Laptop HTPC recommendations for serving up WAV files

[modman]

First of all, it's been 4-ever since I posted in the forums. It's good to be back!

It is clear there is a world of both audio and computer expertise in this forum, so I would appreciate your assistance. I am about to upgrade my receiver to a Pioneer EliteVSX-52 (I am very excited). This thing has DLNA compliance and AirPlay, so the connectivity opportunities are very interesting.

So here is what I want to do...please help me do it!

I have a HUGE CD collection. I want to purchase a cost-effective laptop that will sit in my audio rack and let me rip the CD's in WAV format, with one copy going to two parallel hard drives. I want full track, artist, and album cover info, as well as the ability to put tags on the CD's ("sunday morning" or "high nrg" etc) that I can search. I'd like to be able to sort through the CD's on the laptop's display at the rack...but also be able to sit on my couch and see the CD info on my TV screen and make selections.

Is this a pipe dream?

If it's possible, I could sure use recommendations for laptop specs and ripping software. While I am a fairly clever person (and an engineer), building my own HTPC is not an option and could result in the end of life as we know it. That's why I need a purchase, ready-to-go option.

The opportunity to access -- intentionally or randomly -- my entire CD collection represents a whole new world for my listening!

Thanks for your thoughts.

PS -- If the WAV file is served up by the laptop...what is the digital connection to the receiver? HDMI?

 

[bikemig]

It's not a pipe dream but it is a lot of fun creating a set up for computer based audio playback. Two things you might want to think about. First, it seems as if you are setting this up near your TV. You could go with a laptop or you could simply use a PC and use the TV screen as your monitor with a wireless keyboard. That could save you some money. Second, why go with wav files? I'd use flac or apple lossless; if you want to use itunes and airplay, you want to go with apple lossless.

 

[jinjuku]

It's not a pipe dream but it is a lot of fun creating a set up for computer based audio playback. Two things you might want to think about. First, it seems as if you are setting this up near your TV. You could go with a laptop or you could simply use a PC and use the TV screen as your monitor with a wireless keyboard. That could save you some money. Second, why go with wav files? I'd use flac or apple lossless; if you want to use itunes and airplay, you want to go with apple lossless.

HD space is cheap and you can go bit-perfect with wav. For this type of scenario I never saw the sense with purposefully going away from .wav.

 

[its phillip]

flac is bit perfect as well...and I was under the impression that wavs didn't support tagging.

 

[modman]

That was my thinking...that with storage so cheap, why bother with compression at all? But I have heard varying opinions about the ability of WAV rippers to gather and include meta data (tags, album info, etc.). I could sure use some wisdom in this area.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Before starting I'd suggest doing a bit math - you as engineer should be fairly familiar with it
One CD equivalent in WAV is 650Mb. Average (budget) laptop harddrive is about 500 Gb average (or you could easily upgrade to 500gb without too much extra $)
Actual usable space is actually less - so formatted 500Gb HD would have about 430-450Gb, minus windows 7 + few programs = 30gb - you roughly left with 415Gb = Thats approx 650 CDs worth of WAV
If you decide to do lossless compression like FLAC you could double that number...

Any other specs are irrelevant for you, other that it would be nice to have hdmi out.

 

[bikemig]

HD space is cheap and you can go bit-perfect with wav. For this type of scenario I never saw the sense with purposefully going away from .wav.

HD space is cheap but there are two advantages to flac or apple lossless: space and better support for metadata (at least with certain applications). The right answer to the OP's question probably turn on which applications he wants to use. If you want to use itunes (and it is pretty darn good both as a CD ripper and for audio playback), you probably really want to use apple lossless. The OP said he was interested in airplay which means he should seriously consider apple lossless. AIFF, WAV, FLAC, and ALAC are all bit perfect and you can go back and forth between them. The first two are lossless uncompressed; the latter two are lossless compressed. You certainly want to create lossless files for all your CDs. But there are advantages to lossless compressed (flac or alac) over lossless uncompressed. This link provides some useful info on the subject, http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Whats-difference-between-WAV-AIFF-AIF-MP3-FLAC-WMA-ALAC-M4A-etc.

 

[bikemig]

This is a good source of info on file types and computer based playback in general: http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/AudioFiles.htm.

