Building a DIY Music Server

Hi everyone! I am building a computer for someone else and decided to share what I am doing with everyone. 

Let me start with some of the high level requirements:

• One box solution to eliminate some of the clutter.
• Optimized for Streaming (Tidal / Qobuz).
• The best quality USB output.

I came up with the following specs:

• Motherboard: ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX changed to ASUS Z390-I ROG Strix Gaming Intel LGA 1151 mini ITX motherboard
• CPU: Intel Core i9-9900 changed to Intel Core i9-9900K
• RAM: 2 x 4GB Non-ECC Apacer RAM (Apacer D11.2318FS.004) changed to 2 x 4GB ECC Apacer RAM (D31.23185S.001)
• OS Drive: 32 GB Optane
• Chassis: 2 x Streacom FC9
• USB Output: PinkFaun USB Bridge with ultraOCXO clock
• Network input: JCAT NET FEMTO
• Operating System: Euphony running Stylus, switchable to Roon

Some other specs:

• 6-rails of DC power 
• All wiring will be done with Mundorf silver/gold wire (and JSSG360 shielding where it makes sense)
• Isoacoustics Gaia feet will be used on both chassis
• Some but very little EMI absorbing material to be applied at strategic places.
• All connectors will be treated with Walker Audio Quantum Silver Contact Treatment with Nanocrystal Technology.
• Resonance controlling material will be applied on the chassis.

Power Supply:

Given the specs above, we came up with 6-rails - 3 for the ATX connector, 1 for the EPS connector, 1 for the PinkFaun USB card, and 1 for the JCAT NET card.

He acquired a 4-rail Sean Jacobs power supply, which I customized for him. 3 rails used for the ATX connector and one rail for the PinkFaun USB card. 

The EPS connector will be powered by another 12V Sean Jacobs DC3 LPS he already has.

The JCAT NET card will be powered by various spare linear power supplies he has, tbd which works best. 

There are two goals with the customization of the 4-rail LPS:
1. Shortest possible cable path from the double regulators to the components powered.
2. Good heat management to keep things cool.

We decided to use two black Streacom FC9 chassis. One chassis would be hosting a big 400VA toroidal transformer, Schottky diodes for rectification, Mundorf caps, etc. The second chassis would be hosting the motherboard, CPU, RAM, etc. and some of the DC regulators. 

I decided to install the regulators for the ATX connector in the motherboard chassis. That would meet the first goal.

For the second goal, I left the regulators for the PinkFaun USB bridge in power supply chassis. I calculated that the path from the regulators would be almost the same length as if they were in the motherboard chassis. But we have an available heatsink to use in the power supply, so I opted for the better heat management. 

This may resemble a little bit the power supply of the Innuos Statement described here - http://www.the-ear.net/how-to/power-supply-design-innuos-statement. 

It’s not a coincident, and some of the ideas were taken from there.

It’s also good to mention that Sean Jacobs would not do a power supply like this. Due to his contract with Innuos, he is not doing ATX power supplies. The only way to build his power supply inside a computer is to go the DIY route.

This server will look a little like the Innuos Statement. But to be honest, I am aiming higher than that.

One can buy a Statement instead, but there are a few things I don’t like about the Statement - the low powered CPU does not sound as good as this configuration; the SSD drives are too noisy, and I don’t want to have any in my servers; Apacer RAM is a must; the wiring (silver/gold wires used for everything) cost $1,500 alone… if the Statement had the same wires and cables, it would probably cost $5K more just for that… that’s not including the amount of time, it takes to do all the JSSG360 shielding and every small detail. And those cables make a big difference.  I’ve heard the Statement in a few occasions and liked what I heard. But I’ve never had one in my system to compare with a DIY server like this. 

Stay tuned. I am planning to post a lot of pictures and comments as I make progress. 

Here is the final result and a review from the new owner after a couple of weeks of listening to the new server:

First step is to drill the holes and install the GX16 connectors.

This motherboard has one PCIe slot, which I am planning to use for the PinkFaun USB bridge and two M.2 slots. One of the M.2 slots is on the bottom. I will install the Optane card there. The other M.2 is on the top. I will convert it to PCIe slot and use for the JCAT NET Femto card. 

I will use one of those M.2 to PCIe Riser Card Cables to convert the M.2 to PCIe. Here is a link.

