A fanless NUC?

[Furio]

I am curious to know your opinions.

I am using a tiny, cheap celeron PC, with Windows 10, bought on Amazon Italy.
It is totally fanless...
KODLIX AP42 Intel Apollo Lake Pentium N4200 (2M cache)
64GB SSD MINI PC , Ram 4GB

190 EUR for a running thing with a true Win10 license, enough RAM and memory to run Foobar and access Tidal.
Everything runs well connected on USB with my Oppo BD-105.
Not bad but not powerful.

I just downloaded and tried Audirvana+ for Wiidnows.
My NAS has been under surveillance, and at the end the software is too slow for serious use.
I can find my CDs, search is good, but access via Tracks, or Albums on circular graphics is impossible.
My collection on NAS is well organized as folders, but not with tags.
I am sure I need to test Roon, but I need a faster PC.

In the past I built a test machine with an AMD APU solution.
Well runnning (faster that this Kodlix), but too noisy.
Now on a friend's desk for music production.

Roon guys suggest use of NUCs models.
I tried to check Intel datasheets.
Nice things, compact and powerful.
But not fanless...
Some users report that you can tweak on BIOS for silent use, but I am not sure.

I read recent Amir's job, with a fanless model with normal components.
But it seems time consuming, and expensive.
With NUC most hardware things are already solved.

A good audio solution could be a NUC board with an Akasa fanless case for these boards.
http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?...tpl&type=Fanless Chassis&type_sub=Fanless NUC

Any experience here?

 

[Ron Texas]

My NUC has a fan. I set it to run slow at idle. Across the room I don't hear it. Perhaps doing some CPU intensive task like converting to DSD or some of the resampling algorithms could cause it to get hot and ramp the fan up. It's an N3700. Music playback usually is less than a 1% cpu load, a little more for DSD converted to PCM.

 

[Furio]

Thanks, Ron.
It seems your one is a slower Celeron than my Kodlix.
Perfect for playing audio (as you report, not a big task).
Maybe not enough to manage a huge Roon database or to make on the run audio computations (room correction).
Hmmm... Maybe I am going to buy an i5 NUC to try, but not sure yet.

 

[Soniclife]

There are companies that sell silent PCs, including NUCs in new silent cases, but you will pay a premium for silent. I hate fan noise, I won't tolerate any, other people are fine with it, you sound like you might be more like me.

The other possibly simpler option is a normal PC, with fans, that lives somewhere in you house on your network, that streams to something where you listen to music.

 

[Soniclife]

P.S. Roon wants a fast pc, take there recommendations seriously.

 

[Furio]

I live in a not big flat.
Not seeing a solution in moving away the PC, then I should use a longer USB cable from PC top DAC, which is in living room.
Not an easy thing... Fanless would solve the matter.
No company supplying what I have in mind near Italy, I checked, I will do it myself, probably...

 

[jtwrace]

http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?...tpl&type=Fanless Chassis&type_sub=Fanless NUC

 

[gvl]

Not exactly answering your question but if your fanless PC is only used for audio use you can have a look at Volumio or Daphile, both allow a fully headless player and have very modest hardware requirements. The latter can do Tidal directly sans MQA. There are tools out there that can automatically tag your collection using file system structure.

 

[Music1969]

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...knuc7i7dnh1e_intel_nuc_nuc7i7dnhe_dawson.html

and

https://www.quietpc.com/akasa-plato-x7d

Add the usual Roon ROCK recommended RAM and SSD

 

[Furio]

Not exactly answering your question but if your fanless PC is only used for audio use you can have a look at Volumio or Daphile, both allow a fully headless player and have very modest hardware requirements. The latter can do Tidal directly sans MQA. There are tools out there that can automatically tag your collection using file system structure.

Some links?
Thanks...

 

[gvl]

Some links?
Thanks...

https://www.daphile.com/
https://volumio.org/

As for tagging, I'm sure I came across some tools but can't remember them off top of my head. Google is your friend, sorry.

 

[Jinjuku]

I've been doing the J3455 based NUC's (about 75 of them so far) and while they have a fan, I can't hear it from even a foot away. You have to literally put your ear against the NUC.

 

[Soniclife]

There are tools out there that can automatically tag your collection using file system structure

Mp3tag can do this, don't be put of by the name, it can do every file format.

