Music Server Project

[Jaguar]

I was definitely getting a delay when playing the files on my hard drive. I'll have to try it again.

I can't try it now because my motherboard is out for repairs. I was inserting memory stick back in my computer and didn't pay attention that I hadn't shut it down. The lighting wasn't good and the stick was facing backwards, which probably didn't help either. It was electrical buzzing, smoke and broken computer, in that order. Thankfully, the board is still under warranty and didn't come with an on-board video camera to record what I did to it. I hope to get it back next week.

 

[Vincent Kars]

Vincent
In the simplest less time-intensive fashion.

The answer is simple: impossible but there are a couple of tricks.

As far as file structure is concerned, I recommend to keep all tracks of a CD in 1 folder.
If something goes wrong, this makes it easier to locate the CD.

Using an internet database in general gives you the right Album.
A bulk copy to a tag like "Original Album" is also convenient.

The problem is the internet database. A lot of rippers use FreeDB.
Yes it is free and no, it is not very structured.
At the time I was ripping (2007) the composer was in the Artist tag and the performer had to take care of him self (a convention still recommend up to today by Slimdevices!)

I solved this by doing a manual lookup using WMP.
WMP uses AMG and this is a pretty good database for tagging classical.
At least you have the Composer, the Artist and the Conductor in the right tags.
http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/TG/database.html

I wanted to have my music organized by composition.
This is a matter of selecting the tracks and editing the album title.
A tedious job but I'm glad I did.
Having the Opus in the Album title, I used MP3Tag to generate an opus tag
http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/Opus.htm

 

[andyr]

Hi Andy,

The vinyl cognoscenti will crucify me for this, but yes, ripping your vinyl to hi-rez digital is definitely the way to go for us aging folk.

The reason I recommended a standard mirrored disk drive array for storage of music files is that solid-state drives are still too expensive in the 500GB range. Once you get the drives outside the server, and with a separate power supply, I did not find the spinning drive to be detrimental to the sound of the server. So, playing off a USB stick sounds no better than playing off the drive array I recommended.

With the drive array, you don't need to worry about looking for USB sticks. The main advantage is organization, and being able to browse your entire music collection on screen. You can select by artist, performer, soloist, whatever. The more information you tag your music with, the better you can search. For example, I can play every piece I have with David Oistrakh as soloist without having to look through every record and CD.

Aah, thanks Gary - it's good to know from practical experience that a spinning disk does not degrade the sound.

I appreciate that you can then tag/organise/search your collection if it's on disk.

The server is already configured with the maximum amount of memory. You get better sound if the music storage drive is de-fragmented, and if the drive has a larger buffer. The drive I recommended is a hybrid drive with 4GB of solid-state read cache and a 32Mb buffer.

My understanding is that the 4GB of "real" memory, yes, is solid-state but the 32MB of buffer is disk based?

I don't know how many GBs a hi-rez rip of an LP side is but wouldn't it be better to have enough memory for the whole file to be loaded in, before playing? Or is this less than 4GB?

Regards,

Andy

 

[garylkoh]

My understanding is that the 4GB of "real" memory, yes, is solid-state but the 32MB of buffer is disk based?

The 4GB is real solid-state memory, and Seagate has some "intelligent" algorithm to populate it with the most frequently used files. The 32MB of buffer is a buffer for the spinning disc to increase seek and retrieval times. Different applications.

I don't know how many GBs a hi-rez rip of an LP side is but wouldn't it be better to have enough memory for the whole file to be loaded in, before playing? Or is this less than 4GB?

A single LP side is about 1GB at 24bits/192kHz..... I don't think that you will need much more resolution than that, but I know some are now recording at 32bit/384kHz.

 

[andyr]

A single LP side is about 1GB at 24bits/192kHz..... I don't think that you will need much more resolution than that, but I know some are now recording at 32bit/384kHz.

Thanks, Gary. So 4GB is more than enough.

Regards,

Andy

 

[Jaguar]

The CMP site that Gary suggested a few pages ago has a lot of interesting Windows tweaks, all the way down to the registry. Unfortunately it's based on XP, so it's hard to apply to Win 7 in many cases.

I've been using an excellent tool, Boot It NG, which allows you to have multiple bootable OS installations, so you can tweak one and compare it to the other(s). You would assume that shutting more of the OS down would result in a better sounding platform, but I found that Win 7 in one partition, with nearly all of the services turned off, sounded noticeably inferior to another partition with the default settings; one or more of the services I had turned off did not effect the basic operation of the player, but it was killing my sound. Not being able to boot back into the original OS configuration makes it harder to remember what it sounded like and compare.


http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootit-next-generation.htm

The CMP document talks about extending the USB Polling Interval, which sounds similar to what Gary was talking about with shutting down Plug and Play. I've found that shutting down P&P in Win 7 will completely disable any USB audio, but I haven't figured out whether the Polling Interval can be changed in Win 7.