I desoldered and removed the 4-pin white connector as it's not needed. I put this cable in place, marked the holes, drilled them, and installed it with some bolts and standoff.

The next step is to install the Gaia feet. Here they are:

Stay tuned for more.

Time to install the regulators. There will be 3 regulator boards in this chassis, all of them feeding a 20-pin ATX connector on the motherboard. They are: 3.3V (1.5A), 5V (5.0A), and 12V (1.5A). The regulators need to be isolated from the chassis - a thin thermal insulating pad is used between each regulator and the chassis. Both sides of the insulator has thermal compound applied.

BTW, this electric screwdriver turned out to be an excellent tool.

The spacing between the regulators did not match the heatsink holes on the Streacom chassis. I had to desolder them and solder them again in a slightly different angle so they can fit the existing holes.

After mounting the regulators I connected them to the GX16 connectors, soldered with WBT silver content solder:

Next step is to install the motherboard and CPU and connect the passive cooling copper pipes. Stay tuned. 

The yellow wire you see in my previous post is Mudorf silver/gold. I will be using this wire exclusively in this build. I estimated I need 6 meters for the internal wiring and 5 meters for the umbilical cords. I will be using the 15.5AWG wire where possible. Some of the boards cannot take 15.5AWG wire. I will be using 18AWG there. I thought about using terminals and thicker wire but I did not want to introduce another connector and material in the path. 

CPU installed:

I opted for a lower power Intel i9 - the 9900. Heat management is important. If the temperature in the chassis gets too hot, the sound becomes harsher. And given that I also have 6 regulators generating heat in the case, I decided to go with the 65W TDP Intel i9-9900 instead of the 95W TDP Intel i9-9900K. I think we get very similar performance for audio but a few degrees lower temperature would be beneficial. It's all about making the right compromises, and I will try to point out the compromises I am making and explain why. 

Passive cooling installed as well:

Done with the messy thermal compound paste that goes on the CPU, copper pipes, and all over you and the case!!! :).

I used the ARCTIC MX-4 compound. If I was installing a 95W TDP CPU I would have used the Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. 

BTW, you might have noticed that I removed the WiFi module from the motherboard. That's why there is an empty slot next to the 8-pin EPS connector. WiFi is not needed for this build. I typically disable it in the BIOS but decided to completely remove it in this case. 

Time to make some connectors. I am using gold plated pins (Molex part number 45750-1212). Thanks to @Volfram for bringing the gold plated ones to my attention. 

Stay tuned...

Thanks for sharing the pictures and progress.  Keep ‘em coming.

I started doing the ATX connector wiring.

But the OCD in me really wanted to apply JSSG360 shielding. So here it is with JSSG360.

Here is the pinout of a 20-pin connector:

I connected it this way:

3.3V --> pin 1

5.0V --> pin 4, pin 8, and pin 9

12V --> pin 10

Ground --> pin 3

ATX connector done.

This M.2 to PCIe convertor is another compromise. It would have been better to have a second PCIe slot. But I have tested bigger motherboards with second PCIe slot, and they did not sound better. That's why I am sticking to this well tested recipe. 

Apacer RAM, JCAT Femto Net card and Pink Faun USB bridge with ultra OCXO clock installed.

Almost done with this chassis... need to install the EPS connector, connect the power button and do some finishing touches. More about the latter at the end of the build.

Next, I will be moving to the second chassis. A big custom state of the art 400VA toroidal is waiting to be installed in the second chassis. 

19 hours ago, Nenon said:

I decided to go with the 65W TDP Intel i9-9900 instead of the 95W TDP Intel i9-9900K.

I read with great enthusiasm. Thanks for this thread.

The i9-9900K is soldered and can therefore be cooled passively better. That was the better option for me. The TDP 65W or 95W are also only theoretical. Undervolting and underclocking can achieve much lower values.

Thank you for all the comments and messages. I will reply to everyone. Let me just finish the build and get it running. 

I even received comments from Sean Jacobs! He gave me a couple of nice hints. Big thanks for that. What a nice guy! I wish everyone in the industry was like him. He also mentioned that he can supply any power supply we need. His limitations with Innuos pretty much come done to two things:

1. He cannot supply his power supplies with cables to connect them directly to the motherboard. But one can easily obtain such cables from companies like Ghent Audio. 

