Tag Archive for Music Server

Introducing Nimitra2 / Nikola2 as second generation of computer audio server and linear power supply

December 1, 2021 in News

Nimitra2

Today is the big day for Fidelizer. After years of preparations and refining products for second generation, Nimitra2 and Nikola2 are finally ready for production which are projects I’ve been working for 2 years already.

There’s so much going on behind the scene since last year. As I also have clients ordering custom $5-7k server project since the first Nimitra. I always thought it’d be great if we can build a product having performance that resembles custom highend server for half price.

With Classic series, it helped me realizing my dream to make highend audio performance affordable at $995. There’s also very good cost effective Nikola Classic at $395. This will keep Nimitra affordable and I can focus on taking second generation to next level.

I planned to launch them last year but could not make it to production stage due to covid situation which affect many companies worldwide causing long delay. I’ve been selling Nikola Signature with Nikola2 circuit board for over a year now, waiting for Nimitra2’s completion.

Now that I can finalize Nimitra2 design and production line, it’s time to embark a new journey. Nimitra2 will pair up nicely with modern DACs in market with custom made chassis, optimized as a streamer to deliver performance based on CD transport with Esoteric’s drive.

Nimitra2’s Features (As upgrade from Signature):

-Custom aluminum chassis design for better resonance/vibration control and heat dissipation
-Motherboard and chassis has vibration absorber/isolator material reducing vibration to motherboard
-MOSFET in motherboard’s power supply circuit is upgraded with high quality one from Japan
-All clock modules in motherboard are now upgraded improving sound quality on USB/Ethernet/HDMI
-Capacitors in motherboard are tuned with better resolution and details extraction

With all new improvements focusing on improving purity of signal and reduce interference, I can hear music flowing with richer ambient and micro detail and feel closer to music with newfound improvements on Nimitra2.

MSRP price of Nimitra2 is $2495 USD. For original Nimitra and Nimitra Signature owner, you can send your original unit to upgrade to Nimitra2 at $1,100 for Nimitra and $600 for Nimitra Signature. This upgrade should be a great value for existing customers to enjoy music better.

Nikola2’s Features (As upgrade from Signature):

-Input capacitor is changed to dual capacitor circuit design improving power handling
-Diode is upgraded with higher output current to handle devices like Roon Nucleus+ better
-Capacitors are tuned for better transparency and micro detail without sacrificing musicality

With new changes and improvements on Nikola2, it helps music flowing with Nimitra more coherently with timbre and PRaT done right to make music both enjoyable and believable. This can apply to any device Nikola2 powers also.

MSRP of Nikola2 is $749 USD. Nikola2 has a new circuit design so upgrading with top up price is not possible. Also, most changes are about handling some cases better so Nikola Signature will deliver similar performance with some sound signature changes.

Fidelizer will provide free shipping during introductory period for all Nimitra / Nikola purchases in December 2021. I hope this will be a fine Christmas present to audiophiles worldwide and happy listening. 🙂

Introducing Classic series of Nimitra and Nikola, the most affordable highend audio products

October 1, 2020 in News

After successful launch of Nimitra and Nikola Signature lineup, I gained a lot of experience and knowledge about building affordable products with better price performance ratio. After a lot of design and listening tests, Classic series of Nimitra and Nikola is finally ready.

The original Nimitra and Nikola have some limitations on pricing and they reached maturity in Signature series later. Classic series has improvements and corrections on original design for 2 years optimizing to get the most from Signature series.

Nimitra Classic - computer audio server

Nimitra Classic provides full support of Roon Core and Roon Ready with many other features such as DLNA/uPNP, OpenHome (Linn/Lumin), HQPlayer NAA, Airplay, and Squeezebox ready to be used with same optimizations as Signature version with only hardware changes as below.

-Same software features and optimizations as Signature version
-Cost most effective solution for sound quality / features / services
-Compact 1.5mm aluminum thickness chassis for small space
-Cost effective motherboard design with high precision event timer
-Trusted industrial quality components with high reliability

Since audiophile network switch is becoming standards in 2020, WiFi module will not be installed by default for better sound quality. You can choose to install WiFi module if you want to. I can still setup JPLAY and others as optional requests also.

Nikola Classic - linear power supply

Nikola Classic shares the same circuit design as original Nikola. It has some parts changed and adjusted to deliver better price performance ratio with high synergy to perform well in any system musically with some changes as below.

-Same circuitry design as original Nikola
-Regulator tuned for high synergy musical performance
-Compact 1.5mm Aluminum chassis for small space
-Audiophile grade capacitors used in some flagship products
-16 AWG teflon insulated copper internal wiring

I managed to find better cost effective parts with some design changes to bring the better performing products at more affordable price. Nikola Classic will be an ideal linear power supply solution for EtherStream and many other products with linear power supply too.

The price of Nimitra Classic is $995 USD and price of Nikola Classic is $395 USD. All Nimitra and Nikola products will have free shipping during introductory period until 31st October 2020 with 30-day money back guaranteed.

You can also purchase Nimitra and Nikola Classic series with EtherStream with free shipping and 2 outputs termination at $1785 USD. This combination is even more affordable than Nimitra Signature server and I hope this will help making highend audio more affordable.

All the things you need to know about RAM aside CL

June 7, 2019 in Article

As I observe forums since past year, it seems computer audiophiles are making demands and speculations based on information shared in online community. There’s only few bits shared among audiophiles who tried to build DIY servers and some are mixed with uninformed or misunderstandings. So I’ll try to share my knowledge that should help people in community trying to look in wider aspects.

