● FAQ - Computer-Based Silent Music Servers

If you would like us to set up the computer for you — by installing the Lynx card and configuring all of the software and finally testing it to make sure that it is locking to word clock properly and that it sounds good—our labor charge to do that would be a flat fee of $500.

For a link to a listing of various companies now offering high resolution files Click here :

UPDATE:  One of our clients told us that he has transferred his music from his collection of DVD-A (DVD-Audio), DAD, HDAD, and DualDisc to his music server using some software called "DVD-Audio Explorer". Many of these formats contain tracks at 96/24—while some are 48/24 or even 192/24. Click the links above for more information and some listings of available recordings.

 

Tip: If you are going to transfer music from an HDCD-encoded CD's to a music server,  Illustrate's dBpoweramp CDGrabber has a DSP effect that allows tracks from HDCDs to be ripped to 24-bit WAV files. The files have a bit rate of 2116.8 kbit/x and are about 1.5 times as large as 16-bit WAV files. For example if a 16-bit WAV file was 60 MB in size, then that same file in 24-bit WAV file would be about 90 MB. Not that this will affect anything, but you might be interested to know that while the files will be listed as 24-bit, technically speaking only 20 bits per sample will contain actual data. However, if your D-A converter will decode HDCD there is no need to do this. The only reason to do this is if your D-A converter will not decode HDCD. In fact there is a distinct advantage in not doing this, as if your D-A will decode HDCD the HDCD light will be illuminated when decoding HDCD, and when it does that is an excellent indicator that you have an accurate file transfer to your music server.

If you use Exact Audio Copy make sure that you read the website thoroughly as there are a number of important things to know before using the program in order to obtain optimal results. Here are the links:

The final price will of course depend upon how many TB (terabytes) of storage you would wish to have inside. Just for example, a ReadyNAS Pro with close to 4TB (4x1TB or 2x2TB) of raw hard drive space would be less than $2000—although this can also be configured to hold far more if you utilize the maximum of 6 hard disks. (Note raw space per hard disk is actually a bit less in actual use. For instance a 2TB hard disk actually is about 1.81TB.) Please understand though that if this is setup as RAID 1 that that would roughly cut the available storage space in half. There are other RAID configurations however which would use the storage space more efficiently of course such as X-RAID. One advantage to the NAS approach to adding more storage is that in theory you can run an ethernet cable up to about 100 meters (328 feet).

November 2009 UPDATE: When using the Western Digital 2TB RE4-GP WD2002FYPS drives the following add-on must be installed (this code will be included in the next RAIDiator releases).]

December 2009 UPDATE: We are now looking at using 2TB hard drives as Western Digital is now shipping 2TB RE4-GP WD2002FYPS 5400 RPM drives (with firmware version 04.05G05 or later) which means that storage space in RAID could be increased to something in the neighborhood of 9TB. [Note: The WD 2TB RE4-GP WD2002FYPS drive has been qualified by Netgear for the Pro Business and Pro Pioneer.

January 2010 UPDATE: Western Digital has also recently announced the 2TB WD2003FYYS which also may work in the NAS, although it hasn't been tested yet so it would be premature to use it until it has been tested and approved for the Netgear NAS RAID array usage. NOTE: Only certain specific models of hard drives are recommended for this application. Here is a Netgear ReadyNAS hard drive compatibility list.

March 2010 UPDATE:  We have recently seen several 2TB Western Digital RE4-GP WD2002FYPS 5400 RPM drives fail. At first we thought that maybe they were not being sufficiently cooled and therefore that was a contributing factor. However after some research, including the Google white paper on hard drive reliability (just google it!), it would seem that drive temperatures, unless they are extreme are probably not the cause. So it would appear that some percentage of these drives have indeed been problematic—although our sample size is too small to draw any valid overall conclusions. Going forward we will continue to monitor the reliability of these hard drives. If we continue to see problems we may alternatively try the 2TB Hitachi Ultrastar A7K2000 HUA722020ALA330 drives (an Enterprise level drive)--however any drive from any manufacturer can fail which is why of course all data on every system needs to be backed up. In any case, for now we are continuing to use Western Digital RE (RAID Edition) drives at the 2TB size—especially as we have heard that Western Digital tech support is better than that of Hitachi here in the US.

