DAC's - with portable hard drives

M

Mr Crown

Audiophyte
Dear Group:
I have a portable hard drive with lots of music on it. How do I play those files through my stereo system. Im trying to get out of using cds. Im not sure if I need a new AV receiver or a DAC to interface between the hard drive and the stereo. i assume Ill need some device to read the digital files

Thank you
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
Roku 2/3/4 should do the trick if you have TV connected to your receiver.
If you receiver is lacking hdmi port, you'd need to get 4 version with optical out.
As long as your receiver has digital inputs - you don't need a dedicated dac
 
F

fmw

Audioholic Ninja
I leave the hard drive in the computer and access it with a streamer using WiFi. There are streamers with either hard drives or hard drive connectors if you prefer that method. My best streamers are now discontinued. One of my streamers is still available and is available from Grace Digital. I assume there must be some better ones of more recent design but I'm not up to date on them. Perhaps someone will come by with some recommendations.
 
M

Mr Crown

Audiophyte
Roku 2/3/4 should do the trick if you have TV connected to your receiver.
If you receiver is lacking hdmi port, you'd need to get 4 version with optical out.
As long as your receiver has digital inputs - you don't need a dedicated dac
There is no tv involved. I have a500 Gb hard drive with wav music files on it. I was looking for a way to view the files and choose the music to play from that hard drive through my stereo. It's as simple as that.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
There is no tv involved. I have a500 Gb hard drive with wav music files on it. I was looking for a way to view the files and choose the music to play from that hard drive through my stereo. It's as simple as that.
I see. Then Grace Digital Tuner might be a product you're looking for.
Only gottcha - they Do claim support for usb thumb drives, but not usb hard drive.
From technical standpoint, only real difference I think is amount of power available at it's usb ports.
It might be insufficient to power more power hungry usb drive - but don't take it as a fact - your drive might work (or not).
Luckily, larger sized thumb drives are dropping in prices even faster than stock markets:
This one for example:
http://www.amazon.com/Lexar-JumpDrive-256GB-Flash-Drive/dp/B00S5V5PTC/ref=sr_1_9?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1455395442&sr=1-9&keywords=256gb+thumb+drive
 
F

fmw

Audioholic Ninja
I see. Then Grace Digital Tuner might be a product you're looking for.
Only gottcha - they Do claim support for usb thumb drives, but not usb hard drive.
From technical standpoint, only real difference I think is amount of power available at it's usb ports.
It might be insufficient to power more power hungry usb drive - but don't take it as a fact - your drive might work (or not).
Luckily, larger sized thumb drives are dropping in prices even faster than stock markets:
This one for example:
http://www.amazon.com/Lexar-JumpDrive-256GB-Flash-Drive/dp/B00S5V5PTC/ref=sr_1_9?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1455395442&sr=1-9&keywords=256gb+thumb+drive
I have one of the Grace digital units. No need to attach a hard drive to it. You can navigate to a computer with any of the popular media servers. Put the hard drive in the computer. The unit has its own DAC so the connection to the preamp is analog. It has a small screen to navigate to the individual music file desired. it has internet radio as well in case that is of interest.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
I have one of the Grace digital units. No need to attach a hard drive to it. You can navigate to a computer with any of the popular media servers. Put the hard drive in the computer. The unit has its own DAC so the connection to the preamp is analog. It has a small screen to navigate to the individual music file desired. it has internet radio as well in case that is of interest.
fmw, I am going to assume that setting file shares even on a windows box is outside of expertise of op.
He is looking for a very simple setup
 
M

Mr Crown

Audiophyte
Thank you. I will look into one of their units and report back if its what I need.Thank you
'Seth
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
I tried different ways but settled on using my PC (desktop or laptop) and DAC. For software, Foobar is free, and there are better ones that you have to buy, such as jRiver.
 
M

Mr Crown

Audiophyte
Today I bought A SONOS connect to stream music from my portable hard drive to my stereo. Its an easy product to set up. Basically take it out of the box, plug the power in and connect the RCA cables from the audio out into the stereo aux input Then you need to set up the wi fi connection on your smart phone. After that you need to go onto your desktop and download the SONOS app. I called the SONOS rep to help me with the process and to show me how to duplicate the music on my hard rive to my SONOS music library.This took about 10 minutes. Once done the music library then appeared on my smart phone. There is also access to Pandora and quite a large number of audio resources to stream. Thanks to all of you that helped me in this endeavor.

Seth
 
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