 

[garylkoh]

Folks, because Apple's just released Remote V2 for the iPad, there's an update for foo_touchremote. Get it here: http://wintense.com/

The version number is still 0.1.2.1 - but it's been patched to support Remote V2 for the iPad.

It's definitely worth doing - the remote control for Foobar now looks like this.

 

[The Smokester]

Vincent

The tagging problems stem from having to manually enter information . I would like a way to organize my classical side of the collection by composers, Performers, Orchestra or opus.. In the simplest less time-intensive fashion. It is currently organized by Albums but Classical music often has different Composers or Conductors on the same album...
The bother to manually enter all CD liner notes and covers was too much and many of my ripped albums are in their respective folder with only the back and Front covers, the cue file and the CD images.

Frantz, It has been so long since I made these decisions I forget exactly how I got here...But I use dbPowerAmp to rip my cd's to flac and to verify the integrity of the file against a database of checksums (or whatever). In addition, I pay an additional $5 per year to AMG for access to their database from which metadata (and album art) are automatically downloaded and added to the flac files.

The metadata on the flac files are collected into, and organized by, MediaMonkey (MM Gold) which uses links back to the original ripped flac file (so you are never screwing with the original unless you want to). There are metadata place holders for composer, album artist and track artist among other things. Many classical cds are in the AMG database already in a satisfactory form, but even if some data are missing it is usually provides a good starting point. MM can be used to add or edit metadata. In MM Gold there are many ways to slice, dice and search the metadata so finding and playing stuff is easy. I periodically use MM Gold to rip the library to MP3 so that I can synch my iPod Classic and also put a copy of the music on my laptop. MM also works for hi rez digital downloads (like from linn.com) since they include metadata as well. MM Gold can make playlists, also.

I remember using foobar long ago but seem to have had difficulty getting the metadata right. Also, it did not do classical well. And another thing was that I don't think foobar had any way to include vinyl...With MediaMonkey you can add info for albums for which there is no matching digital file. Surely things have advanced in the intervening years, but I am pleased with dbPoweramp and MediMonkey Gold.

Hope this helps.

 

[Jaguar]

Here's a few more websites tweaking Win 7.

http://www.tweakhound.com/windows7/index.htm
http://www.askvg.com/category/windows-seven/

 

[Vincent Kars]

Have a look at the Black Viper: http://www.blackviper.com/Windows_7/servicecfg.htm

 

[Jaguar]

Here is a program to tweak your registry, to control what is auto-starting when you boot Windows. Much more powerful than MSCONFIG. Make sure you have a system image backup, in case you do something that prevents you from being able to reboot the machine...though you should have an updated, saved system image no matter what you're doing. I've found that when installing Windows it's a good idea to create an OS partition of about 20-40G (also for your programs) as the C: drive and put all of your media into another partition; give you more flexibility to control the OS partition size and save a smaller system image for the OS partition. If you don't know how to create a system image, try the bottom link.

Also, I've done some experimenting with Ultimate Tweak and RT7Lite. RT7 is a good tool to create a Windows 7 installation disk, with a lot of preset configurations; I haven't determined how to use it for an existing installation. I have used Ultimate Tweak to make a lot of changes to my existing Win 7 installation.


http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
http://www.myantispyware.com/2005/11/29/autoruns-hunt-down-autostart-programs-wherever-they-hide/


http://www.shivaranjan.com/2009/05/...a-hard-disk-partition-or-windows-7-partition/

 

[amirm]

Have a look at the Black Viper: http://www.blackviper.com/Windows_7/servicecfg.htm

That's a great link! I once screwed up the default settings for half a dozen services in Win 7 in the process of troubleshooting which one was acting up but then couldn't figure out the previous defaults no matter how much I searched online. The above would have saved me from having to re-install Windows .

 

[Jaguar]

There is a lot of confusion about jitter...what it is and how it effects the sound. This article from Steve Nugent gives a lot of great information to help understand the issue. For those who just built a server on server Saturday, it may help to give it some break-in before critical listening; I just replaced my motherboard and found that it took a while for the sound to get back to where it was before.

