A Few More Photos

Thought I would share my apartment setup. A crossover of homelab and budget audiophile hobbies.

I have a basic N100 Mini PC that runs Proxmox. Its main job is a Technitium DNS backup server (a lot like PiHole). However, I added an additional LXC container to run as a headless Plexamp app.

• I passed through the USB bus to my xDuoo TA-10R Tube Headphone DAC/Amp for lossless playback. I can pass through from the DAC/Amp to my receiver, or power on my headphones.
• I can definitely hear a big difference, especially with my headphones.
• The main Plex server in the lower left holds all the actual media.
• You don't need Proxmox to do this — even a little Raspberry Pi can run as a headless Plexamp.

Audio Gear

• xDuoo TA-10R Tube Headphone DAC/Amp
• Sennheiser HD 6XX Headphones
• Shure SRH1440 Headphones
• Denon AVR-S660H
• JVC TD-V1010 Stereo Cassette Deck
• Marantz TT-15S1
• Pro-Ject Phono Box DC Preamp
• ELAC Debut 2.0 B5.2 Bookshelf Speakers

Homelab Gear

NAS

• Noctua NH-U12S
• Intel X520-DA2 10Gb Dual Port SFP+
• ASUS Prime Z690M-Plus D4 Intel LGA 1700 DDR4
• 128GB DDR4 RAM (4 x 32GB 3000MHz Corsair Vengeance Pro)
• Corsair SF750 Platinum PSU
• OEM 9300-8i 12Gbps HBA IT Mode
• Six 14TB SATA Hard Drives
• One 500GB Cache NVMe M.2 Drive
• Two 1TB M.2 ZFS Mirror for Docker App Data
• One 128GB 2.5" SSD as a Boot Pool

Both of these hobbies are really fun and really expensive. A lot of this gear was thrift store finds, gifts, or a lot of saving. The most recent change was putting the NAS into the Jonsbo N6 case, which fits right into the Ikea Kallax shelf unit.

Upgrade Question

I've been stuck on the audio gear side of things lately, and I think it's time for some new speakers. I really want some floor-standing speakers, but I'm unsure how necessary that is within this space. Looking for something that can fill the room at 65–70dB. Let's say a budget of $1K — what would you get and why? Bonus points if anyone's run floor-standers in a similarly sized apartment and can speak to whether bookshelf + sub would've served them just as well.

This record player was gifted to me about a decade ago, back when I was broke, but I’m still broke now. The motor does work, but makes a considerable about of noise. During any quieter parts of a song, you can hear the motor spinning. It’s not the belt, because it makes noise regardless of the belt is attached or not. Sometimes the motor also stalls, and I have to move the platter manually to get it going. I almost feel like I am missing a part, does something sit between the plastic part that spins and the metal motor? Parts for this thing is expensive, so I thought I’d post this here. Maybe all I need is a little machine oil? I’m open to any ideas, thanks!

From the website:
My research has two major components: (1) the development of a curriculum using the Palestine poster as a key resource for teaching the formative history of the Palestinian-Zionist conflict in American high schools. This aspect of my work is viewable in my New Curriculum and; (2) the creation of a web-based archives that displays the broadest possible range of Palestine posters in a searchable format with each poster translated and interpreted.

Bravo to this person, and anyone else involved in preserving these publications!