[JoshK]

All this talk about building a dedicated music server (here) got me brainstorming and refining an idea I have had for some years now.  Ever since I was an SOP on efnet ripping sites some 5 or 6 years ago I had always thought it would be great if you could put your entire music collection in a lossless format on a non noisy, non clunky/clutter f*ck (i.e. no fans, no noisy slow changers), speedy storage unit that could play back on your hi-fi system at modern hi-end standards. Well I think the day has come that the technology is there but we just have to seize it.   I think APE storage medium is the perfect medium to make my idea viable.

My idea has these goals:

- Has very large storage mechanism in digital state to avoid, clunky, slow, mechanically unstable, pro transport mechanisms that is modern CD changers.  Hard drives are available cheap and big enough to store the average collection of 500-1000 CDs with a lossless medium like APE.  

- Want a low/no noise environment for playback with modern transport like performance.  This midigates the need to rid the use of fans or at least use the lowest noise fans.  Want to minimize any possible electrical field interferance or other electrical noise in order to reach hi-end class type player.  

-  Should also incorporate a good organization/playback interface that would midigate the need to go searching through stacks of CDs or LPs to find the alb you want to play or constantly switching the CD in the player to listen to a collection of songs.  This could be tricky but its doable with what is available.  My thoughts for solving this revolve around the use of an LCD display, IR receiver and the use of a programmable LCD type remote like a pronto for searching through playlists/etc.  

My ideas using a standard HTPC approach:

- Build a minimalist PC w/ no video card, no CDrom, no floppy, no extras. The object of the PC would be to store music is APE format to HD that could be internal or external (*more on this later) and output digitally to an external DAC.  The, let me call it the APE Storage and Transport (APEST), would connect to your PC via USB or Firewire when you want to write to the drives or upload new playlists.  It would output via USB as well for USB DACs like the idea proposed here.

- All the encoding and building the playlists would be done on your PC and written to the APEST via the USB/Firewire connection, so the APEST wouldn't need a monitor and keyboard interface, nor would it need lots of processing.  Its only job really is to read data from the drives, decode them into the appropriate digital stream and output via the USB. This would require a smaller PS hopefully, and less of a processor so low noise fans or no fans at all could be used.
 
- If external HD are used instead of internal ones then seemingly infinite upgrade/storage capacity is conceivable with daisy-chainable firewire drives.  Note: firewire drives and cheap and fast enough these days to make this application doable.

Of course the PC approach seems like overkill to me.  You have tons of stuff on the average PC board that are meant for lots of things not needed here, thus the signal path is unnecessarily complicated and longer than need be.  It might also require a noisy PS. I am certain if you get some smarty pants electronics/computer engineering guru like Dale (Harvardian from dipchip electronics) on the idea then reall cool things could happen.  Maybe the use of his IR controller interface for his preamp could come about as the IR/LCD interface for the APEST.  Maybe you could completely do away with the PC board approach and design the board necessary for this interface.  

Here is where I ask you for feedback, ideas of how to make this really cool but still doable for the non-expert electronics hobbyist.

I get more and more serious about building this for myself everyday. Right now I am fairly committed to seeing it through but want to spend the necessary time thinking and planning to make it worthwhile.  

The USB out would be great to test it against hi-fi transports to see if the fruits of the labor were worthwhile.

[Rob Babcock]

That's really what I want, too.  I agree that you wouldn't need much of a PC for that, power wise.  Maybe it could be built on an oversized case big enough to line with Black Hole 5 to kill the noise.  Also, I think that liquid cooling of the CPU would be quiter than a fan and wouldn't be terribly expensive.

I like the idea of external HDs in a way; as you say, you could daisy chain them and there'd be room for expansion.  You could have a shelf full of them, sitting on Vibrapods or a Big Rock isolation unit if need be.  Of course, depending on how you set it up it needn't be in the same room as your gear or speakers;  you could set it up in a closed or attic and pipe the signal in via USB or SPDIF cable to your DAC.

You could economize a bit by getting 120 gig drives, as they're a lot cheaper than 180 GB and larger.  Of course this will change within a matter of months.  Even with APE compressing two to one you'd still need a lot of drive space.  I figure I've got about 750 CDs or so, and that works out to roughly 350 GB, maybe a bit more.  Compression would cut that in half, but you'd want room to be about to add music every week.

