OLD: mpdPup - Simplified MPD Music Server/Jukebox - v0.9.2

For talk and support relating specifically to Puppy derivatives
Message
Author
multiblitz
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat 28 Jul 2012, 17:52

#391 Post by multiblitz »

Ok...made it work, thanks a lot.

I took Misa Criolla with Jose Carreras, some Opus 3 recordings, John Pfeiffer (Classic Sampler). So basically Jazz and Classic, all very good recordings. "So Nice" - Dianna Krall etc.

Setting of MPDpup the same on both machines.

Finally I asked my wife for her impressions and she basically confirmed what I hear (both with Sotm-card with own linear PSU):

1. Z68 Board with MPDpup: Much, much better than W7/Jriver. The metal can is gone. You finally can listen Music and not to effects / compensations effects.

2. Alix 1d2: Does everything what the Z68 does, but with more liquidity / naturalness and better 3D. A pure Music Machine, eventhough no mods on the motherboard made and PSU is a 8 $ switching PSU.

The combination of Mpdpup + Alix1d2 + Sotm card seems to have a synergistic effect. The sotm card brings you a richer tone, that vibrates more fluently. It unreveals what is possible with Alix and MPDpup. Without you have a very good solution, but not what I would consider "high-end". but for 300$ to jump in the leagues of ultra-high-end....well not a bad deal...

What's next ?

It will take some time, but I will:
- Buy another Alix-Board, mod it to compared to standard (and to have one in stock if mine breaks at some point of time...and there are some friends who wait for testing it themselves)
- Bring the Alix as well onto a lnear PSU
- Try with the same routine Atom-based boards and compare them with Alix...today they loose IP-adress as well...

...and start to rip like hell.... :D :D :D

edbk
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon 20 Aug 2012, 09:16

#392 Post by edbk »

Nice results multiblitz!

Will be interesting if the sotm card still makes that big a difference when the alix is powered by a decent lineair psu. What are you using as linear psu's?

Did the bios tweaking/downclocking have a big effect?

What part of Germany are you located?

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#393 Post by ldolse »

Thanks Multiblitz, nice to see an apples to apples JRiver comparison - I haven't seen a lot of direct comparisons to the big gorillas of the Windows & Mac world. Did you stick the SOTM card back on the Z68 board for that test, or was it with the stock USB?

multiblitz
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat 28 Jul 2012, 17:52

#394 Post by multiblitz »

No, I put the Sotm card back, of course.

jrling
Posts: 47
Joined: Wed 27 Jun 2012, 13:51

#395 Post by jrling »

I can vouch for the leap in SQ moving from Win 7/JRiver to mpdpup.
I spent a whole load of my life trying to minimise the extraneous guff in Windows not needed for a dedicated music transport, breaking Windows many times in the process and although I improved SQ significantly by so doing, the 5 minute mpdpup install, load GMPC and play with such beautiful SQ so much better, was an eye-opener. Using Atom D510 dual core board and WaveIO USB-S/PDIF converter.

Will never return to Windows!
Actually I am now embarking on tweaking mpdpup! Already gained significantly with kind help from Walter with NRpacks, settings in mpd.conf et al. That's not scratching the surface of what can be achieved, I am sure. Resampling to 32/176.4 has also made great improvement (thanks RayCtech)

Difficult for me to know what Idolse has included/excluded from the Kernel (but whatever it is an excellent result), but I wonder if there is worthwhile mileage in tweaking thread priority and may be turning off any processes in mpdpup not strictly needed (for me anyhow)? My problem is that I know how to do that in Windows but not in Linux.

Have any users experimented on those fronts?

Jonathan

edbk
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon 20 Aug 2012, 09:16

#396 Post by edbk »

jrling wrote: Resampling to 32/176.4 has also made great improvement (thanks RayCtech)
Jonathan
Does that actually has an effect on the 24bits wavio aswell? I remember reading something about spreading out losses so it was beneficial anyhow? Are you resampling RT or did you upsample your collection offline?

Thanks :)

Btw Im comparing beaglebone/atom/waveio/mpd with mac mini/pure music/m2tech evo when my new hardware comes in.

RayCtech

#397 Post by RayCtech »

Removed - OT
Last edited by RayCtech on Tue 28 Aug 2012, 04:36, edited 1 time in total.

