Voyage MPD as a music transport: what works, what doesn't work

Rosewind

Hi there.

As I wrote in the Young thread I have just ordered myself a Voyage MPD music player kit to see what this linux-based music player is capable of. In this thread I will try to assemble as much info about assembly, set-up and use of the MPD Voyage music player as possible. I don't have all the time in the world, so don't expect day to day updates.

In the Young thread I received the following reply from ted_b that rules out the M2Tech Young DAC for use with the linux-based MPD Voyage music player. The same goes for similar types of DACs with their own costum made USB drivers:
------
ted_b wrote:
"I have an Alix box (Yoyage MPD) that I'm experimenting with.  The Young
is a no-go there.  M2Tech, like some others, are likely to not go that
route since Class 2 USB Linux is public shareware and would require that
the driver specs be made public.  By the way, it has nothing to do with
aysnch or higher sample rates....the Antelope Zodiac Plus and Gold
(384k) both are pure Class 2 USB and work directly with Voyage MPD Linux
music servers."
------
Thanks to ted_b.

I will try to keep track of the DACs known not to work with the Voyage MPD music server. This will be in the second post of this thread.

My Voyage MPD kit consists of the following things that set me back 160 €:

ALIX.2D2 ALIX system board (SBC) Single Board Computer, Geode LX800, 256 MB RAM, 2 LAN, 2 miniPCI, USB
1 CASE.22.B for ALIX.2x2/ALIX.6x2 black (comes in silver and red)
1 CF-4GB-K133 Kingston CompactFlash ElitePro 133x 4 GB (used for memory playback)
1 PSU (wall wart which may need to be exchanged for a much better one later)

Add to this the FREE Voyage MPD software that is downloadable from: http://linux.voyage.hk/voyage-mpd (a donation to the good people behind Voyage MPD is good form)

The software must be burned onto a cd prior to installation.

This is all for now.

Best wishes,
Peter

Rosewind

These DACs don't work with the Linux based Voyage MPD music server:

M2Tech Young DAC


These DACs work with the Linus based Voyage MPD music server:


Antelope Zodiac + (as reported by Ted_b)
Antelope Zodiac Gold

SONORE TESTED DEVICES

*Ayre QB9 - USB to
analog playback up to 24/192

*Benchmark USB DAC1
- USB to analog playback up to 24/96

*Halide Design Bridge
- USB to spdif playback up to 24/96

*High Resolution
Technologies (HRT) Music Streamer and Music Streamer II - USB to analog
playback up to 24/96

*Wavelength
Wavelink - USB to spdif playback up to 24/192

STREAMLENGTH CODE BASED PRODUCTS

The following is a list of Streamlength code based devices that should work with Sonore USB music servers.

*Analog
Research Technology Legato - USB to spdif interface

*Grace Design m903
- USB to analog playback up to 24/192

*Halide Design DAC - USB to
analog playback

*Wavelength Crimson
- USB to analog playback varies by configuration

*Wavelength Cosecant
- USB to analog playback varies by configuration

*Wavelength Brick
- USB to analog playback varies by configuration

*Wavelength Proton
DAC with headphone output - USB to analog playback up to 24/96

CENTRANCE CODE BASED PRODUCTS

The following
is a list of Centrance code based devices that should work with Sonore USB music servers.


*Bel
Canto Design USB Link- USB to spdif playback up to 24/96

*Bel
Canto Design Integrated Amplipfier- USB to analog playback up to 24/96

*Benchmark DAC1 PRE - USB to
analog playback up to 24/96

*Benchmark DAC1 HDR - USB to
analog playback up to 24/96

*Centrance DAC Magic - USB headphone DAC up to 24/96

*PS Audio PerfectWave
DAC - USB to analog playback up to 24/96

dCS USB BASED PRODUCTS

The following
is a list of dcs code based devices that should work with Sonore USB music servers.

*dCS Scarlatti - USB 26/96 digital upsampling interface

*dCS Paganini - USB 26/96 digital upsampling interface

*dCS Debussy - USB to
analog playback up to 24/96

COMMUITY TESTED PRODUCTS

*Arcam rDAC
- USB to
analog playback up to 24/96


*Cambridge Audio DacMagic - USB to
analog playback up to 16/48

*Music Fidelity V-DAC - USB to
analog playback

Best wishes,
Peter

uglymusic

Thanks for starting this Peter

Interested to hear how it all sounds and where the strengths and weaknesses are.

ted_b

There are great threads about Voyage MPD over on Audio Circle and DIY.  Here is a list of some DACs that are Class 2 USB audio, and therefore work with Voyage and other MPD servers.
http://www.sonore.us/Sonore-USB-Compatibility.html