I think I would probably opt for a CD-ROM drive; to put the music on initially USB or Firewire would be best, but it seems that it'd be handier to add new stuff if you could just pop the disc in the computer.  Of course this would entail having a keyboard & monitor.  I'd be open to a better way of doing it, I'm no computer expert.

Only thing is I'm not sure how you'd control it and select the music you want to hear without a monitor- maybe an advanced RF remote?  Could a Bluetooth type Palm work for this?

It started out as just curiousity, but I too am getting pretty serious about the idea of building a music server.  APE seems like a good way to go.  I'll be following this topic closely.

[Rob Babcock]

Double post, sorry.

[Brad]

This little motherboard might help....

http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2003q2/epia-m10000/index.x?pg=1
Add a USB Sound card - it's got firewire - should be pretty tiny/quiet.

The conjecture got me interested as well.
I have a Harmony universal remote that might do as a controller - although I like the idea of a small LCD panel to see cover art, etc.

Hmmm....

Also, nice Lian-Li mini-ITX case
http://www.directron.com/pc402a.html

[Brad]

One more idea:

I have a Casio E125 Pocket PC w/802.11 CF card that could be used as a controller.......

[subhuman]

The main thing is not weather this can be done - it can - but can it be done with an interface as convenient as a conventional CD player?

Perhaps as your host machine, you would actually use a NorhTec ( www.norhtec.com ) SilentServer.  No fans.  Digital Output.  $375.  Not bad for a base system... nice brushed silver case...

I'm thinking a Silent Server plus a Nixon TubeDAC or Channel Islands VDA-1 and you'd be pretty well set.  It would be nice to have the ability to setup network shares so you could have other storage on your home network, as well...

Soundquality wise, you may want some sort of de-jitter device after the Silent Server's digital output.. perhaps a Monarchy or Audio Alchemy DTI..

Now about that interface.. you were saying something about a Palm?  That could be perfect.. how would we integrate that..

[JoshK]

Rob,

I am willing to cooperate, put our heads together and work this out for both of us.  

With my idea, I do not want the CD rom or any other peripherals for two reasons.  One you need the extra PS to run them (this could be moot with something like the norhtec silent server, don't know) and two I don't want the extra electronics and stuff too goof things up.  Plus their is added money.  This is where the firewire connectivity would be great. Or you could use an ethernet connection as well really, come to think of it, that might be easiest as I am familiar with networking.  Do everything like popping in a new CD on your main computer but just tell it to write the data to the APEST as I call it.

Your main PC could be in another room and the APEST in your system's room for shorter IC's.  

The remote is really not as hard as you might think.  Let me explain.  IR controlled playback of music lists is widely available although I admit I don't know much about what is available.  I do have this IR receiver + remote from turtlebeach that will let me use their remote to control playback of mp3's and wav's via their software.  They can make playlists and stuff etc.  In my case I want to use this to control APE playback.  Seems like an easy enough extention.  If absolutely must be, I do know how to program and I am certain the drivers are already out there.  

Now all the interface really needs to happen on the remote.  In fact my base unit (the APEST) I could make complete hands off.  Using something like nudelist and a Pronto you can add your entire CD collection, organized alphabetically and by playlists for example, at your fingertips.  No need for fancy interface on the APEST it will be handled by the Pronto.  

I am missing something here?

[JoshK]

Soundquality wise, you may want some sort of de-jitter device after the Silent Server's digital output.. ...

This is why I want to avoid digital output and use a USB output.

[subhuman]

I don't see why a USB interface would cause less jitter.. unless it was reclocked.. anyway it would add yet another box as well.. and personally even with a USB interface such as the USB Audiophile card from m-audio, I'd probably still think it'd need to be de-jittered..

I think for interfacing, a WinAmp plugin may do the job for showing cover art, and searching/queuing tracks via a Palm-type device.

