Music Server Project

[garylkoh]

Nothing simple about this program. You have to download it, unzip it, burn a CD and then boot from the CD in order to test your memory??

Yes - but it's the most comprehensive test of RAM available. I run multiple scans overnight, and have found bad RAM causing unexplained BSOD's in my systems.

 

[Vincent Kars]

You are lucky it was a BSOD.
I have heard some horror stories of audio data getting corrupted because of flaky memory.
That is the disadvantage of having no ECC memory in a PC.

Is Windows Memory Diagnostics an option?

 

[garylkoh]

That particular computer was giving me unexplained glitches in music, and when it started to also BSOD I started testing it. I originally thought that it was a bad driver/motherboard device. Windows Diagnostics didn't find anything, and it was finally memtest that found that one of the sticks of RAM was bad.

 

[FrantzM]

mep

Would you mind going for a clean re-install?
Sometimes it is the best solution .. Make sure that you have windows install all its updates before starting any installation .. You can always get rid of ehm later if needs be...

 

[garylkoh]

That's what I suggested about 10 posts back. If Mark has made changes outside my instructions, I'm flying blind trying to help. Unfortunately, if it's RAM problems (which seem to be far more common now than I used to think), a clean re-install won't help.

Just to make Mark feel better, when I got home from CES, my wife told me that the home computer/music server is crashing every couple of days again......

 

[Ron Party]

The other option is to forego this program and instead use JRiver which also is controllable with an iPad. This is exactly what I use.

 

[mep]

That's what I suggested about 10 posts back. If Mark has made changes outside my instructions, I'm flying blind trying to help. Unfortunately, if it's RAM problems (which seem to be far more common now than I used to think), a clean re-install won't help.

Just to make Mark feel better, when I got home from CES, my wife told me that the home computer/music server is crashing every couple of days again......

Gary-I didn't make any changes outside of your instructions. I think the crash was caused by the Iphone controlling Foobar and losing the server connection.

 

[mep]

The other option is to forego this program and instead use JRiver which also is controllable with an iPad. This is exactly what I use.

Is there anything approaching a consensus on what software program is the "best" to run a music server? And I mean best in both SQ and stability. I read different things on WBF and other places that say the software programs don't affect the final sound we hear.

 

[Ron Party]

I'd be shocked if there is a reliable, audible difference. I find JRiver's user interface to be friendlier. Connecting an iPad is a snap.

 

[garylkoh]

You're kidding, right? We don't even have anything approaching consensus on whether we can hear speaker cables.

Foobar is not easy to make it look "pretty", and requires some technical and programming knowledge. JRiver used not to sound as good as Foobar, but I've heard reports that the latest versions (post ver 15) all sound good in event-driven mode, but I haven't tried it yet. Others say that I'm nuts to report software and USB cables and even solid-state memory having SQ implications.

 

[garylkoh]

Gary-I didn't make any changes outside of your instructions. I think the crash was caused by the Iphone controlling Foobar and losing the server connection.

In that case, if you have Foobar crashing with changing buffer length, I would definitely test the memory with memtest. You might have a bad stick of RAM.

 

[mep]

Gary-I downloaded the program, unzipped it, and burned it to a disc. I just haven't gone into bios and told the laptop to boot from the DVD/ROM. Maybe this weekend.

Revise the above statement to "test memory today." So Gary, uh, how long does this test take? I'm currently at the 32 minute mark and I see no end in sight. I would have done this last night except we had a terrible storm roll through here yesterday morning including a tornado warning complete with sirens going off. That's what happens when the morning starts off at 56 degrees in January and quickly heads into the 30s. When I got home my wife's computer was in a loop. It would say "starting windows" and then turn off and start back up again only to continue the loop. Her computer was running XP Pro. I went ahead and installed Windows 7 and it fixed the issues of corrupted sectors on the hard drive caused by the storm and losing power. After I installed Windows 7 and Office 2010, I had to install over 120 updates which took another forever.

So, I'm now at minute 39 and counting and the memory test is still running. So far I have passed one test with zero errors. Here is what memtest is displaying:

Intel Pentium CPU B960 @ 2.20 GHz
Settings: RAM : 665 MHz (DDR3-1330) / CAS : 9-9-9-24 /Dual Channel

Memory SPD Informations

-Slot 0 : 2048 MB PC3-10600 - Kingston TSB1333D3S9SR8U/2G
-Slot 1 : 2048 MB PC3-10600 - Kingston TSB1333D3S9SR8U/2G

Other settings:

Intel Core Gen2 2195 MHz
L1 Cache: 32K 73169 MB/s
L2 Cache: 256K 33258 MB/s
L3 Cache: 2048K 24943 MB/s
Memory : 4044M 15350 MB/s

We are now at minute 54...

 

[fas42]

I'm mighty pleased to be an old fashioned guy, and just use those yuckky CD thingo's ...

Frank

 

[mep]

I'd be shocked if there is a reliable, audible difference. I find JRiver's user interface to be friendlier. Connecting an iPad is a snap.

So how do you connect an Iphone to JRiver? Does JRiver rip CDs?

 

[JoeyGS]

Hi, I am in the process of deciding to build my music server and just would like to ask on how do you compare the PC vs Laptop server presented in this thread in terms of sound output quality only. I can go either way and I guess portability is not an issue as I plan to just leave the server in the music room....

 

[garylkoh]

It's hard to say because the previous version had a different CPU, and had one large, slow-moving fan. The laptop can be configured to run much cooler, and the new Sandy Bridge processor seemed to clock-down in a more gentle manner. I don't know if a PC server built with a Sandy Bridge processor would sound better than the laptop-based one. However, at the <$400 price of these laptops, it will be difficult to build a PC at that price. I felt that the latest laptop-based server sounded better than the PC-based one built in 2010.

 

[JoeyGS]

What's the major consideration in choosing a laptop?

As for the Toshiba model....I can source the Satellite C655 but may vary on the type of processor or model... would this matter?

 

[garylkoh]

Hi Joey, you don't have to buy the Toshiba model - but don't vary from the CPU I specified - the Pentium B950 (or B960). It is the Sandy Bridge architecture that will matter for the settings that I have chosen. If you buy another brand, there will be different sets of "bloatware" to delete.

 

[JoeyGS]

So if I get other laptop brands using this Sandy Bridge processor, will the settings also change (bloatware to delete)?

 

[Vincent Kars]

So how do you connect an Iphone to JRiver? Does JRiver rip CDs?

Iphone: http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/WebGizmo

JRiver does rip CDs.
I do prefer dbPoweramp
AccurateRip support and better meta data.
JRiver only supports their own database and FreeDB.