Gary’s stupid good music *server*

mep

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I highly encourage everyone who doesn’t own a mega-buck digital front-end to plunk down $349.00 and buy the laptop that Gary recommends and devote a day to setting it up with Gary’s great instructions. Of course if you opt for the SS hard drive, it will double the cost. I didn’t opt for it, but I can’t imagine the SS hard drive would make another quantum leap in sound quality over what I’m hearing now. I’m going to wait for the storage capacity to double and the price to drop in half before I make that plunge. That won’t take long in the digital world that ages in dog years.

In the analog world, you can’t buy a source for $349.00 today and expect much from it. In the old days, that might have bought you a Rega P-3, but it didn’t buy you a cartridge. And I was never fond of glass platters being spun by a rubber band anyway.

The digital sound quality that you can obtain with a laptop using your software of choice (I’m using Foobar) and a D/A converter is simply stunning (and yeah, I said it). I’m using the mighty Creative Labs E-MU 0404 USB DAC that cost me a whopping $200.00. The 0404 is another giant-killer that is stupid good for the money. For a grand total of $549.00 plus some of your labor, you now have a digital front end that will play back any digital file up to 24/192. Hello HDtracks. No, it won’t do DSD, but ripping DSD files to a computer hasn’t come cheap yet. And neither is there much in the way of software to download at the present time.

If you love the digits and are still living in the stone age of using a CD player and want to put together a killer digital front end for comparatively little money in this wacky hobby, follow Gary’s instructions before you can’t buy that Toshiba laptop any more. Otherwise, you will have to wait for Gary to come out with Part 3 of his digital journey. Thanks again Gary for sharing your knowledge with us.
 

FrantzM

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Hi

I have built the other server Gary's recommended and am having a blast taking it to fiends with mega digital transports and watching their reaction. I second that and again thank Gary for his gift to Audiophiles...
From Gary again, his recommendation of the M2Tech Young DAC. This component is stuependous, not good, not very good ..STUPENDOUS ... Things are very dynamic in the DAC world with really cheap products routinely challenging megabucks items...
 
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garylkoh

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Glad you guys are having fun with the server. I am updating the paper based on Mark's and others experience building and using it, and added more details on parts that are not very clear. It'll be up on my website in a couple of days.
 

Tom B.

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Excellent article and instructions, Gary. Thank you. Had I read it previously it would have saved much time and frustration getting EAC w/Flac front end up and running smoothly on a new laptop.

Mark-how did you cable the 0404 into your system? I had access to a 'loaner' 0204 but turned it down due to the outputs...1/4" only. The 0404 supposedly has balanced outputs?

Tom
 

Tom B.

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Looks like the 0404 is discontinued. :(

Tom
 

mep

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Tom-the 0404 has been discontinued and no, it doesn't have balanced output jacks. You might want to take a look at the Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus. It will do everything the 0404 can, plus it has both RCA outputs and balanced outputs. Full list price is $649.00. I was hoping Amir would share some thoughts about it if he looks at the specs.

The 0404 has a stereo mini jack for output so I had to buy a Rat Shack converter plug to take it back to RCA jacks.
 

Tom B.

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Thanks Mark. The 0404 looked like a fun toy to try, especially at that price point. The E-MU 0204 is still available, does 192 kHz/24 bit over USB 2.0 but lacks balanced outputs (6.7 dBV). It is however inexpensive...in the $150~200 range from various sellers.

The DacMagic is a different story as the price is close to the Mytek I had been budgeting for...second choice would have been a Benchmark. Both have the features I need for an upcoming project, including balanced outputs on XLR. And, the pro guys love the Mytek.

Still, the E-MU DACs would make for good experimentation on the cheap.

Tom
 

garylkoh

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Tom-the 0404 has been discontinued and no, it doesn't have balanced output jacks. You might want to take a look at the Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus. It will do everything the 0404 can, plus it has both RCA outputs and balanced outputs. Full list price is $649.00. I was hoping Amir would share some thoughts about it if he looks at the specs.

The 0404 has a stereo mini jack for output so I had to buy a Rat Shack converter plug to take it back to RCA jacks.

Instead of a converter, I use this to hook up my 0404 to my balanced preamp.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/accessories/mogami-gold-trs-xlr-male-quad-patch-cable

The 0404 has excellent outputs on 1/4" TRS sockets, and the Mogami is one of the best balanced interconnects, even when money is no object.
 

garylkoh

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The 0404 might be discontinued but I still think that it's a great DAC if you can find one used. It was one of the earliest DACs to use the great AK4396 chip. The 0202 uses the much inferior CD4392. The 0204 uses the AK5385 - which is good but I don't think as good as the AK4396. All this IMHO.

The problem with the 0404 is that the Windows 7 drivers are beta. Mark hasn't had any problems, but I'm still experiencing glitches (BSOD). May be because I have 4 sets of different DAC drivers installed.

Mark - if you've been using the headphones outputs on the 0404 to RCA, you'll get another leap in performance using the TRS to RCA or XLR mogami interconnects.
 

mep

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Gary-I am having issues of sorts now. If I set the 0404 control panel to anything higher than 96 kHz, Foobar won’t play as it causes an error between Foobar and the 0404. This is why I was thinking about the DacMagic Plus.
 

garylkoh

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I have similar issues. If I switch from a 44.1 file to a 176.4 file, there's no issue, but then when I switch back to the next 44.1 file, I get BSOD. This is with eMU ASIO. On WASAPI, the 0404 doesn't switch automatically, and going up and down resolutions, I get the "channels error" with Foobar and 0404.

