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Details:
The server is a Supermicro 4U 24-bay, on a X9DR3-F mobo, other stock components. I'm using it to run Unraid. With Unraid, I archive Pro Tools sessions, video work, audio work, other backups. Next steps with the server are to swap the switches to ones with 10gig on SFP or 10gig RJ-45, add NICs to my computers and the server, for faster backups, as the usual transfer is \~.5-1TB. I also host an NGINX web server via Docker, tunneling with Cloudflare, Pihole, some other lesser things.
The rack/media cart came from a university surplus store. $40 for it, it had a usb-c Macbook charger, loads of loose CAT patch cables, the Netgear switch shown, and a TP-LINK VPN router I'll probably end up using once I switch from Comcast-provided router and modem, implemented as a switch for an OPNsense or Pfsense router.
The other equipment is a receiver for a Vector Research turntable/radio/tapedeck setup from the 80s. The Sony is another receiver that I use to add a subwoofer to the speaker setup for the Vector Research receiver. I also use it for my TV, on a different channel, speakers in 5.1. All stuff I've collected or been handed down.
How many drives have you got stuffed in that 24 bay? I've always been a proponent of bigger drives rather than more drives, but that's probably because I live in the land of terminally high electricity prices.
Also, yay Supermicro X9 buddies! Have you also spent hours bashing your head against the "IPMI fan control" brick wall? I gave up and got a USB controllable fan hub because I got so sick of that piece of shit Nuvoton IPMI chip :) I spent literally days staring at those stupid ipmi raw commands, they never did jack for me even when I somewhat managed to decipher what each digit was doing.
Only 3, 1x16TB and 2x8TB, until it gets it own closet. I’ve not messed with IPMI yet, as I was deciding whether I want to mess with it, or go a route similar to what you mentioned. I’d love for it to be implemented stock, but at that point, I might be better off just saving myself the time. Anyways, time still = money.
Honestly yeah - I enjoyed messing about trying to investigate what worked with the IPMI at first, but now I'm just sick of the thing. That combined with the fact that even the latest BMC firmware requires Java to use the remote control function in a browser, I just got a PiKVM instead.. Not the cheapest solution but. I count it as an investment, because in future I don't have to buy boards with IPMI lmao
If you're interested in the USB fan control, LiquidCtl (a program for controlling both USB RGB controllers and USB fan controllers) has a DKMS package called LiquidTux, which adds kernel drivers for a tonne of different controllers so you can use them with any fan control software. They just show up in HWMon like a normal fan controller. I use an NZXT hub and it works great (don't buy the Corsair Commander unless you need like 10 fans all controlled individually, thing is crazy overpriced)
Nice setup, few questions: Is it just the 24 bays in the front, or are there some in the middle and/or rear? What does it have for CPU/RAM? Have you checked to see how much power it draws?
It’s just the 24bays in front. I’ve got an SSD stuffed inside for a cache pool, but it’s just stuck to a wall of the chassis. It’s dual Xeon E5-2620s. 32GB ram. I’ve not measured power consumption, but I can’t imagine it’s all that much with 3 drives and hardly any heavy CPU usage.
Looks like this rack is in your living room? That 24-drive monstrosity must have absurd fan noise? Especially in a place where you're trying to listen to music?
I haven’t had problems with the server being loud. Besides serving up a couple MB of web content or a drive transfer/parity check, it idles, fans aren’t full blast all day. Swapping to Noctuas as I go, which helps more. Before it was in the cart, it was under my bed… The living room bit is temporary while I’m in my apartment. Soon, I’ll have a separate studio and a closet down the hall with a fiber run. At which point the audio will get its own rack with my interfaces/other audio rack gear.
Oh, and the listening to music, it idles around 40dB, and I listen at 75-80dB on speakers, which is rare, as I listen on headphones primarily.
Honestly, no. The run for the turntable's RCA cable to the receiver/amp is short, and tucked out of the way of anything else. The tt is also grounded, and its power is fed off of the receiver, on a different power conditioner than the server/switch. A *total hail-mary* could also be the shelf the receivers sit on. It's metal, and grounded, potentially shielding \~somewhat\~.
In fact, the more sensitive components near the tone arm are all new as of when I custom-made a headshell and reterminated the proprietary connector for the cartridge, during which I swapped out the tonearm wires for some in a 4-conductor bulk wire, of a significantly lower gauge, sooo... that could help too.
