My own Standalone Audio Player, version 2

Since mid 2006 MoSAP player and DDAC1543MK2 usb dac had replaced the cd-rom player in the livingroom of my home.

Audio quality is incredible higher in comparison with the Pioneer PD-S06 and the Marantz Cd 6000 OSE cd-players. The usb dac is entirely in charge of this astonishing musicality :-). And AlbumPlayer is a really efficient software also for not-trained and occasional users.

Do you need anything more?

Yes because, aesthetically speaking, a mini pc and a simple wooden box is disliked in a livingroom! Now it's time to gain a more winning design :-).

Basic idea is really simple: insert a mini pc and the usb dac in a single box. Audio playback feature is a simple task with low resources needed (20% cpu usage, 800Mhz motherboard, flac files). A Mini-Itx motherboard gave the necessary power. A small 180w power supply is well suited for this purpose: 30-60w for the mainboard + 24w for the dac.

Components List

Via Epia M10000 motherboard
512Mb DDR ram memory
320Gb rpm IDE hard disk
180W FlexAtx low noise power supply with PFC
80x80mm fan
DDDAC1543MK2, 2 tower kit
Windows 2000 operating system
AlbumPlayer software

System assembled for testing purpose. Usb dac is on the right side:

Audio listening tests with the Beyerdynamic DT 800 headphone and the reliable MingDa MC66-AE amplifier:

Now it's time to build the case...but my manual skill are too much limited :-(.

Fortunally one of my brother's hobby is to build piece of wooden furniture for his new home. I have promise to gave him the second prototype so in exchange he supply the hard work :-)) Thanks Michele!

This is the box I have designed.

Dimensions: 420x300x100mm.
Material: MDF, 10mm.
Front panel: solid olive wood.

And this is the box my brother build:

The system finally assembled in the box:

In the livingroom, with the Arcam Diva A75 PLUS amplifier and the AlbumPlayer software:

This system was in charge of playing music in my home from a year now. System perform very well but now it's time to gain some improvements. These are the drawbacks of this project:

the annoying noise that came from the cpu and system fans.
the "squeaks" from the hard-disk :-)
the slow motherboard.

So now it's time to show the MoSAP3!

Last update: 27/12/2007 - SimCap - www.simonecapretti.eu