Although this is a sidetrack to this thread and it throws the .Apes out the window (PCM or MP3 or maybe WMA only), have you looked into the Turtle Beach Audiotron (LAN -> SPDIF box with a nice display) or the SLiMP3 device?  Google on "audiotron" or "slimp3" ... again you'd be stuck with PCM for lossless ... but it's very very close to what you have in mind.  The main problem is feeding full bandwidth audio (1,400 kilobits/second) over your network - 10-baseT network will bog (300-600 kilobits/second max).  Correct me if I'm mistaken there.  100baseT networks can probably handle full bandwidth 44.1khz 16bit stereo PCM streams tho...

http://www.barix.com/exstreamer/
http://www.slimp3.com/
http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/audiotron/producthome.asp

(the Exstreamer doesnt have digital out until you move to the Professional GOLD version which also acts as a network audio data source too http://www.barix.com/en/products/exstreamer_gold.php?group=professional )

Internet radio streams would be another nice benefit and something I'd like to see in such a box... A remote interface to a computer in another room running WinAmp might be an interesting avenue to persuit...

[JoshK]

subhuman,

First off I want to thank you for your input.  I don't want to sound ungrateful, as I am not, and your input adds a lot and is useful.  However I think this is going in a slightly different direction than I wanted to go with what I had in mind.  It is great however to reevaluate the end products available for us today so our pursuit isn't totally in vain.

I have tried Turtle Beach's earlier predecessor over an ethernet to my pre/pro with not very good results.  The current product could be totally different as the one I used was gen one.  Another reason (and I realize you said this) is that I really want to stick to lossless only formats and .wav (PCM) isn't the best format available for us today.  I am not above going about this in the brute force way and writing my own simplistic software for APE playback and IR recongition.  I hope that that isn't the case though and would think that enough of the wheel has been invented already to do what I want to do.  

Your suggestion on the norhtec is a great one and what I may end up basing my idea around.  I might however talk to them and maybe have him customize a version of his microserver if we have enough interest.  Although I don't know Dale (harvardian) well, I wouldn't mind picking his brain on this idea.  

In my conception the LCD on the front of the unit wouldn't display cover art, that would be in the remote handheld unit (if one opted for that kind of remote), but would only show what track is playing back, much like my Compaq i-paq mp3 player does.

I havent' kept up with the current state of remotes to know whether there is a two way version of the pronto (or similar).  If so then you could have the box feed back to the remote the playback statistics (like minutes lefts, minutes into, track playing, next track to play, etc). But this is getting ahead of myself....

Ultimately I just want my unit to be a controller.  controls the drives reads them and spits the data out over the appropriate output.  With the exception of the IR interface and accepting updates via ethernet/usb/etc, it wouldn't do much else.  I like Rob's idea of having all the drives sitting on an anti-vibration platform on another shelf or something.

(note to self: the special EMI/RFI rejection lining stuff that Wayne/Steve/Danny/others talked about might be interesting here)

[JoshK]

In re to your question about USB vs. digital out.  Not sure it would be better, per se.  Just a thought.  Some suggest that it would be better at rejecting EMI.   I asked about it in another thread for more feedback but heard what I had heard before.  

The more interesting idea might be if Dusty from CI Audio or some other interesting DAC maker created a USB DAC where the input was USB and it was converted directly to I2S. This might be the killer app.

[JoshK]

(sorry if this is a repeat but something very very strange is going on on this end.  The post keeps showing up and then going away.  )

[Rob Babcock]

I had the same prob w/double posts earlier.  Don't know what's up.

Well, the USB out instead of coax might be cool, I'm just thinking expense-wise maybe not of lot of DACs would have inputs for that where all of 'em accept coax.  It'd be cool if CIA would do it!

I've gotta stress, I'm not a programmer!  But you're right, JoshK, I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel, here.  This should be off-the-shelf technology; we just have to figure out how to put it together.

Ideal to me would be a touch screen remote with a large enough full color screen to have useful sized thumbnails of the album cover.  If that isn't practical, using a stylus would be okay, too.  I really dig the idea of a nice GUI instead of just text, but we might have to be flexible there, too.

The Silent Server looks like the way to go, or at least might be.  It would be quiet, compact and inexpensive- three things that appeal to me.

[JoshK]

Rob,

I think we can definitely do this.  We just need to pin it down with all the details with what we want the end product to be, then we can get a silent server type product to work for us or have something custom done for us.  

I think the gui in the remote in no big deal, pronto pro's can do that.  The LCD in the display of the unit might be harder.  I'll have to do some thought and research on this point.

My dream is to have the unit hold (via the drives, ext or int) my entire music collection (CDs and LPs) in a well organized fashion and act as a transport on par with my XA777ES.  Am I dreaming too much?  Don't know yet but I think it can be done.