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#398 Post by ldolse »

libaudiofile is not the default wav/aiff lib on mpdPup, libsndfile is the default. Most USB audio adapters I've dealt with to date only support s24LE, sounds like some newer ones have implemented 32bit.

If people are curious about libsndfile vs. libaudiofile both are installed. You can toggle between the two with the following commands:

Code: Select all

mpdwizard disable_sndfile
/etc/init.d/20.mpd restart

Code: Select all

mpdwizard disable_audiofile
/etc/init.d/20.mpd restart
Note the sndfile vs. audiofile discussion is only relevant for wav/aiff - other formats will use other decoding libraries.

edbk
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon 20 Aug 2012, 09:16

#399 Post by edbk »

RayCtech,

There is a new stock of Cuboxes, its a new revision with the following changes:
<rabeeh_> Kiranos: the rev2 board is almost identical to rev1, except changed some circuitry for better EMI, FTDI instead of Prolofic usb to serial
<rabeeh_> there is newer features and fixes like SD card-detect, capability of detecting if there is power through the usb to serial, reset functionality and boot select from xmodem also through the FTDI
<rabeeh_> will post on that on the forums and update the wiki accordingly.
<rabeeh_> besides that everything is 100% compatible with REV1.

I ordered one anyway to do some comparisons later on.

jrling
Posts: 47
Joined: Wed 27 Jun 2012, 13:51

#400 Post by jrling »

edbk - "Does that actually has an effect on the 24bits wavio aswell? I remember reading something about spreading out losses so it was beneficial anyhow? Are you resampling RT or did you upsample your collection offline?"

32 bit does work with WaveIO fine. As RayCtec reports earlier, the extra 8 bits although not used in my 24 bit DAC may reduce noise/dither. I also guess that if one used the volume control in mpdpup, that the extra bits may help reduce losses too. That's a guess.

I am resampling in RT, but my dual core Atom D510 board will only successfully do 176.4/32 in 'Medium' SRC not 'Best' - but even in 'Medium' sounds pretty damn good. I am proposing resampling files offline with Sox and testing that against RT sampled files - if only I knew how to do so!

multiblitz
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat 28 Jul 2012, 17:52

#401 Post by multiblitz »

Raytech, would it be possible that you share the image of you optimized system ? I guess i could figure out how to set the right ipadtess of my server etc, but i am not sure how to compile a tuned system as you did

RayCtech

#402 Post by RayCtech »

double posting due to server error
Last edited by RayCtech on Mon 27 Aug 2012, 16:53, edited 1 time in total.

RayCtech

#403 Post by RayCtech »

Removed - OT
Last edited by RayCtech on Tue 28 Aug 2012, 04:35, edited 1 time in total.

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#404 Post by ldolse »

@RayCTech,

A few off topic posts are ok by me, but I'd rather not have this continue indefinitely. The work you're doing is quite interesting, but since your build isn't based on mpdPup/Puppy Linux at all maybe it's better if you started a thread on DIY Audio or similar to continue the discussion, as it looks like it's going to keep going and I don't want to confuse new users looking at mpdPup.

thisisvv
Posts: 14
Joined: Thu 05 Jul 2012, 15:43

anyone figure out way to control the volume

#405 Post by thisisvv »

still love this MPD but how do we control the volume ....my volume comes full 100% out of this MPD ->DAC->Active crossover->Amp

also i tried full blwon puppy linux and a player where in software i controil the voume but it is not sounding right at all...

anmy ideas...

V

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

Re: anyone figure out way to control the volume

#406 Post by ldolse »

thisisvv wrote:still love this MPD but how do we control the volume ....my volume comes full 100% out of this MPD ->DAC->Active crossover->Amp

also i tried full blwon puppy linux and a player where in software i controil the voume but it is not sounding right at all...

anmy ideas...

V
Hi thisvv, I provided instructions for this several pages back but never received a response from you:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=70052&start=345

Let me know if you something isn't working/doesn't make sense.

yakudi
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon 03 Sep 2012, 13:24

Works Great! How about adding Shairport?