Although not a failsafe rule, figure if the DAC needs a proprietary driver installed then it is likely not a candidate.  By the way, I use Minion (Firefox plugin), Gnome and MPad (inexpensive ipad app) as my clients currently.  I will get the Antelope in here next week again, so real a/b to things like a MAcbook SSD tweaked music server are in the offing.

ted_b

It's whole philosophy is around Einstein's "make it as simple as possible, but not too simple" approach.  It is a very low cost, low power, small processor...but 110% dedicated to serving music period.  No other processes are occurring,  No hard drives hang of it, nor can it be accessed directly (i.e it has no web browser of its own).  The music sits on a shared drive somewhere on the net, and various free (or in the case of MPAd, cheap) clients access it.  If you are a Windows user, tools like putty and Winscp are invaluable to set it up.  I am a complete Linux idiot newbie, but with the remote help of a couple of buddies on Audio Circle I got it working.  My simple but upgraded 3rd party ps arrives today, although I don't have a compatible main rig DAC yet to really hear the results of better power supplies for a few days yet.  I'm currently just in testing mode, playing it into a portable USB headphone amp.

Rosewind

Thanks ted.

Please report back on the SQ values of your "simple but upgraded 3rd party psu."

I suppose it means that I can safely add the mentioned DACs to my list above?

I'll see if I can document my progress (and failures) once I receive the MPD Voyge server parts. Let's see how it goes.

Best wishes,
Pet

ted_b

My psu is a $17 one from Parts Express......ok maybe not simple (regulated, 6 choices of voltage), but cheap. 

Rosewind

Ok ted. Is it a handsome beast, then?

I have just ordered myself an Ayre QB-9 to go with the Voyage MPD transport. It is a bit more than I would have liked to spend, so I really need the transport to work for me.

Otherwise I will have to use my daughter's intel Lenovo that I know can double as a black Mac ...

Anyway, the Ayre QB-9 won't come for another three weeks so I will have plenty of time to assemble the Voyage MPD music transport.

Best wishes,
Peter

ted_b

Nice.  Find Nick (aka nyc_paramedic....cuz he's a New York city paramedic! ) on one of the forums (google his handle and Alix or Voyage MPD).  He is an incredible MPD resource, and has the Ayre QB-9 as well.  Nick is our fearless leader in this, and is very very helpful. 

Where will your music hard disc(s) reside?

Rosewind

Thanks Ted.

My hard drives will be on my Synology NAS.

I have seen Nick's posts, but have forgotten that he is the one who owns an Ayre DAC. I will have to reread that whole thread again.

Best wishes,
Peter

Rosewind

I did receive the kit listed above whose CF card needs to have the program Voyage MPD installed on it. I had to buy a card reader to do this.And install Oracle VM VirtualBox to run a live cd from my Virtual Drive (which mounts the .iso directly from the hard drive).

Now I am still trying to figure out to go through the installation commands and figuring out what the compact flash card is called in linux lingo.. I am slowly learning how to do it. I have no prior knowledge of linux apart from the time when I had to manually install Squeezeserver on a Qnap NAS (that was flipflip's edition before Qnap managed to create their own installation package).

This is not easy for someone who hasn't tried this before, but as I wrote the dealer who is selling me the Ayre QB9 - I have all month until the Ayre arrives here. By that time I need to be ready.

So I am getting closer and closer to being able to install Voyage MPD on the compact flash drive. But I'm not there yet. Pointers are very welcome ...

Best wishes,
Peter

Rosewind

For some reason I fail to install on my flash drive. It says that the drive has already been mounted. Hmmm.

I read from my live cd. I think I install from a tmp-directory on an 8gb virtual box hard drive. I think I install to the flash drive (sdb).

I'm stuck for today anyway and its over midnight in Denmark, so yawn yawn, I'll go to bed. Tomorrow and tomorrow there will be other days ...

Best wishes,
Peter

ted_b

Rosewind, call/contact Nick.  I had my flash card pre-programmed with Voyage installed, so what I had to do was install it in the Alix box, find Alix on my network, program mpd.config and fstab, and then figure out how to have Alix/MPD see my shared drive on my pc.  Once that was done, I re-edited mpd.config for the correct audio outputs.

Good news is that once this is all done the MPD server runs without fail.  I have it serving music to the Antelope Zodiac Plus right now.  I will report back on sonics later when i have had time to put in a better ps, etc.

Rosewind

Antelope Gold. Hmm. Not bad. Do report back.

I am sure that I will get there eventually. I'll try to contact Nick if I keep getting nowhere.

