The Rhythmrug

james

Below is a description of my current overly-complicated stereo setup called Rhythmrug, named after the A Tribe Called Quest song “Can I Kick It?” Naturally this was the first song I played on the rig when I finished setting it up! Currently the physical setup itself is kind of a mess due to the layout of the room the equipment is in, so once I move it all and get it setup right I will add some photos here. But for now, specs:

Storage of digital music

  • music files (mostly flac) stored on a RAID5 of Samsung F4 2TB drives on a LSI Megaraid 8308LP 8 port RAID card
  • RAID passed-through (in a hodge-podge way) to a Ubuntu virtualmachine on a ESXi host (based on this build) using this method
  • Music directory shared via SMB to network

playing of digital music (software)

  • Windows 7 virtualmachine on ESXi host connects via SMB to Ubuntu virtualmachine which stores music
  • FooBar2000 on Win7 VM plays music out over USB DAC
  • control Foobar2000 using my Android phone using FoobarCon Pro
  • (previously I controlled FooBar2000 using my old iPhone’s Remote App which connects to FooBar2000 using the brilliant TouchRemote extension)

playing of digital music (hardware)

  • USB DAC in from FooBar2000, out to SPDIF optical audio cable
  • optical audio into Yamaha HTR-5930 receiver
  • 12AWG speaker wire with banana plugs from receiver into Linn Kan Mk1 bookshelf speakers
  • subwoofer cable from receiver’s subwoofer output (analog) to Y cable (RCA red/white) into Klipsch RW-12d subwoofer’s RCA inputs
  • AKG K 240 Studio headphones for late night listening

Aural bliss (and shaking home, sorry neighbors!).

 

UPDATE: Time for the photos I promised!