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue43/jitter.htm

It would be interesting to test the jitter performance of Gary's new server model. I don't know how difficult it is to set up a test? We also need to fit a server comparison into a meeting sometime. Willie insists his Mac (with Pure Music) betters a tweaked PC (with Foobar) by a wide margin. I have my doubts about whether an off-the-shelf Mac can have better jitter performance than a highly-modified PC, but it begs a listening test.

 

[amirm]

It would be interesting to test the jitter performance of Gary's new server model. I don't know how difficult it is to set up a test?

You mean a test to measure Jitter? If so, it is quite an expensive proposition. I have an Audio Precision analyzer which can measure it but I have never set it up to do so with Jitter. It is one of the things on my TODO list. Once there, I am happy to measure you all's boxes.

 

[Jaguar]

Hi Amir, that would be really cool. I know there are a few of us who would like to take you up on your offer if you get your analyzer set up. That could really help settle that Mac vs. PC debate.

My next jitter reduction effort is to take the one fan in my machine (the CPU fan) off the board, with an AC adapter. Gary says the electrically-noisy fan motor can be audibly detremental. Below is a list of parts from Mouser and SVC.com if anyone wants to try it.

Make sure the fan is spinning in the right direction when you plug it in. The fan will run continuously, so just replace it every few years. There's a small freeware program called CoreTemp that shows the temp of each core in your desktop system tray.


Mouser #: 163-MJ21-EX
Mfr. #: 163-MJ21-EX
Desc.: DC Power Connectors PANEL MOUNT 2.1MM

Mouser #: 553-WDU12-100
Mfr. #: WDU12-100
Desc.: Plug-In AC Adapters 120 VAC 2.8W 12VDC 0.1A

svc.com 12" Sleeved 3-Pin to 3-Pin Fan Power Extension Cable
Part #: FC33-12BKS

 

[Jay_S]

For those who just built a server on server Saturday, it may help to give it some break-in before critical listening; I just replaced my motherboard and found that it took a while for the sound to get back to where it was before.

That's quite a concept. As I understand it, this server is operating purely in the digital domain. What kind of break-in or warmup does it need and what is happening then? Maybe Amir could take a look at that as well.

 

[garylkoh]

You mean a test to measure Jitter? If so, it is quite an expensive proposition. I have an Audio Precision analyzer which can measure it but I have never set it up to do so with Jitter. It is one of the things on my TODO list. Once there, I am happy to measure you all's boxes.

Hi Amir, when you do, I'll definitely want to take you up on that. It is amazing what makes a difference in the sound of a server that cannot be explained by computer experts. I have a suspicion that it is jitter, but I don't have the Audio Precision analyzer.

 

[garylkoh]

That's quite a concept. As I understand it, this server is operating purely in the digital domain. What kind of break-in or warmup does it need and what is happening then? Maybe Amir could take a look at that as well.

Somehow, bits are not bits when they come at the wrong time???? It's only speculation - like it took us 3 years to understand why it is that Solid-State drives sound better than a normal spinning drive - and it had nothing to do with the bits coming out of the drive. It had to do with the electrical contamination from the servo motors in the hard disk drive that moves the head of the disk. When we moved the power supply of the hard drive external of the server, the cheap spinning hard disk drive started sounding as good as the solid state drive.

It's still early in this "technology" - snake oil if you're a "bits are bits" kind of guy. We are still discovering things about this server. One of the builders found something that I still can't bring myself to believe, but I don't have the time right now to get into it. He found that the power cord on the server changed the sound. HUH?? I'm a cable designer, and I don't believe it...... until I can prove/understand it for myself.

 

[Jaguar]

The article on jitter points out that spikes in the power supply can cause jitter, so that might explain the benefit of the power cable. I felt like I noticed a benefit when I plugged my machine into my power conditioner.

I'm not sure why break-in would be a factor, but what happened was I had a problem with the motherboard switched to my laptop for music and thought to myself "that doesn't sound very good"; a few weeks later I had the desktop back in action and first though "that sounds like the laptop" and several days later I was thinking the sound was back to normal. There's a lot of speculation built in here and a quantitative measurement like a jitter analysis is probably the only way to really make a solid case for these impressions.

 

[Vincent Kars]

You mean a test to measure Jitter? If so, it is quite an expensive proposition. I have an Audio Precision analyzer which can measure it but I have never set it up to do so with Jitter. It is one of the things on my TODO list. Once there, I am happy to measure you all's boxes.

If things like HD or SSD, different media players, memory playback, all those tweaks will be backed up by jitter measurements, it will be a first on pc based audio forums and of tremendous value.