#407 Post by yakudi »

First of All, please let me express a heartfelt thanks. mpdpup has breathed new life into my old laptop and allowed me to have a silent, efficient and stable music jukebox in my family room.

I am linux *newb* and it took me quite a while to figure out how to get it to boot since my laptop bios does not allow booting from USB. I finally figured it out (had to edit menu.lst and change usbflash to dev/hda1).

before mpdpup I was running, xp+itunes and the setup was really slow and made the laptop overheat.

One function I find missing is to be able to use airplay. I had shairport4w which is a windows port of shairport (https://github.com/albertz/shairport). So, I could either play stored music or, use my iPhone to stream to the speakers.

I looked into this and according to http://blog.mornati.net/2012/03/22/shai ... y-speaker/ you can install it on fedora using the commands listed in the link.

However, due to my *newbness* I have no clue how to add "openssl-devel libao libao-devel perl-Crypt-OpenSSL-RSA perl-IO-Socket-INET6 perl-libwww-perl avahi-tools". Nor do I know enough to understand the next steps...

So, a.can shairport live peacefully with mpd? and if so, b. can someone be kind enough to write step-by-step instructions for this?

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

Re: Works Great! How about adding Shairport?

#408 Post by ldolse »

yakudi wrote:One function I find missing is to be able to use airplay. I had shairport4w which is a windows port of shairport (https://github.com/albertz/shairport). So, I could either play stored music or, use my iPhone to stream to the speakers.

However, due to my *newbness* I have no clue how to add "openssl-devel libao libao-devel perl-Crypt-OpenSSL-RSA perl-IO-Socket-INET6 perl-libwww-perl avahi-tools". Nor do I know enough to understand the next steps...
Hi, Yakudi. Glad you were able to get mpdPup installed. Regarding Shairport, unfortunately based on your package list above I can see that it's based on Perl. It's certainly possible to get this working on mpdPup, but I know from past experience that getting perl based projects installed can require quite a bit of effort and tinkering. That's why I ultimately decided to leave Perl out of the mpdPup core packages. That said, I believe it's in the devx file for people who want to tinker. At a high level a few things would be required:
  • Copy the devx file in the first post to your flash drive, add it to the list of files to be loaded using the bootmanager in XWindows
  • Compile/Install Libao (I can help you if you actually proceed with this :) )
  • Use perl to install CPAN, muddle through CPAN to install all the other packages
  • Install Shairport using the instructions on Github, cross fingers
A better use of your time might be to petition the mpd core developers to add native support - RAOP/Airtunes nearly made it into mpd 0.17 but was dropped because the original RAOP developer never fixed all the bugs. The developers are available on the mpd dev team alias. Old thread here:
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.au ... devel/1860

starhawk
Posts: 4906
Joined: Mon 22 Nov 2010, 06:04
Location: Everybody knows this is nowhere...

#409 Post by starhawk »

I've got a real newb question here... what is it exactly that MPDPup does? How does one use it?

...I assume that it provides a central location for music storage, and ways of playing music from that central storage device over a network (streaming)?

Bear in mind I'm no audiophile, and I have a smallish (relatively speaking) music collection... so I've never looked into anything like what this sounds to be.

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#410 Post by ldolse »

Hi Starhawk,

Basically mpdPup is all about making it easy to install Music Player Daemon (MPD) on the network. MPD is a music playing server, the only way to communicate with/control it is through networked clients. It doesn't store any music, I originally designed it for accessing music over a CIFS share, but later added local storage support (which still has kinks to work out). A lot of mpdPup users (like Yakudi who just posted) aren't necessarily hardcore audiophiles, they're just want to repurpose old hardware into dedicated network music players.

As many audiophiles don't come from a computing background, getting everything set up can be a real challenge, so the idea is to have everything pre-configured or wizard based from an install/setup perspective, and also to have the OS optimized for minimal overhead.

Even for people that have computing backgrounds I think there are still benefits as more advanced things are also pre-configured up like hardware remote control, LCD support, etc. That's basically my own personal benefit in maintaining the project - any research I do becomes hard-coded in the iso so that I don't have to go off and research it again when I upgrade the base OS.

Further reading:
What MPD is and is Not
Last edited by ldolse on Thu 06 Sep 2012, 09:02, edited 1 time in total.

Post Reply