sin problemas en cualquier otro aparato.

Para evitar lo anterior encontré un programa que se llama Media Monkey, que ataca bien la Raspberry y se ven las caratulas.

Lo que quiero saber es si se puede:

  • Con Media Monkey acceder a la Raspberry y reproducir el contenido de lo que hay en USB conectado a la misma.
  • Con Media Monkey una funcionalidad que sería cuando termina una canción y empieza otra, visualizar en la pantalla , la carátula, el título etc, por un tiempo corto 20 segundos y después volverse apagar.
  • Ya que lo malo de estos reproductores estos sin cabeza y con la música digital que muchas veces no sabes ni lo que estás escuchando, si no ves la imagen y estar todo el rato desbloqueando el teléfono es un.

@TOMX23 ... este foro es en inglés, seguramente no te den mucha atención en español. Si puedes hablar lengua inglesa será mucho mejor.
Y por favor, que se comprenda correctamente lo expuesto, mi única intención es justamente que tengas la mejor experiencia en este foro.

Gran saludo.
 

benanders

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1D8ED3C3-938F-4602-90BC-458DC242B0B9.jpeg


Big things have small beginnings.

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OP
JaccoW

JaccoW

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I wanted something with a bit more punch so I bought a Minisforum UM690S on sale last december. It's basically a slightly upgraded version of the original UM690 that had issues with the SSD and RAM throttling due to overheating.

So far it has been rock solid, temps seem to be good and for a living room unit it has been virtually quiet until I stress it with some gaming. I've written on Reddit about my initial impressions and a follow up with more stress testing. It lives there as my media device for both music as well as Youtube and streaming.





I have added an extra SSD heatsink just in case, and it doesn't get above 56°C, even under multiple hours of reading and writing as I transferred my music collection of nearly 1 TB to it.

There is now also a Minisforum UM690 Pro that can hold 2x M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSDs and has 2x 2.5G ethernet ports, making it a very nice option for a small high-speed server or renderer.

I'm also trying to turn my old N5105 based GMKtec NucBox 5 into a Plex Server, though I'm still trying to get a remote desktop working and to figure out how to safely expose it to the outside world so I can use it as my own streaming service when I am on the move. First time figuring out networking.

In that same vein, I'm also eyeing the GMKtec NucBox M5 Upgrade, a €220 Ryzen 7 5700U model with 2x M.2 PCIe 3.0 SSDs and has 2x 2.5G ethernet ports for a more powerful version of that While the 5700U is a mere Zen2 model (we are now at Zen 4) it is simply very cheap now. As a home server, it would offer RAID 1 for some extra security and at 11.5W at idle it seems like a reasonably power efficient device as well. With 2x 2TB SSDs and 32GB of RAM that would make for a sub-€500 server. But no need to spend money on something I am not sure I am going to use a lot just yet. :p
 
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dlovesmusic

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My setup, rpi4 1 = upnp renderer/media server smb to a NAS, connected to rpi4 2 by usb otg

rpi4 2 = network adapter - takes streaming and local digital information from rpi4 1 and sends it through lan to hqplayer desktop pc for dsp, convolution filter and reroute to my 4 music systems in different rooms (each room has a rpi4 as a network adapter receiving the information and connected to the dacs)

The one at the top is the fitlet3 industrial mini pc from Greece that serves as one of the network adapter to my main system dac. It takes optical connection with a SFP+ port built in (yup I used to believe optical would make a difference to the sound)
 

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Berwhale

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After some re-organization and a few recent acquisitions, here is the kit running under the far end of my desk in my study:

IMG_20240323_135129581 (Small).jpg


Top to bottom:

Fanless mini PC (N5105, 8GB RAM, 250GB NVMe SSD, 4x 2.5GbE NICs) running pfSense firewall.
Dell Optiplex 3090 Micro (i3-10105T, 16GB RAM, 250GB NVMe SSD) running Windows 11 Pro.
Dell Optiplex 3070 Micro (i3-9100T, 16GB RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD, 1GbE + 2.5GbE NICs) running Proxmox VE.
Dell Optiplex 7060 Micro (i3-8100T, 32GB RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD, 500GB SATA SSD, 2x 1GbE NICs) running Proxmox VE.