2. He cannot build regulator modules inside the computer chassis.

It all makes perfect sense. Innuos needs to protect their intellectual property, and they don't want Sean Jacobs to be building a Statement, so we can just install a motherboard inside. As I said Sean is a great guy to deal with. Highly recommended if you need a state of the art power supply. 

Back to my build. Based on some comments from Sean, I decided to redo the wiring a little. Here is what I did:

But the OCD in me called out again, and I had to do add some techflex. Here is how it looks now.

I think it's much neater this way. I also did some work on the second chassis, but I will post more about that later. Back to work. Stay tuned for more.

EPS connector.

The EPS and ATX connectors are done the same way. You solder each wire to a pin. And then you snap-in the PINs inside the connector.

WBT silver solder and Mundorf silver/gold wire of course!

I use the following parts:

ATX - 20-pin:  Molex 39-01-2240

EPS - 8-pin: Molex 39-01-3085 (alternatively 4-pin: MOLEX 39-01-2040)

PINs: Molex 44476-1112 or the gold plated Molex 45750-1212

You don't have to run all 8 wires. As long as you have one + wire and one - wire, it would work. But using more wires means thicker gauge wire / more current. I did all 8 wires here. All the wires then were shielded with JSSG360 shielding and soldered to the GX16 connector on the chassis. Here is the final result:

I was asked about more details on soldering the EPS connector. Here is a pinout diagram of the EPS connector.

I soldered 4 pins for 1-4 - those go to the 12V minus. 

I soldered 4 pins for 5-8 - those go to the 12V plus.

The connector I used on the chassis is called GX16-2. Here is a link - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D3CFRJ6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1.

And of course the wires were shielded with JSSG360. 

Starting on the second chassis.

First I had to drill a lot of holes - 4 holes for the Gaia feet, 8 holes for the power supply boards, 4 holes for the transformer. Those were the easy ones.

The tricky ones are the holes for the GX16 connectors. One can remove the back panel and use a drill press. This is probably what I would do next time. The best way I have found to make these holes is using a forstner drill bit. It looks like this:

And no, a tiny cordless drill is not the way to do it. I use a powerful AC powered drill. It's a lot easier if you don't have a drill press. 

I drilled 3 holes for the GX16 connectors and one hole for the fuse holder.

Here is a little hint. A GX16 connector can snugly fit into the channel for PCIe cards. You have to use some force, but it fits. No need to drill holes if you can use those. That's where I put the fourth connector. 

I bought one of these plates to cover the motherboard opening:

And I installed a medical grade IEC filter / inlet. I go back and forth between a Furutech NCF IEC inlet (no filtering) and those filters. Both are great options. I spent some time comparing, and heard the difference, but I can't make up my mind which one I like better. I just happened to have one of these filters around, and that's what I used. 

Transformer installed. Fuse holder installed and wired. IEC filter installed and wired. Grounding completed. Heatshrink all around the high voltage. 

The next steps were difficult to document. I installed the rectifier/caps modules. I also installed the regulators for the fourth rail. It took a while to get the wiring done right (neat I mean), but I think the end result is not bad.

All voltages tested good! Time to make some DC cables. Stay tuned. 

10 minutes ago, dminches said:

Can you explain the advantage of using the voltage regulators vs something like the HDPlex 800W DC-ATX module?

I am not OP, but some information might be useful...

A DC-ATX converter is using switched-mode DC-to-DC converters converting one DC voltage level to another, which may be higher or lower, by storing the input energy temporarily and then releasing that energy to the output at a different voltage, where voltage regulators show in this build is a high quality linear power supply setup.

Switching conversion is more power-efficient (typical efficiency is 75% to 98%) than linear voltage regulation, generates less heat, so they are smaller in physical size, to make them simpler to install, but they also generates more electrical noise then linear power supply.

The DC to the motherboard would be far better with a separate 0V wire for each voltage from the regulators, one wire is a compromise and not a good idea.

54 minutes ago, RickyV said:

edit: what’s the price of the those regulators

I don't know the price. It was a four rail Sean Jacobs DS3 LPS, similar to what Innuos uses. Probably best to contact Sean Jacobs for that. http://www.custom-hifi-cables.co.uk/home/power-supplies/dc3-power-supply

I asked Sean if he is willing to sell some boards to the DIY community, but he is currently away. We'll probably get an answer next week.