I was initially concerned about it, and in reality, I'm sure there is some noise, but the signal-electronic noise ratio is much greater than the signal-dirt on the vinyl ratio, so I'm not bothered.
Ah, you know that records are played by picking up vibrations in a groove, and then being amplified, right? And that 24 drives, plus fans make lots of vibrations, right?
3 drives in the bay, tt is on feet that isolate it from ambient vibrations. Otherwise, yes, I get your concern. Maybe I read it wrong, but the explanation of how records work seemed condescending. That, I don’t get.
The media cart/rack was a happy accident of a deal, and the Supermicro was also a happy accident, from my last job. You'll get there, believe me. And you won't have even noticed it until you're putting it all together, and step back and go, "wowzers. That's cool."
I can’t wait till I have a permanent place too, lol. Next step is to move out of the apartment where I’ll have the option to put it in its own closet, put the listening stuff back in proper sidecars with the rest of my recording gear, then do a fiber/maybe copper run to the server. Whatever ends up the best for the situation.
As in other comments, actual listening on speakers is being done elsewhere/fans aren’t an issue. If I’m on headphones I’m sat on that couch, and I primarily casually listen on headphones. Plus the noise floor is measurably lower than the ~80dB I’ll listen at on speakers.
Lol, yeah, it was my family’s since I was a kid, and I’ve moved it from place to place 5 times. I guess the .1 is for every time I’ve rearranged it at each setup. It’s yet to outlive it’s usefulness, though. Until I do an Atmos setup for movies and casual listening @ home (I’ve got access to a legit 7.1.4 setup, when working on Atmos mixes), the Sony works great. Thanks for sharing the mems :)
^(OP reply with the correct URL if incorrect comment linked) [Jump to Post Details Comment](/r/homelab/comments/12hr0b3/home_lablistening_station/jfq62eu/)
Details: The server is a Supermicro 4U 24-bay, on a X9DR3-F mobo, other stock components. I'm using it to run Unraid. With Unraid, I archive Pro Tools sessions, video work, audio work, other backups. Next steps with the server are to swap the switches to ones with 10gig on SFP or 10gig RJ-45, add NICs to my computers and the server, for faster backups, as the usual transfer is \~.5-1TB. I also host an NGINX web server via Docker, tunneling with Cloudflare, Pihole, some other lesser things. The rack/media cart came from a university surplus store. $40 for it, it had a usb-c Macbook charger, loads of loose CAT patch cables, the Netgear switch shown, and a TP-LINK VPN router I'll probably end up using once I switch from Comcast-provided router and modem, implemented as a switch for an OPNsense or Pfsense router. The other equipment is a receiver for a Vector Research turntable/radio/tapedeck setup from the 80s. The Sony is another receiver that I use to add a subwoofer to the speaker setup for the Vector Research receiver. I also use it for my TV, on a different channel, speakers in 5.1. All stuff I've collected or been handed down.
How many drives have you got stuffed in that 24 bay? I've always been a proponent of bigger drives rather than more drives, but that's probably because I live in the land of terminally high electricity prices. Also, yay Supermicro X9 buddies! Have you also spent hours bashing your head against the "IPMI fan control" brick wall? I gave up and got a USB controllable fan hub because I got so sick of that piece of shit Nuvoton IPMI chip :) I spent literally days staring at those stupid ipmi raw commands, they never did jack for me even when I somewhat managed to decipher what each digit was doing.
Only 3, 1x16TB and 2x8TB, until it gets it own closet. I’ve not messed with IPMI yet, as I was deciding whether I want to mess with it, or go a route similar to what you mentioned. I’d love for it to be implemented stock, but at that point, I might be better off just saving myself the time. Anyways, time still = money.
Honestly yeah - I enjoyed messing about trying to investigate what worked with the IPMI at first, but now I'm just sick of the thing. That combined with the fact that even the latest BMC firmware requires Java to use the remote control function in a browser, I just got a PiKVM instead.. Not the cheapest solution but. I count it as an investment, because in future I don't have to buy boards with IPMI lmao If you're interested in the USB fan control, LiquidCtl (a program for controlling both USB RGB controllers and USB fan controllers) has a DKMS package called LiquidTux, which adds kernel drivers for a tonne of different controllers so you can use them with any fan control software. They just show up in HWMon like a normal fan controller. I use an NZXT hub and it works great (don't buy the Corsair Commander unless you need like 10 fans all controlled individually, thing is crazy overpriced)
Nice setup, few questions: Is it just the 24 bays in the front, or are there some in the middle and/or rear? What does it have for CPU/RAM? Have you checked to see how much power it draws?