Top tip, before messing with anything that changes your tags or file names back up thoughly first.

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

I live in a not big flat.
Not seeing a solution in moving away the PC, then I should use a longer USB cable from PC top DAC, which is in living room.
Not an easy thing... Fanless would solve the matter.
No company supplying what I have in mind near Italy, I checked, I will do it myself, probably...

If USB cable length is an issue, have you considered Corning USB 3 fiber? It works with my DAC at 10 meters, and even longer lengths are available. Not dirt cheap, but cheaper than a NUC. @Blumlein 88 has also reported good results with just an ordinary, cheap USB2 hub/extender cable to a DAC. I use one of those > 35 ft. with my UMIK-1 for Dirac calibrations. Never tried it with my DAC, though.

But, don't exceed 5 meters with a normal, passive USB cable. I use a 5 meter $50 passive cable now from my PC in the next room to my DAC. No problems at all. I just don't want to mess with NUCs, Pis, client/server, etc. myself.

 

[amirm]

I've been doing the J3455 based NUC's (about 75 of them so far) and while they have a fan, I can't hear it from even a foot away. You have to literally put your ear against the NUC.

Thanks for the info. Is that true under load? For my need my AP app fully saturates one core so would like to know if it is noisy that way or not.

 

[Jinjuku]

Thanks for the info. Is that true under load? For my need my AP app fully saturates one core so would like to know if it is noisy that way or not.

Under normal use with JRiver using DSP for correction It's been fine. I would have to load a stress test application on the next run I get and report back.

 

[miero]

One guy in Czechia modds Vorke V1 plus ($170 in sale) to passive cooling and somehow optimizes Windows 10 for audio playback and Foobar2000 with remote control over smartphone/tablet (€580).

http://www.kabelguru.cz/product/elektronika/hifi-audio-pc/58
http://www.vorke.com/project/vorke-v1-plus/

 

[Jinjuku]

Thanks for the info. Is that true under load? For my need my AP app fully saturates one core so would like to know if it is noisy that way or not.

Speak of the devil... My customer just ordered another 7 machines. I'll do some stress testing when they come in.

 

[Blumlein 88]

If USB cable length is an issue, have you considered Corning USB 3 fiber? It works with my DAC at 10 meters, and even longer lengths are available. Not dirt cheap, but cheaper than a NUC. @Blumlein 88 has also reported good results with just an ordinary, cheap USB2 hub/extender cable to a DAC. I use one of those > 35 ft. with my UMIK-1 for Dirac calibrations. Never tried it with my DAC, though.

But, don't exceed 5 meters with a normal, passive USB cable. I use a 5 meter $50 passive cable now from my PC in the next room to my DAC. No problems at all. I just don't want to mess with NUCs, Pis, client/server, etc. myself.

I've used the Monoprice active USB 2.0 extenders up to 49 ft. They come longer. I have my music computer connected over a 33 ft one. Works at least up to 192/24 just fine. You see people start having problems at 100 ft however. As long as you stay less than that people generally report good results.

There are now some USB 3.0 active extenders that are similarly inexpensive. People often use them for gaming, security video cameras and the Occulus Rift VR rigs. They get good reviews on Amazon in general. Audio is a piece of cake to some of these transfer rates. My guess is they will work just fine as well. I've not seen them for more than 10 meters (33 ft), but I've not looked hard. Nor have I used one, but if it doesn't work then send it back.

 

[Furio]

@gvl Thanks, I know very well Volumio, nice tool.
I built 4 or 5 boxes with Raspberry and HiFiBerryDAC (first version), for friends asking a cheap player to be used with traditional hifi systems.
My "fanless" station will be devoted to Roon, so I need a big, powerful computer.

I made rough calculations: a barebone NUC with i7 is today 430 €, with 16 GB RAM it is 600 €.
I already have a spare SSD, so with this budget I can test Roon in my living room.
If I buy an already assembled system with same performance, totally fanless, it is more or less 1200 €
If I do it myself I must buy a fanless case and fanless power supply: together 400 €; then motherboard, CPU, RAM...
I arrive easily at 1000 € and I still have to work carefully a full weekend.
So I think I will jump on NUC very soon.

Thanks @Jinjuku for your noise evaluation, very useful for my purchasing strategy...

If I do it, I will post some pics and impressions.