April 2010 UPDATE: So far the 1TB WD RE3 drives have continued to work reliably long term so at present that is our top recommendation unless you need the larger 2TB size.

June 2010 UPDATE: We haven't seen any of the above mentioned 1TB or 2TB Western Digital drives have any problems over the past few months.

At some point In the future we will also be testing an eSATA SSD RAID array. However in the near future a NAS (Network Attached Storage) will be a less expensive proposition if you have a large music library. Plus you should know that eSATA is limited to a cable length of about 2 meters—whereas, as previously mentioned, the NAS can have an ethernet cable that is up to 100 meters (328 feet) long.

 

How much does it cost for a NAS (Network Attached Storage) unit and the hard disks to go inside it?

As of April 2010 the cost for the NAS that we have been using along with the recommended hard drives is approximately as follows:

ReadyNAS Pioneer $1400 without hard drives (minimum number of hard drives to put in is 2—maximum is 6)

Western Digital 1TB RE3 hard drives $160 each (approx.) or Western Digital 2TB RE4-GP hard drives (firmware version 04.05G05 or later) $300 each (approx.). For redundancy a minimum 2 hard drives is necessary to start.

If you would like us to set up the NAS for you we charge a flat fee of $500 to install the hard drives, set up the software, and test it here with your music server. However if you are savvy with regard to NAS and networking this is something that you can do yourself.

Assuming that all parts are in stock, it takes a minimum of about 7-10 days to have the computer built. Then it takes about a week for it to get here. Then, depending upon how busy we are, it usually takes us about a week or two to set it up and test it. Then add in however long it takes to ship or deliver it to you. So an estimate of the total time it would take could be approximately 4 weeks or more from time of order.

As for what formats can be played, any format for which there is computer software available can be played as long as it can be outputted over AES-EBU which is the recommended type of digital cable connection. (We recommend AES-EBU in this configuration as that has the lowest jitter. To make a long story short, the lower the jitter the better the sound quality. In case you don't know jitter is defined as timing errors in the digital domain and is measured in picoseconds.)  We are not familiar with what software there currently is that would play Dolby True-HD — however it may exist either now or in the future. However please understand that currently Dolby True HD as well as encoded formats such as DTS-HD Master are limited to HDMI which incorporates HDCP.

Currently most people are using this computer with Windows XP SP3 as the OS and Media Monkey Gold to play audio Wave files that range from 44.1/16 up to 192/24. However you can also use it for lossy compressed files such as MP3 or lossless compressed files such as FLAC. There is a fairly complete list of file types that are supported on Media Monkey that you can find on their website:

 www.mediamonkey.com

AIFF (which can be also tagged as AIF) files can be played with a plug-in which is available from the aforementioned Media Monkey website. Click this link and scroll down to "WAVE Input Plug-in 2.07" and follow the instructions.

SHD files also can be played—though we haven't tested this file type yet.

You have the option of buying the computer with no OS (operating system) and then installing whichever OS you wish. For instance using some version of Linux plus whatever music server software that would run on it if that were your choice. In theory you might even be able to put the Mac OS on it if you so chose—however we have never attempted to do that and we don't recommend going the "Hackintosh" route as it violates the Apple OS X EULA (software agreement) and obviously is completely unsupported. We do not recommend using Vista as it has been superseded by Win 7. However Windows 7 with J. River Media Center music server software is another combination that you could choose but we have not yet tested it ourselves.

From all of the testing that has been done so far though the best sound quality is currently being made with Windows XP if the setup is precisely done to optimize sound quality. Although having said that there is no reason why Linux couldn't be as good given the right software--assuming that you have Linux expertise of course.

What we have in our soundroom is a long extension cable for the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. That way the music server is sitting by the equipment rack right next to the DAC so the digital cable is nice and short. And the user interface hardware (monitor, keyboard, and mouse) are on a side table right next to the listening chair.  (In normal use we only use the mouse and the monitor for operating the music server. The keyboard is only used for set-up and inputting metadata)

There are other ways to do so and you can find them on the MediaMonkey site here and here. 

Please note that we have not tested any of the other wireless remote controls so we can't vouch for how well they work or if there could possibly be any sonic consequences from using any of them.