I want to keep all the encoding and uploading to disk external via a PC somewhere else and not part of the works so I would prefer not to have the drive that is in the silent server.  How do you feel about this Rob?  If you popped all your cd's on your current computer and then ripped them and that data was fed to the APEST but not just a pop in the CD drawer method?

[Rob Babcock]

I'd prefer to have the screen be in the remote anyway.  The only interface the APEST would need is the remote.

My personal preference would be to have a CD drive; it'd be nice if the unit was self contained, not relying on another PC except for initial setup.  This way you could easily add tracks anytime.  However, I realize that then you'd need a keyboard to lable tracks and a monitor to see what you're doing; it'd be a full-blown PC as opposed to a server.

I suppose if networking them isn't too tough, it would be fine to add tracks via the main PC.  If I understand the procedure, the "playlists" would be written here and transfered to the APEST.  That sounds good to me.  I really would like a wireless remote with enough room for color GUIs (ideally, a scanned thumbnail about one to two inches square depicting the album jacket- maybe about the size of my avatar).  I envision that the screen might be large enough at least for like 9 thumbnails.  

I guess, tho, maybe the concept of 'albums' is flat earth thinking when applied to a server.  Still, thinking of an album is still the way my mind decides what to listed too.

The APEST would need some method of 'programming' the tracks you wish to play in the order you want to hear them, like a commercial jukebox.  I envision touching/selecting the thumbnail of the album and that bringing up a list of the songs on it.  You'd then highlight the ones you want to hear and select either "program" or "play", much like a regular CD changer.  Albeit a 750 disc changer!

[Rob Babcock]

The more I think about it the more I think you're right, JK.  It would be a bit of a mess to add tracks directly via the APEST.  Unless of course the remote could be configured to do this.  Still, sounds more complex.  I imagine you could even connect the server & pc by a long CAT6 cable while you're transferring 'data'.  I'm no network admin; I'm not fluent at all in how networking is done.  Only thing, though, is that removing the drive would leave an empty hole in the server!  I'm not sure if it would be any cheaper having them ship it without a CD ROM, but certainly you wouldn't have to actually use it.

I have to stress that I wouldn't replace my CD player in my main rig with the APEST.  I'm a little superstitious; I feel sound wise that a PC won't beat a good CDP.  Also, when you bring home a new disc and tear into it, you want to play it, not track it to hard drive.  The server would augment, not replace, my dedicated CDP.

Still, for much of ones listening, the APEST would be the cats pajamas.  I too would like to transfer all of my CDs and few LPs to a server to get a 750 disc changer but without mechanical noise and with instant access to any track on demand.  Sound quality should be superb as long as a good DAC is used.  There's no reason I can think of why it couldn't rival a good standalone CDP.

[JoshK]

I think we are in total agreeance here! It wouldn't replace but suplement my standalone too.

[Brad]

The Norhtec silent server looks pretty good, too.
Just needs a silver or black optical drive instead of the beige one they show in the picture.

I wonder what the max capacity HD the controller Norh is using can address?   No firewire with the board they're using either.

USB 802.11b would work for xferring files to it.  A long cable could be used if you're xferring a lot at one time.

[Rob Babcock]

I hadn't considered a two way remote, but I agree that it would be great.  I'd like to be able to see elapsed time, track name, etc.  And of course you'd want to be able to skip/FF, stop, pause, etc just like a CDP.

I don't know what type of inputs the nohr has nor whether or not it has enough USB 2 ports to hook up external drives.  If it does it may be just the ticket.  As Brad points out, I don't know how much hard drive cap the Silent Server will control.  I'd suggest that with 2 X lossless compression, 400 Gigs would be about the bare minimum that would be worthwhile, and 500-600 would be better.

[Brad]

The motherboard the Norh is currently using only has USB 1.1
The motherboard I linked earlier has both USB 2 & Firewire ports - the Norh case should fit any mini-ITX.

I'm starting to think I should run a CAT 6 cable over to the audio rack, then map a drive letter across the network to another box elsewhere in the house (with multiple large hard drives) and play the audio across the Ethernet.

Taking a look at both Media Jukebox and the APE Jukebox right now.
Pretty cool stuff.