Best wishes,
Peter

ted_b

Not Gold, Plus.  But thanks anyway. 

Rosewind

Hi ted_b.

Zodiac + it is then.

I have now oficially installed Voyage MPD onto my Alix 2d2 board thanks to "Punky TSE-2." I now have to figure out how to prepare my Voyage system for use wiith my Synology NAS that has NFS capability. The system seems to be read only and I wil have to find a way to change that.

Best wishes,
Peter

uglymusic

An aside, just out of curiosity really. Which Synology NAS do you have Peter?

Rosewind

A 2-disk 209+.
Best wishes,
Peter

uglymusic

Thanks Peter

I got asked the other day about my Synology NAS, which is a 2.5" model, by someone looking for a quiet NAS that takes 4x3.5" drives. I had to say I couldn't help. I bought mine mainly on the strength of the CA review that said it was small and quiet. That, indeed, is what it is. But I can't fit any 3.5" drives! :-)

ted_b

The linux command is "remountrw" which makes MPD read/write during that session, necessary if you are to do any editing of config files, etc.

Rosewind

Hi Ted.

Thanks. Can you point me to a guide that I can follow? There is a Swiss guy who has a very thorough guide, but I don't think I have to go through all the manual set-up that he does. Or do I?

Best wishes,
Peter

Rosewind

Uglymusic.

Tell him to read some online reviews. There was a nice site called Small Net Builder (http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/) that has thorough reviews of various Synology, Qnap and other manufacturers' products.

Best wishes,
Peter

uglymusic

Thanks Peter

That'll solve the problem, I'm sure ;-)

Rosewind

I have now contact to Nick through Audio Circle. I can use Putty to enter my Voyage MPD. I have configured my NAS (enabled NFS) and have entered fixed IP-adresses for both Voyage MPD and the NAS. I am slowly getting there. I will receive my Ayre QB-9 in a few days. However, I doubt that I will have Voyage MPD up and running by then as I need a very specific guide in order to set up the MPD.

Best wishes,
Peter

uglymusic

This is really fascinating. 

Please don't take this the wrong way Peter, but there comes a time in any geek's life when we have to tangle with Linux. I've had various distros running on various hardware from desktop to netbook.

But at some time the fascination and the challenge just fades. I don't have Linux installed on anything that works at the moment. And I've gone back to the Mac. It has all that Unix goodness underneath and a command line should I feel mad enough to open up the Terminal, but it also does what I want without pain and generally without having to research it.

I hope you're having fun. I'm not sure if I want you to tell me how brilliant Voyage MPD is, because I might get sucked back into all the Linux madness 

:-O

:-D

Rosewind

Hi ugly.

I am back from a short Easter holiday in Hamburg. I have now received the Ayre QB-9 which sounds very good and resolved. But I have a hard time convincing my wife that it is so vastly better than my SB Touch + Aune DAC that it warrants the x 5 price tag over that inexpensive combo. This means that I may have to sell it on at some point. But at least then I will know what it sounds like.

I am not having fun with the Voyage MPD yet. I will have to have exact details on configuring my "fstab" and "mpd"-config-files for me to use it with the Ayre. instead I have used my work laptop (Win7) so far., It sounds fine but suffers from intermittent drop outs and crackle. I can't wait to listen to it fed by the Voyage MPD.

I am comfortable with Linux as long as I know exactly WHAT to enter WHEN. I am using Putty to SSH into the Voyage MPD. That is no problem.

Best wishes,
Peter

uglymusic

I hope you had a good holiday.

Shame about having to sell on the QB-9 - that's usually a route to losing money. Can you not use that argument with your wife?

I'm with you on having to know 'exactly WHAT to enter WHEN'. I've never got to the stage where the Linux command line became intuitive.

Have fun!

Rosewind

I'm not having any fun yet as I have not had any time to spend on getting familiar with Linux. Nor have I been able to take Nick (NYC Paramedic) up on his offer to walk me through the rest of the installation procedure. I have been bogged down with work and family. Now the Ayre is in my second system hooked up to my desktop Shuttle computer, and it sounds very good ...

If I don't sell the Ayre too quickly I may have the chance to compare it to the M2Tech Young DAC. On a Danish forum the owner of the M2Tech Young has written a very favourable review of the DAC in his system. He has been on the quest for a SQ that rivals or betters his vinyl set-up. He thinks that his search has ended but he would like to listen to the Ayre QB-9 if possible. I this happens I will post our findings in a new thread.

Best wishes,
Peter

uglymusic

Thanks for the update, Peter.

I hope you get it all working and have a chance to compare the DACs. 

I'm still waiting for my Eva 2 back from Mr Kok in Malaysia.