We were told lower CL is better and that’s true for many time sensitive applications. But think about it this way. The lowest possible CL in DDR4 now is CL10 for bus 2133MHz. In DDR2 time, lowest possible CL is CL4. Isn’t that like DDR4 will sound terribly poor comparing to DDR2?

If that’s not the case here, lower CL doesn’t really mean it will always make sound quality better than higher CL one. I agree that having lower CL would be more preferable according to specifications but there should be more important factor than CL value of RAM.

From my observation through years with RAM testing since DDR2, the most important part of RAM is RAM chip itself. Even CL is lower but RAM chip has worse performance for audio, it’ll sound worse. Lower CL also affected audio performance to have less solid dynamics too and increasing CL can actually improve these aspects.

Another thing is ECC RAM sounding better though in theory it shouldn’t be. The reason that ECC RAM does sound better doesn’t really come from ECC technology itself. If you look at price point, ECC RAM costs significantly more expensive and that’s not for ECC chip alone. There’s also quality of passive components improved like ceramic capacitors and resistors used, some chipset being improved or having higher level tests which lead to ECC RAM being superior grade to non-ECC one for some cases.

Now let’s move on to single slot and multiple slot RAM. Some people believe single slot RAM is better due to having less components to cause interference. Some people believe multiple slot RAM is better due to having better RAM performance and both sides have listening tests to prove their claim too. The answer is neither.

Single slot RAM should be better technically but are you really certain it’s single slot RAM? There’re plenty of chip there and sometimes you get those chips on one side or two sides. Have you heard about single/double rank term for RAM? That will also affect how RAM module works and affect sound quality too. Some people uses only one 4-8GB for true single rank RAM but may not sound like the best idea for RAM too.

The reason why there’s no correct answer for RAM selection is because of different sound signature on each RAM chip. One model can sound like sound stage is expanding too much and dynamics can be blurred on multiple slot for some RAM. Some RAM has narrowed sound stage but strong dynamics which can have better synergy on multiple slot. Sometimes different sounding RAM can sound quite similar in different configuration.

There’s also the case of low powered design and high powered design in consideration and also system optimizations to bring the best of each design depending on designer’s philosophy and R&D. I hope this article will help you realize that it’s not about choosing the lowest possible CL to get the best RAM alone.

Introducing NimitraS (Signature Upgrade) as premium upgrade version at $1,895 USD

April 2, 2018 in News

NimitraS

Hello everyone. Today is the first day that Fidelizer Ad should start showing up on Stereophile and AudioStream website. I also have another big announcement today about Nimitra updates after launched for about 2 years now. It’s called NimitraS for Signature upgrade.

I’ve been building a few custom Nimitra servers for a long while and right now I have some custom servers in production too. Every customer who compared it with standard Nimitra saying it sounds so much better and it want me to upgrade Nimitra so much.

Don’t get me wrong. Nimitra is performing exceptionally good for its price as you can see in reviews with unique optimizations I put on. However, it’s the most affordable product I can build which mean I can build much better ones as well.

After 2 years building custom version of Nimitra, I can see the price / performance for various parts for my clients and making product with such quality won’t be affordable anymore. However, it’s possible to improve Nimitra to perform better while still being affordable enough.

After research and development for price / performance ratio, the final price for upgrade to NimitraS is $1,895 USD with the following features.

NimitraS (Signature Upgrade) Features:

-SSD Storage is upgraded with SLC grade as the highest quality of SSD design
-RAM is upgraded with premium grade for better audio performance and reliability
-Capacitors in motherboard upgraded with ESR lower than 10mOhm and have 5000hrs lifespan
-Blue USB ports has clock upgraded with 1.3ps phase jitter with shock / vibration resistance

Nimitra customers can send unit back to apply NimitraS upgrade at $500 more meaning there’s no upgrade fee to upgrade from Nimitra to NimitraS. Fidelizer will provide free shipping during introductory period for all Nimitra purchases in April 2018.

NimitraS will also come with next generation of Fidelizer Nimitra optimizations. I’ll release firmware update for standard Nimitra soon too so stay tuned and happy listening. 🙂

Nimitra Computer Audio Server receives Stereophile’s Class B Recommended Components 2018

March 18, 2018 in News

Last year Nimitra was included in Stereophile’s Class B Recommended Components: Fall 2017 which is a huge landmark for Fidelizer products. It’s amazing to see Stereophile staff contacting small company reviewing their first product and get Class B in its first year.

Stereophile published Recommended Components: 2018 Edition on 15th March 2018 and Nimitra is also included in 2018 list as Class B Media Player. I’m really thankful to Mr. Kal Rubinson and Mr. Steven Plaskin for their support and their advice.

Fidelizer Nimitra Server: $1395
A fanless implementation of an Intel Celeron J1900 2GHz processor, the Nimitra is the first server from Thailand-based Fidelizer, who specialize in using Windows as a music-playback platform. Measuring only 8.9″ by 7.9″ by 1.7″ and supplied with an outboard power supply (a 12V brick; Fidelizer’s larger and reportedly better Nikola supply is a $495 option), the Nimitra is bundled with dBPoweramp’s Asset UPnP file access and the JPlay app for streaming output—and is, as KR reported, multichannel-compatible. Kal used the Fidelizer Nimitra with his miniDSP uDAC-8 multichannel processor—”setup was almost trivial,” he said—and found the combination “absolutely delightful,” and “easily the equal of” his Mac mini–based server: “Finally, a great-sounding and affordable multichannel server that works with USB or with HDMI!” (Vol.40 No.7 WWW)

They earned my respect not only for reviewing products for niche interests but also for their professional support and services while reviewing products too. After receiving so much support, I decided to return the favor by advertising in Stereophile and AudioStream starting in April 2018. 🙂

Fidelizer.Audio

Feel the "Real Sound"