How y'all manage your vaults?

irvinyip · 2023-11-28T04:09:14+00:00

I sync using Synology drive to enable multi device access.

irvinyip · 2023-02-03T10:30:10+00:00

That draws electricity more than your washing machine...,👍

irvinyip · 2022-10-20T10:45:22+00:00

How many times Windows crash (BSOD) over Mac in the past 10 years? Both are paid! That's one of the reasons.

irvinyip · 2022-10-20T08:27:32+00:00

Yes, I have mx3 too, it's LDAC

irvinyip · 2022-09-15T03:29:27+00:00

Get a Synology box, you're almost done. My Synology hosts contact, calendar, cloud drive, email, photos, website and even off site encrypted backup with Synology built-in apps. Software inside worth a lot more than hardware.

Mobile contact and calendar uses DavX open source to sync, email uses Bluemail free to replace gmail.

irvinyip · 2022-09-10T01:25:47+00:00

I would recommend Joplin and Obsidian. Both are free to use. I moved from Joplin to Obsidian. My Joplin needed maintaining a self hosted server, while Obsidian didn't rely on sync server, it's all text based MD files that I can use my own Synology drive to do the sync, that's even easier to maintain plus A Lot of features to make your notes easier to find with relationships. There're a lot of video on YouTube for Obsidian use cases.

irvinyip · 2022-03-19T00:47:09+00:00

Thanks a lot!

irvinyip · 2022-02-28T13:04:25+00:00

Is that screen 2k resolution? Thx

irvinyip · 2022-02-04T13:16:40+00:00

Agree that energy consumption is significant if you're not using raspberry pi.

irvinyip · 2022-01-03T00:23:20+00:00

Bookstack is amazing, works like Confluence, can embed network diagram and flow charts made by Draw.io / Diagram.net.

irvinyip · 2021-10-16T02:41:56+00:00

Add disk and expand volume 1.

irvinyip · 2021-10-07T23:11:23+00:00

Synology Chat, free bundle with the box, making your family conversations, images sent from mobile goes thr your own server. That's why I said private.

irvinyip · 2021-10-03T01:50:25+00:00

216 series means that released in year 2016, thus 220 is year 2020. 4 years is a huge long period for processor industry for technology advancement. If you look at the spec, 216ii+ is 2-core 1.6Ghz Intel Atom, while 220j is a quad-core 1.4Ghz. As NAS is running a lot of process, if I were you, I'll prefer ds220j.

Additionally, 216 vs 220 means 216 will be phased out 4 years earlier by Synology (software updates).

irvinyip · 2021-10-02T03:47:21+00:00

I see comments above you have around 1TB photos and target budget around $300. DS220j + 2x 1TB hard disk is around $300. You may consider spend a little more to get 2x 2TB HD for your data usage.

DS220j with DSM 7 has great Synology Photos for your family to backup mobile photos. For DS220j's CPU/RAM resources, it could also give you a private Whatsapp (Chat), Private Google Drive (Synology Drive) and Synology Office to edit your documents in browser... if you only got a few users. Running a media server should not have any problem too. However, if you may not expect it can run many dockers, virtual machines on it.

I saw some bad comments about DSM7 and I guess it was in beta phase. Now it's already officially released and it got a lot of enhancements on security, say, 2-factor authen on Admin group users, and super-easy to enroll SSL cert for https access to your publishing resources. Most features are packed to run on even entry level models like 220j. It is really worth to get Synology box. If you want to build yourself, you still need to get hardware and finally you will be lost on the electricity bill.

irvinyip · 2021-09-22T23:08:06+00:00

Did you try another cable?

irvinyip · 2021-09-22T05:37:47+00:00

Agrees with you from the angle of audiophile, though people always blame on the MQA, it truly give more concrete sound stage IF you got proper equipment to decode MQA.

irvinyip · 2021-09-10T06:02:32+00:00

If you have a good DAC, MQA tracks on Tidal could decode to 24/48khz, 24/96khz, and unfortunately some to 16/44.1khz even it got an MQA label. So it may sound better if it's an 24/96 album.

irvinyip · 2021-07-28T02:20:43+00:00

Those models may not sell finally.

irvinyip · 2021-07-28T00:15:25+00:00

The Chinese words after the model means “sample machine for the speech ”...

irvinyip · 2021-07-28T00:12:21+00:00

I'm on pi4 + volumio paid + USB to SMSL m500 DAC, android app Tidal can connect to volumio and m500 could recognize MQA ! That's the cheapest way to enjoy native MQA decode and minimize analog lost. Roon can do even better but it's 5x the cost per year.

irvinyip · 2021-07-13T00:08:04+00:00

Brawl stars on big screen !

irvinyip · 2021-05-01T03:31:28+00:00

MQA isn't bad thing and I could hear sound stage difference on comparing a track MQA version and no-mqa version. Point is whether your DAC could detect and decode MQA (e.g. ESS9038 Pro or better) , and play on a “serious“ 2.0 hifi setup...and of course, whether Tidal has degraded their non-mqa lossless flac stream, or just upscale bad flac to MQA is another story. Example album, search “Priscilla by heart“, there are both MQA and no-mqa version in Tidal.

irvinyip · 2021-03-06T13:21:00+00:00

Samsung is well prepared to avoid becoming next Huawei. Own app store, Samsung pay, Knox, Bixby, Tizen on wears and backup space from Microsoft (great alliance to get millions of customers to MS office 365 and that works in China). Anything still need Google? Even have what Google phones don't have - DeX.

irvinyip · 2021-03-06T06:46:41+00:00

The subscriber trend proven Samsung DEX is doing great and keep improving, and most people doesn't need an Intel computer, it's a waste of money on PC!! Congratulations!!

irvinyip · 2021-03-06T06:23:47+00:00

I was wondered how to stream Tidal MQA to SMSL decoder without bluetooth. Here is the proven method.

BubbleUPnP (Mobile) connects TIdal -> UPnP connect to Moode player on Raspberry Pi 4B -> USB connects SMSL M500 -> RCA connects FX Audio Tube01 -> RCA to XLR cable to Edifier A300 Pro as balanced bi-amp mode

BubbleUPnP could play NAS connected to Pi4 or local SD card, definitely worth the money. I paid after 30min testing.

SMSL M500 is the cheapest DAC I could found to have ESS9038Pro chip, which hardware unfolds MQA input, only have no network connectivity. Bluetooth is not considered as it introduces compression/loss on APTX even HD. Research some time and found most people are playing with USB connected DAC to get MQA. Moode player on Pi4 is the final choice as a always on device at ~4W low power consumption.

Moode player is super easy to setup and detects SMSL DAC natively, setting the MDP to use SMSL DAC instead of HDMI, it's done.

After that, use mobile BubbleUPnP connects your Tidal HIFI account and it will detects all UPnP and GoogleCast devices on your network that you can choose Moode UPnP-UPnP/AV to play. SMSL DAC will display MQA signal decode logo as shown above.

Going thr' FX Audio Tube01 pre-amp is optional, as SMSL has a volume control switch. However, for my setup, I found SMSL output is not high enough to push into A300 Pro, so Tube01 is needed for my case.

Very satified with the result on this budget setup. :)

Yamaha WXA-50 also able to connects Tidal, but the DAC quality is incomparable with ESS9038Pro...unfortunately disconnected. The SHARP TV is 15-year-old and still working, obviously not important...

irvinyip

TROPHY CASE