The device on top is a 4 way HDMI KVM connected to the Dell PCs and a Lenovo x390 Yoga laptop on top of the desk (running Ubuntu desktop). The devices to the left of the firewall are a 1. A Hive Hub which is part of the control system for my heating and hot water and 2. the side of my 16 port TP-Link Easy Smart Switch (this will be replaced by a 2.5GbE/10GbE setup in the near future)

The 'rack' and cabling are a work in progress. The rack is made from two Ikea Variera shelves assembled upside down. Its currently screwed to the underside of the desk. I have plans to suspend it from some drawer runners so it can be pulled forwards and demounted when required.

The cabling is out of shot, but it's a mess, especially the power bricks. I have some plastic cable management trays (liberated from a 42U rack) which I will cut up and secure the bigger items to (and maybe hang the conduit from hooks in the battens supporting the desktop).

Musical relevance? None, apart from LMS running in a Docker container in an Ubuntu Server VM hosted on the bottom Optiplex :)

*edit* I forgot to mention that I have an N100 based mini PC on the way from China. This is going to be undertaking HTPC duties in the lounge. I've ordered the 16GB/512GB variant and it worked out at £99 delivered to the UK with the recent AliExpress Anniversary discount :) https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005234874016.html
 
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Prana Ferox

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PXL_20240323_174938752.jpg


I've been messing with these guys lately. Especially if getting a couple at a time it's pretty easy to get the 3040, a usually necessary replacement BIOS battery, a USB charger and cable and be up and going for $30 or less each. As Pi standins, you don't need to buy a heatsink, case, or SD card. At that price they're not coming with WiFi so add a few more bucks for a USB dongle if you need it, but most of my applications don't.

DietPi installs easily on these via Ventoy, and includes Squeezelite and Roon endpoint options straight from the config menu; you could stick a dongle DAC on and have a hifi streamer option for super cheap. That's part of what I use them for, Squeezelite endpoints for multiple rooms that can be ganged together, so I can have synchronized music all through the house controllable from phone / tablet / anything with a browser.

I also had one running Octoprint to drive my 3D printers, but I screwed up the install and am redoing it in Docker this time. DietPi is a little quirky trying to customize it 'bare metal' but it also includes Docker & Portainer for vastly more capability at a higher learning curve. These are also straight Intel x86 devices, which isn't the advantage over ARM it used to be flexibility-wise but still comes in handy at times.
 

Berwhale

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View attachment 358776

I've been messing with these guys lately. Especially if getting a couple at a time it's pretty easy to get the 3040, a usually necessary replacement BIOS battery, a USB charger and cable and be up and going for $30 or less each. As Pi standins, you don't need to buy a heatsink, case, or SD card. At that price they're not coming with WiFi so add a few more bucks for a USB dongle if you need it, but most of my applications don't.

DietPi installs easily on these via Ventoy, and includes Squeezelite and Roon endpoint options straight from the config menu; you could stick a dongle DAC on and have a hifi streamer option for super cheap. That's part of what I use them for, Squeezelite endpoints for multiple rooms that can be ganged together, so I can have synchronized music all through the house controllable from phone / tablet / anything with a browser.

I also had one running Octoprint to drive my 3D printers, but I screwed up the install and am redoing it in Docker this time. DietPi is a little quirky trying to customize it 'bare metal' but it also includes Docker & Portainer for vastly more capability at a higher learning curve. These are also straight Intel x86 devices, which isn't the advantage over ARM it used to be flexibility-wise but still comes in handy at times.

Nice. We have a pile of Wyse 5070's at work that have gone EoL. I think they are the Pentium Silver J5005 model, so have a reasonable amount of grunt. I might bring one home to play with.

It's been a while since i've played with Wyse kit. I beta tested the first version of Wyse ThinOS, it would have been around 2006-7, on a V10L client. I asked Wyse for a dual monitor version and I got sent another V10L with a hack-sawed hole in the back and crudely soldered daughterboard hosting a 2nd DVI socket. It worked though, I was able to run dual 24" widescreen monitors displaying a Windows XP desktop on VM running on ESXi Server 2.5 host. I think I probably got a promotion out of it :)
 

Berwhale

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The new Mini PC arrived, it is tiny...

