Laptop vs. Desk top computer for music server

mep

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Apr 20, 2010
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This may have been covered before, but what are the thoughts on using a laptop with an external hard drive vice using a desk top computer as I'm currently doing? The idea of using a laptop appeals to me because I think they are quiet enough that I could have it in my listening room which I can't with my desk top because it's too damn noisy. Also, I could do away with my 35' ICs that are currently running from my DAC to my KBL.

And having said all of this, I'm amazed at how good my digital rig sounds. It would be cool to make it even better.
 

mep

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I look forward to it Gary.
 

amirm

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My vote is for laptop or all-in-one with touchscreen. The latter is what we have in our showroom:



Both are very quiet, and take little space.
 

DonH50

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Jun 22, 2010
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There are super-quiet desktops from places like Sweetwater Sound that are tailored to provide very quiet operation. On the laptop side, seems like most Apple laptops are very quiet, since they use the entire case as a heat sink to eliminate/reduce fans. You could also make a sound-proof box for the desktop, though the hard part is (as usual) cooling the durn thing. My old laptop is pretty noisy when the little fan cranks up.

Laptops tend to use lower-power devices (to save power) and that also means slower fans and disk drives (same reason). That does tend to make them quieter. My wife's fairly new laptop runs very quiet. If you strip out all the fluff and dedicate it as a music server, a lower-end laptop seems like a nice idea.

Curious: Anybody built a Linux laptop server?
 

mep

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What is an "all-in-one with touchscreen?"
 

DonH50

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Apple iMac or any of the "all-in-one" units from the PC vendors that combine everything into the monitor case. Just one box, plus keyboard and mouse, of course, if needed. Touchscreen models may allow you to do without the keyboard.

Would an iPad or similar tablet PC work?
 

amirm

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What is an "all-in-one with touchscreen?"
They are a computer built into the monitor that is also a touchscreen. Look at the picture that I post. That monitor is actually the entire computer. It has a USB cable that goes to our USB to S/PDIF bridge and then to the DAC. While we can manage the PC using a remote, we can also walk up to it and touch the screen to not only play music, but also manage the functions of the PC. That way we don't need to pull out the mouse and keyboard although we have them too (they are wireless). HP, Lenovo, Sony, ASUS and others make them.
 

amirm

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Would an iPad or similar tablet PC work?
Yes, the tablet works although I don't know that many people make them.

Ipad can work as a remote or as "push" device to a node by your stereo (i.e. Apple TV). But clearly if the iPad is in your hand, you likely don't want it danging with a wire to your audio equipment :). As a node connected to the audio equipment, I have not heard of a good USB adapter for them so that is not a solution for high-fidelity transport unless someone knows something I don't :).
 

DonH50

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Hmmm... Mark was talking about a laptop, so I was trying to think of something small and quiet. I suppose you could get one of the external drives with a wireless link, or add a WAP or whatever, so you keep the tablet with you and put the HD(s) behind doors.

What does not work about the USB adapter? Is it the usual clocking problem, or something else? Would a wireless node feeding hub with a HD on it into an asychronous DAC work? I know the complexity is rising...
 

amirm

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You mean on Ipad? It would be lack of drivers for typical asynchrnonous bridges and such. There are some decent quality Docks though so maybe that is an option but don't know if they really perform.
 

DonH50

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OK. I am apparently missing the boat on this... I was thinking of a DAC with a buffer memory and that generated it's own clock, an asynchronous DAC in the sense that a precise low-jitter data stream was not required. I assumed the data came from the HD, not the iPad (or whatever).

This sounds like a good opportunity; a little controller that simply takes commands from the network and controls a HD interface to a DAC box, providing a nice clean clock in the process.
 

Phelonious Ponk

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Jun 30, 2010
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Just use the iPad as a remote. That puts the touchscreen in your lap instead of on the wall between your speakers.

Tim
 

fas42

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This sounds like a good opportunity; a little controller that simply takes commands from the network and controls a HD interface to a DAC box, providing a nice clean clock in the process.
I agree. This would satisfy Amir, for example: the primary or master clock is the one next to the DAC, and the CPU processing is directly fed from that clock, no other crystals or VCOs in the arena ...

Frank
 

JackD201

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Apr 20, 2010
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I worry about laptops cooking their boards so I went with a standalone (iMac) in my main listening room. The internal drive ripping from CDs to AIFF is not up to snuff though compared to rips done on a dedicated, vibration controlled drive of our own Gary's recipe. Bummer.
 

garylkoh

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I'm in China on business, so not much time to contribute much until after CES, but the music server recipe I had for last Oct was pretty quiet. The only thing that moves in that PC was a very large, 105mm slow moving fan. You can hear it sitting next to your ear in a quiet room, but as little as 2m away, it's silent - about as noisy as a mid-high end CD transport.

Reason I went to a laptop this year was because of Intel's new Sandy Bridge architecture. In the mobile Pentium (B950) line, running at 38% of CPU clock in a laptop, the fan never came on playing music and mother board temperatures never got over 45 deg C. Pretty good, I thought. First one was built based on a Toshiba laptop (I'm building three) and a 120GB SSD. Total should be less than $650 INCLUDING the SSD plus a 64GB flash drive for additional storage. No moving parts (except for the fan that never kicks off) so totally silent.

Once all three are built, and I learn from building all of them, I'll publish another "cookbook".
 

garylkoh

WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
Sep 6, 2010
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I worry about laptops cooking their boards so I went with a standalone (iMac) in my main listening room. The internal drive ripping from CDs to AIFF is not up to snuff though compared to rips done on a dedicated, vibration controlled drive of our own Gary's recipe. Bummer.

With dBPowerAmp, I found that when the CD is found in the AccurateRip datebase, controlling for vibration in the ripping drive ensures that it can be done in a single pass every time. Placing the drive on a judder box definitely increases the time it takes to rip. So, that's another datepoint that even though the end result should be identical, ripping on a dedicated, vibration controlled drive does make a difference.

I thought that the Apple ripper also checks against a CRC database? I was told by many of my friends that the Apple does as good a job at ripping as my dedicated PC. But they are all Macadamia nuts (in the academic profession) :)
 

Vincent Kars

WBF Technical Expert: Computer Audio
Jul 1, 2010
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I never heard of a CRC database by Apple or Gracenotes.
If they do they should rip with offset correction.
Never heard of iTunes doing this.
However most todays ripping software when set to secure mode does a good job.
 

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