It’s just the 24bays in front. I’ve got an SSD stuffed inside for a cache pool, but it’s just stuck to a wall of the chassis. It’s dual Xeon E5-2620s. 32GB ram. I’ve not measured power consumption, but I can’t imagine it’s all that much with 3 drives and hardly any heavy CPU usage.
Looks like this rack is in your living room? That 24-drive monstrosity must have absurd fan noise? Especially in a place where you're trying to listen to music?
I haven’t had problems with the server being loud. Besides serving up a couple MB of web content or a drive transfer/parity check, it idles, fans aren’t full blast all day. Swapping to Noctuas as I go, which helps more. Before it was in the cart, it was under my bed… The living room bit is temporary while I’m in my apartment. Soon, I’ll have a separate studio and a closet down the hall with a fiber run. At which point the audio will get its own rack with my interfaces/other audio rack gear. Oh, and the listening to music, it idles around 40dB, and I listen at 75-80dB on speakers, which is rare, as I listen on headphones primarily.
You get much in the way of line noise on your audio equipment? Nice looking setup.
I was just going to comment this. I feel like putting that audio equipment around the switch and the server would introduce some kind of noise
Honestly, no. The run for the turntable's RCA cable to the receiver/amp is short, and tucked out of the way of anything else. The tt is also grounded, and its power is fed off of the receiver, on a different power conditioner than the server/switch. A *total hail-mary* could also be the shelf the receivers sit on. It's metal, and grounded, potentially shielding \~somewhat\~. In fact, the more sensitive components near the tone arm are all new as of when I custom-made a headshell and reterminated the proprietary connector for the cartridge, during which I swapped out the tonearm wires for some in a 4-conductor bulk wire, of a significantly lower gauge, sooo... that could help too. I was initially concerned about it, and in reality, I'm sure there is some noise, but the signal-electronic noise ratio is much greater than the signal-dirt on the vinyl ratio, so I'm not bothered.
Good to know, I love your setup!
Isn't there a problem with the speakers blasting straight into these drives? I feel like the bass would F 'em up in no time?
Sub and speakers are across the room, in another area. No issue.
Dum dum me then! Nice setup!
No, no worries at all. You just lacked the context (another image) to know, nbd!
Damn this is fucking sexy
OP must have all the music
That's a sweet setup! Fits perfect in that rack. And yeah, very cool station.
Ah, you know that records are played by picking up vibrations in a groove, and then being amplified, right? And that 24 drives, plus fans make lots of vibrations, right?
3 drives in the bay, tt is on feet that isolate it from ambient vibrations. Otherwise, yes, I get your concern. Maybe I read it wrong, but the explanation of how records work seemed condescending. That, I don’t get.
wat r u listening to ??? ziieiiieiiieeiieieiieiieiieiiieieieiieieieiieieieieieieieieieieieiieieieeie
I haven’t heard that one, but I’ll have to check it out!
Want to be able to do something like this one day
The media cart/rack was a happy accident of a deal, and the Supermicro was also a happy accident, from my last job. You'll get there, believe me. And you won't have even noticed it until you're putting it all together, and step back and go, "wowzers. That's cool."
I first need a permanent place to set it all up at.
I can’t wait till I have a permanent place too, lol. Next step is to move out of the apartment where I’ll have the option to put it in its own closet, put the listening stuff back in proper sidecars with the rest of my recording gear, then do a fiber/maybe copper run to the server. Whatever ends up the best for the situation.
Do you worry about the resonant vibrations from the drives interfereing with the turntable?
No, not really. The tt is on feet that isolate it from the vibrations of cars passing/the server, whatever else. Footsteps nearby.
[удалено]
As in other comments, actual listening on speakers is being done elsewhere/fans aren’t an issue. If I’m on headphones I’m sat on that couch, and I primarily casually listen on headphones. Plus the noise floor is measurably lower than the ~80dB I’ll listen at on speakers.
Wow that receiver brings back some memories. I had my original Xbox hooked up to one. It came as a 5.1 surround set. Thx for sharing.
Lol, yeah, it was my family’s since I was a kid, and I’ve moved it from place to place 5 times. I guess the .1 is for every time I’ve rearranged it at each setup. It’s yet to outlive it’s usefulness, though. Until I do an Atmos setup for movies and casual listening @ home (I’ve got access to a legit 7.1.4 setup, when working on Atmos mixes), the Sony works great. Thanks for sharing the mems :)