Now, I primarily use it as a ADC until my Lynx Hilo arrives.
 

Ki Choi

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The 0404 might be discontinued but I still think that it's a great DAC if you can find one used. It was one of the earliest DACs to use the great AK4396 chip. The 0202 uses the much inferior CD4392. The 0204 uses the AK5385 - which is good but I don't think as good as the AK4396. All this IMHO.

Hi Gary:

I had been using the April Music Stello DA100 Signature that uses AK4395 chip that is similar to the AK4396 but without the DSD input capability but with lower ripple spec for PCM conversion. April Music demoed their new DP1 DAC at the recent CES and used DA100 Sigs show up on Audiogon once in a while for those who are interested.
 

garylkoh

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Hi Gary:

I had been using the April Music Stello DA100 Signature that uses AK4395 chip that is similar to the AK4396 but without the DSD input capability but with lower ripple spec for PCM conversion. April Music demoed their new DP1 DAC at the recent CES and used DA100 Sigs show up on Audiogon once in a while for those who are interested.

Yes, I had forgotten about the DA100 SE - that's another great DAC. I had that before the Weiss Minerva. Unfortunately, it doesn't do 24/192 on USB as Mark wants.
 

Tom B.

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OK, music server project underway! I was not able to readily dig up the laptop Gary recommended, but Best Buy had a good deal on a similar Toshiba, stock number C675-S7103. For $379 you get a 17.3" LED back-lit display, 4 gig memory and 320 gig hard disk. It has Win 7 Home Premium, but my techie friends think this will not be a problem. For the money it is quite a nice unit; if it had Windows 7 Professional I'd buy a bunch for my guys at the office. It didn't have much 'bloatware' on it as received, either.

By chance I had an extra BitDefender license, which is good as this machine might occasionally see internet connectivity.....I don't see how you can do without it, given much of the music will be downloads. You can probably download to another machine and transfer to the server....um, I guess. How does everyone else do it?

I jumped on the laptop before getting the DAC as it will probably take a week or more just getting the software platforms up and running. Getting EAC running and optimized is a weekend project, and I've not used Foobar, so there is still some work ahead.

Kinda excited about this project, though. Thanks again to Gary for the article.

Tom
 

garylkoh

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OK, music server project underway! I was not able to readily dig up the laptop Gary recommended, but Best Buy had a good deal on a similar Toshiba, stock number C675-S7103. For $379 you get a 17.3" LED back-lit display, 4 gig memory and 320 gig hard disk. It has Win 7 Home Premium, but my techie friends think this will not be a problem. For the money it is quite a nice unit; if it had Windows 7 Professional I'd buy a bunch for my guys at the office. It didn't have much 'bloatware' on it as received, either.

That is a good one - with the B960 processor. Win7 Home Premium will not be a problem.

By chance I had an extra BitDefender license, which is good as this machine might occasionally see internet connectivity.....I don't see how you can do without it, given much of the music will be downloads. You can probably download to another machine and transfer to the server....um, I guess. How does everyone else do it?

I generally use another machine for ripping (so that it can connect to the Internet to get cover art) and downloads, and then transfer to the music server for playback. However, because I do occasionally connect to the Internet, I installed Security Essentials, but left it on OFF. With a good DAC, I haven't found connecting to the Internet to be as detrimental to sound quality as it was 3 years ago.

I jumped on the laptop before getting the DAC as it will probably take a week or more just getting the software platforms up and running. Getting EAC running and optimized is a weekend project, and I've not used Foobar, so there is still some work ahead.

Kinda excited about this project, though. Thanks again to Gary for the article.

Tom

I'll be here to answer questions. But I'm on vacation/workation this week, so may not answer as quickly. I'll put this thread on watch......
 

Tom B.

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Gary,

So far the setup has gone pretty much as documented...currently about half way done. Foobar is installed and running with the only hitch that it cannot connect to the Freedb server when ripping a CD. Initially this was thought to be a firewall problem with BitDefender; at this point I'm still at a loss for the lack of connectivity.

The debate is still open on whether Foobar does a better job of ripping CDs than EAC...it certainly seems simpler, if only the metadata/tagger was working.

Foobars' user interface is cool, though, especially with the peakmeter spectrum component installed.

More later.......back to work :)

Tom
 

garylkoh

WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
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Tom,

Under [File] [Preferences] [Tools] [Tagging] [freedb tagger] you need to make sure that you keyed in your email address. Otherwise, freedb will refuse access.

I have to admit not testing out the SQ of the Foobar ripper. I have used it a couple of times for convenience since I don't have dbPowerAmp on my server when someone brought in a CD for me to rip.
 

Tom B.

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Jul 10, 2011
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It seems as if Freedb is declining my actual email address, but will accept odd addresses such as 'me@you.com'......wierd. Even so, I am getting odd data retrievals from Freedb on discs that I had previously ripped and tagged with other services. Will have to try again to see if it is a problem at their end which might clear up.

My thought process was that the configuration that makes this laptop a good music server might make it a good disc ripper, but general consensus is that EAC does a better job of ripping, and even diehard Foobar fans are generally using EAC for rips.

EAC with FLAC frontend is a bit clunky to implement but last time I used it was almost a year ago; perhaps the integration is better now.

Tom
 

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