1711581221297.jpeg


I wiped the disk - there are some reports PCs arriving from China with malware on them, although people have reported that these are OK - and re-installed Windows 11 from my clean installation disk, the Windows 11 Pro license was picked up from the BIOS and Windows activated itself.

These PCs are currently selling for £86/$104 on AliExpress for the 16GB RAM/512GB Storage model - Note that this is 4800Mhz DDR5 RAM and NVMe storage :)

there's a lot more information on this HotUKDeals Thread: https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/fi...fi-5-bt-42-wcode-at-cutesliving-store-4316722

People mentioned running pfsense Firewalls (it has 2x 1GbE NICs), Proxmox (with multiple VMs and containers on them) and even Roon on them.

Note that that this does have a fan in it, but it's pretty quiet...

1711581790950.png


From this review:
 

Ecaroh

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Apr 23, 2019
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So I’m using RPI 4 with HIFIBerry digihat in a HiFIBerry case...
NiagaraPete, does Wifi work okay from within that metal case? And do you happen to have a photo showing the back side, with the S/PDIF outputs? Thanks.
 

blanc

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What about the sound quality comparison between NUC + DAC and dedicated audio streamer + DAC? I read the latter is far more superior than the former.
 

formdissolve

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What about the sound quality comparison between NUC + DAC and dedicated audio streamer + DAC? I read the latter is far more superior than the former.
A dedicated audio streamer is basically the same thing as a PC. There will be no difference in audio quality. The only positive in my eyes of a dedicated streamer is if it has a built-in DAC like the excellent Matrix Audio flagship products so you can consolidate everything on your shelf.
 

Chr1

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You read wrong unfortunately. NUC and streamer will sound the same. Even super expensive audiophile streamers will not sound any better than my cheapest £30 fanless MiniPC.

As Public Enemy said : Don't believe the hype!
 
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NiagaraPete

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NiagaraPete, does Wifi work okay from within that metal case? And do you happen to have a photo showing the back side, with the S/PDIF outputs? Thanks.
I don't use WiFi but it should. Its within two feet of my router.
 

somebodyelse

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What about the sound quality comparison between NUC + DAC and dedicated audio streamer + DAC? I read the latter is far more superior than the former.
Archimago tested a NUC, Pi 3, odroid c3 and several PC based options like the MS Surface with the same DAC. Performance is essentially identical (within run-to-run variations). The result is not surprising given DAC measurements showing the well designed ones being insensitive to the device driving them.
https://archimago.blogspot.com/2016/08/measurements-intel-nuc6i5syh-and-audio.html
https://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/01/measurements-raspberry-pi-3-as-usb.html
https://archimago.blogspot.com/2016/05/measurements-odroid-c2-with-volumio-2.html
Several 'dedicated streamers' use generic hardware like Pi or MiniITX boards. Presumably you mean the ones that don't. Like the Wiim ones that perform well with external DACs (or internal for the Pro Plus)
Meanwhile https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...asurements-of-sonore-microrendu-streamer.577/ compared a dedicated streamer to a laptop. The 'audiophile friendly' hardware design seems to have worked against it.
 

formdissolve

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I use roon bridge on a Pi4 and even if it's 5 feet from the router, the WiFi has always sucked on a Pi for me.. so I just use a cable and tuck it away. The Pi 4 has its own ethernet instead of sharing it with USB like the 3b does.
 

napfkuchen

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Any recommendations for a silent PC in nuc form-factor (up to 250 Euro)?
 

dlovesmusic

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Any recommendations for a silent PC in nuc form-factor (up to 250 Euro)?
Depends on your use really. I bought one of these for $125us and it’s good enough to use as a roon core. If you want a bit more horse power go for a Intel n305 mini pc?

 

napfkuchen

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Usecase would only be music streaming. Thanks, I'll have a look at these.:)
 
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