My OLD Mini ITX Fanless Music Server

Posted by Thorsten (M) on May 29, 2010 at 05:36:02

Folks,

As we are showing off, I thought I show off my "old" (around 2.5 Years) server, which still serves me very well.

As it has a build in touch screen it is not "headless" of course. The screen at 7in is just about large enough to be useful.

The Case is the OrigenAE S16T, not inexpensive but very well build.

What I also like is the fact that this thing is really well thought out, down to anti vibration mounts for the hard drives.

Remote control is via MCE Remote (receiver build into case) that comes included with the case:

This remote is "learning", so it now also controls the Volume on my Preamp and the power for my projector (yes, this thing does AV, it plays Standard Definition Videos and DVD's - as my projector is only SD I don't mind).

The motherboard is a Via CN10000 Fanless, with a 1GHz VIA Processor, integrated Via AGP Graphix and VIA Sound Chipset which is 96/24 Bit (bitperfect) capable, and with a SPDIF Output that I have modified somewhat.

A 1GHz single core Via CPU does not sound like much in terms of CPU Power, even next told single core P4's and Pentium Mobiles, but it suffices for Music playback and graphical interface and DVD-MPEG/Xvid/DIVX Movies even up to 720P.

Powersupply is a Pico with an external (overkill) 12V/10A powerbrick. I intend to eventually integrate a linear supply into the case, but I never seem to get around to it...:P

Two hard drives are in a Raid0 array, one optical drive. That's it.

As this picture shows, this big case is pretty empty. This together with the ample ventilation openings helps this system to run very cool.

Thanks to the acoustic isolation mounting of the Hard drives they cannot be heard when rotating and even heavy seeking is in my (very quiet) living room) at the edge of audibility at around 2.5m distance.

OS is stripped down M$ Windows XP (MCE actually) with Mediaportal as the MediaFrontend .

The OS is cutomised with wallpapers that match the backgrounds in Mediaportal, so from Bootup (with nice big VIA EPIA Logo) to the point where you play music (or a video) you never see PC or Windows Screen and there is also no cursor on screen. Unless you know, you cannot tell this thing runs windows at all.

Mediaportal itself has ASIO Playback build in, but does not seem to handle gapless playback too well. Instead I use Symphy's ASIO Music Player which in my setup is easily the equal of CMP^2 sonically speaking (of course I do not use Upsampling). I also use MediaSlayer and VLC as external Video Player. The Skin is XFace.

I know this kind of machine is the polar opposite of what most here are running and is the result of my long term use of PC based Media Centers for Video's and Music (equally) from early versions of Win MCE & Winamp with Smartphone for remote control all the way to this.

This totally different fork of development (which seems unknown and under-appreciated here) seems to have achieved the same sonic quality as the best dedicated audio playback systems but without any of their drawbacks. I hope this alternative (if slightly dated) approach gives some here some new ideas... And yes, this system can run CMP^2 just fine, I just do not see any advantages from doing so.

I will likely upgrade this machine at some point in the near future with an Audio Option that handles up to 192/24, but so far there is little need as the amount of material available is minimal, next to my 1500 CD's on the Harddrives...

Ciao T

PS, the DAC driven by this is TDA1541 Non-Oversampling, with tube analog stage based around Siemens E81CC and including my special "anti sinc" analog filter (defeatable for 88.2/96KHz signals).
Thor

At 20 bits, you are on the verge of dynamic range covering fly-farts-at-20-feet to intolerable pain. Really, what more could we need?

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Topic - My OLD Mini ITX Fanless Music Server - Thorsten 05:36:02 05/29/10 (3)

I forgot to mention... - Thorsten 07:15:47 05/29/10 (0)

RE: My OLD Mini ITX Fanless Music Server - Dynaudio_Rules 05:47:31 05/29/10 (1)

RE: My OLD Mini ITX Fanless Music Server - Thorsten 07:06:48 05/29/10 (0)

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