Help on Optimizing Dedicated PC as Music Server

I dumped jplay as well.

Very good posts above.

I have a similar setup with the following differences: fanless, linear power supply, Paul Pang USB card, Audiophilleo, Windows Server 2012 with Audiophile Optimizer and JRiver only.

I agree with Al those are good parts. The only thing about i7 "k" processors is they dissipate a bit too much power for passive cooling, I believe, unless you drop their Hz down from the Bios. Anyway, for the setup at hand it will work perfectly well. One improvement path, though, is to get rid of rotating parts (motors), such as the fan, and then passive cooling is important. But you could overcome this by using a separate power supply to the fan.

Same thing for the music HDD, as it has a motor too. BTW, it is electrical noise you are after, not the noise you can hear by getting your ear close to the HDD.
FWIW, I connect the HDD thru SATA, but have the HDD outside the PC case, and inside a granite box. Can't tell if it makes a sonic difference, but my fanless case was rather crowded inside and it felt good to have the rotating device with the associated vibrations outside the PC case, which has no moving parts.

Powering the SSD from a battery, such as an Anker E4 has worked great for some. In my case the battery was shutting down because the power my SSD was taking was under the detection threshold for the E4 and it kept shutting down.

A linear power supply is also important. Doesn't need to be super expensive for the improvement to be audible. Mine is just a lab LPS with low ripple. A Hynes would surely be better, but this is good enough for me.

Getting the data from PC to DAC. Most of us use USB, but some prefer other options. Cerrot, who posted here, has been very vocal about his preference of SPDIF out from his Juli@ card. I have not tried it so can't comment. I would venture a general guideline would be not to use your mobo output, be it USB or SPDIF. Aftermarket cards tend to perform better, and I tend to belive powering them independently from the mobo makes a difference. Again, you can use an Anker-type battery. Jitter introduced by the power supply is an issue, and also is the clock precission. You can imagine a $100 mobo is not going to have a super clock...
And then there is the cable...I'm not saying you focus on that now, but keep it in mind for later. If you decide for USB, USB cables make a difference. And so do SPDIF (coax) cables; you'll find significant info about their length. That was a reason I chose an Audiophilleo: it's asynch USB out of the PC and doesn't require an SPDIF cable as it hooks directly to coax-in.

Having talked about all of the above, the biggest impact in sound for me was using Windows Server 2012 in core mode with Audiophile Optimizer. This was not subtle!
You could do a double boot like Al said and try WS2012 for free. Get in touch with AudioPhil, maker of the Optimizer. I think I recall he has a trial version/period or something. In any case, go to his website and download his guide and give it a careful read. He has plenty of good info besides his Optimizer.

I also run JRiver and thought about JPlay. Generally people who use a dual PC setup with JPlay say it sounds a lot better, but I didn't find that consensus on singlePC setups. Plus AudioPhil thought the incremental benefit I would get was marginal, so I decided to focus elsewhere.

It's not the time for me to get into a dual PC setup; setup is complicated enough for me now! And I have the hunch there is more to be gained from digital room correction software than from extracting more with a dual setup.

From my limited experience I would suggest the following pecking order:
1) decide on a way to get your data from PC to DAC, and execute it. This includes aftermarket card, converter (if needed), and cable. This way you will know an opaque interface is not filtering improvements upstream.
2) Try WS2012 and Optimizer
3) get a linear power supply

I believe these will yield the biggest improvement on sound.

Take a peak at Jplaya JCAT. Its a PCI USB 3.0 soundcard thats not crippled by the mobo.

Hi Goulsonc,

The Asus Xonar STX card was installed but wasn't able to get it working properly. Will try again later.

Hi Loftarasa,

Late last night I briefly audition the KingRex UD384 & PSU combo borrowed from a friend. From initial listening, I can't say the UD384 is better or worse compared with connected directly to motherboard. With UD384 sound-stage is more expansive. Floor noise seems higher. My impressions may change with further auditioning.

Hi Doggiehowser,

IMO, the power supply is perhaps the PC's Achilles heel. I don't know much about the HD-Plex Linear PS. Please keep us posted on your progress. I've just ordered a NoFan Cu-180 cooler for the CPU. Expensive, but may be a worthy tweak. Vibration and fan noise emitting off the stock intel fan & cooler can't be good for sound. Further, I can hear the PC fan from my listening position which is annoying. Thank you for your input, Doggiehowser.

Hi Al,

Always a pleasure to read your post. Thanks for catching the typo error.

This PC will not be on line. Other than the internal network to operated Gizmo/JRiver by remote using Android tablet. Great suggestion on the duel boot. Thank you.

Hi Pkoegz & Cerrot,

I really like how JRiver manages my music files. If JRiver will not support M. Center with JPlay, that is a problem for me. Thank you for the heads-up.

I've read all the disclaimers made by the good folks of jriver regarding jPlay.

Several friend and I have listened critically to jRiver with and without the use of jPlay. The results did not take any magic or audiophile ears to discern. jPlay made an audible improvement in playback that was not subtle at all.

I've heard the difference with a variety of computer setups and DACs. The DACs include the PS Audio PWD, PWD II, Direct Stream, Theta Gen 5a, and Lampizator 5. Computer setups ranged from i3 to i7 with from 4-16gb of RAM, various USB implementations, Asus Audio Essence STX SPDIF out into the above DACs, and the Lampizator USB Transport USB/SPDIF converter, and using Fidelizer or not. All the above used in a variety of high end systems.

In each case jPlay teamed with jRiver was always a significant improvement throughout the audio spectrum.

In my opinion the guys at jRiver either can't hear or they have some how been offended by the guys at jPlay or they somehow think jPlay competes with them (I don't see how since one uses jPlay with jRiver or other playback software. jPlay doesn't replace jRiver at all.) Or maybe because they use the lower case j in their name.

In my experience it's been pretty easy to achieve great sound with computer audio. A PC or Mac can easily rival most ordinary CD players, transports, and turntable setups when paired with a good DAC.
With a few tweaks and a few more dollars spent the PC or Mac system can easily rival the most expensive of the above designs when paired with a DAC equivalent in SQ to a Lampiizator 4 or PS Audio DS.

And then when your entire music collection can be accessed from an iPad or other tablet via great software like jRemote the musical experience becomes even more special!

If one thinks I'm just a digital junkie, I've set up more than my share of Oracles, SOTAs, Linns, Dynavectors, Koetsus, etc. and loved the sound of all of them.