10-Jul-2020, 08:48 PM
Inspired by the threads on the Lejonklou forum, I put together an Intel DN2800MT player and a NAS with SnakeOil on both.
They sound fabulous: the best digital source I've ever owned and for very little money. Clearly SnakeOil does not get in the way of the music.
The only part of the installation I struggled with was creating a working bootable USB image. Once I paid close attention to the log output of Rufus I realised why it wasn't working and followed the instructions precisely, which then worked.
The SnakeOil installation and config guide is pretty good. It took me a few days to work out the best combinations of player, library and control point software and settings to get what I wanted, but I now have a really good set up.
Here's the hardware and software:
Player Hardware
Control App
Full credit to Agent Kith for a really robust well-behaved OS interface that gives pretty intuitive control and once set up just runs reliably.
The music is flowing. I haven't experienced any fatigue or harshness using mpd+upmpdcli. It sounds full, rich, sweet and tuneful.
They sound fabulous: the best digital source I've ever owned and for very little money. Clearly SnakeOil does not get in the way of the music.
The only part of the installation I struggled with was creating a working bootable USB image. Once I paid close attention to the log output of Rufus I realised why it wasn't working and followed the instructions precisely, which then worked.
The SnakeOil installation and config guide is pretty good. It took me a few days to work out the best combinations of player, library and control point software and settings to get what I wanted, but I now have a really good set up.
Here's the hardware and software:
Player Hardware
- Intel DN2800MT 1.86GHz Intel Atom N2800
- Fanless thin case
- 2GB Kingston RAM
- 120GB Intel 320 SSD
- Deltaco Serial ATA-600 0.3 m cable
- Supra USB A - USB Mini-B, 1 m USB cable
- ESI Gigaport+ DAC
- Intel DN2800MT 1.86GHz Intel Atom N2800
- Fanless thin case
- 4GB Kingston RAM
- 480GB M.2 SSD
- Hyperthreading disabled (dual core to dual CPU instead of dual core to quad CPU)
- SnakeOil 1.1.9 (Blind Testing U9)
- Boot kernel 4.4.9-rt117-snakeoil-x64
- Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS
- Cpuset and CPU#1 allocated to user
- mpd, irq/23, irq/25. upmpdcli all set to priority 99
- upmpdcli (OpenHome disabled)
- Uses mpd as the player
- Could not get Qobuz to work reliably with upmpdcli config so use Bubble UPnP control point Qobuz config instead
- Could not get internet radio playlist to work with Bubble UPnP control point, so use minimserver playlist for this instead.
- Uses mpd as the player
- Hyperthreading disabled (dual core to dual CPU instead of dual core to quad CPU)
- SnakeOil 1.1.9 (Blind Testing U9)
- Boot kernel 4.4.9-rt117-snakeoil-x64
- Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS
- Cpuset and CPU#1 allocated to user
- java, irq/26, irq/25 all set to priority 99
- minimserver
- I created a m3u playlist for minimserver to provide internet radio for BBC, local radio and Radio Paradise.
- Could not get the Radio Paradise FLAC streams to work - mpd complained about the format, so using the AAC streams.
- I created a m3u playlist for minimserver to provide internet radio for BBC, local radio and Radio Paradise.
- BubbleUPnP (open home enabled for the player)
- Manages the playlist so I don't need to keep the control app open.
- Also provides transcoding but I don't think I use that
- I found the upmpdcli open home support to be flaky, and Bubble UPnP completely reliable in contrast
- Manages the playlist so I don't need to keep the control app open.
Control App
- Bubble UPnP on Android
- Qobuz streaming
- Ripped / downloaded sources on the NAS
- Radio playlist on the NAS
- Qobuz streaming
Full credit to Agent Kith for a really robust well-behaved OS interface that gives pretty intuitive control and once set up just runs reliably.
The music is flowing. I haven't experienced any fatigue or harshness using mpd+upmpdcli. It sounds full, rich, sweet and tuneful.