 

[jinjuku]

That was my thinking...that with storage so cheap, why bother with compression at all? But I have heard varying opinions about the ability of WAV rippers to gather and include meta data (tags, album info, etc.). I could sure use some wisdom in this area.

All my track data, album art show up....

500 GB? A 2TB drive is $70 now days. I don't know of anyone with 2500 CD's. Even 650 CD's is a lot. Not sure what the average size of people collections are here. Even so I would rather rip to a full rip and just spend $70. It's just not the rabbit I want to chase down a hole.

Wav files can indeed be tagged. There are two standards, Wav List and Wav ID3v2, which are stored in the RIFF chunk of the wav file.
I like the Windows Media Center interface (MS does do SOME things right) and I have an ASIO shim for it. I tried JRiver and just wasn't a fan.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

jin, I was referring to 500gb as a common laptop size, of-course external usb drive could be added

 

[sholling]

Honestly I don't think it's the best use of a laptop. I would much rather have a desktop where you can have RAID1 or better and I'd still back up to an external device. It's kind of fun to rip once but it sucks hugely to have to rerip a huge collection because a drive died.

I'd also stay with apple lossless or flac for both compression and reliable tagging. There is just no good reason to waste space with WAVs.

 

[jinjuku]

I'd also stay with apple lossless or flac for both compression and reliable tagging. There is just no good reason to waste space with WAVs.

Sure there is:

1. Reconstitute a CD back to its' original
2. Transcode to other formats

Wav's are perfect for this. Cmon' we are talking about $70 here. Spend another $70 and you can back everything up and keep one drive offline. It's chicken scratch.

 

[bikemig]

Sure there is:

1. Reconstitute a CD back to its' original
2. Transcode to other formats

Wav's are perfect for this. Cmon' we are talking about $70 here. Spend another $70 and you can back everything up and keep one drive offline. It's chicken scratch.

You can do exactly the same with compressed lossless files. Lossless is lossless. But if wav makes you sleep better at night, go for it. There is clearly more than one way to make a computer based playback system work well . . . .

 

[jinjuku]

You can do exactly the same with compressed lossless files. Lossless is lossless. But if wav makes you sleep better at night, go for it. There is clearly more than one way to make a computer based playback system work well . . . .

With a 2 TB drive that I am using it just doesn't matter... So I don't worry about it.

 

[modman]

Thanks for the discussion. Very helpful. A few things:

1. I am a bit ignorant about how some things work. If I rip a WAV file into my iTUnes folder, it will be available for AirPlay, right?

2. Optimally, does the digital signal come out of the HDMI port to the receiver?

3. I should have said that I have about 1200 CD's, and that my rack is about 15 feet away from my viewing area. So I'd like to have a screen at the rack. But I think you are right...I can get a small PC cheap, with dual high-speed drives..might be a better option than a laptop. It's just that the laptop would look sleeker/cooler in the rack.

 

[bikemig]

Thanks for the discussion. Very helpful. A few things:

1. I am a bit ignorant about how some things work. If I rip a WAV file into my iTUnes folder, it will be available for AirPlay, right?

2. Optimally, does the digital signal come out of the HDMI port to the receiver?

3. I should have said that I have about 1200 CD's, and that my rack is about 15 feet away from my viewing area. So I'd like to have a screen at the rack. But I think you are right...I can get a small PC cheap, with dual high-speed drives..might be a better option than a laptop. It's just that the laptop would look sleeker/cooler in the rack.

1. Alac will work better for itunes/airplay if that is what you want to use. Since it creates a bit perfect copy of the CD (use error correction with Itunes), you can subsequently convert it to other formats if you change your mind.
2. You can get the audio out via a digital out (if your computer has one), hdmi, or get a usb to spdif converter if you like. I don't think anyone has made a very convincing case for an "optimal" way to get audio out. I wouldn't lose much sleep over it, go cheap, and see if you like it. You can always try something different later. Another way to get the audio out of your computer is via a music streamer such as the Squeezebox Touch; I'm a big fan of their products and stream all my music.
3. Some small form PCs are pretty cool looking and some are designed for computer audio playback. You might be interested in vortexbox, http://shop.smallgreencomputer.com/ but then you'll be using flac.

 

[sholling]

Sure there is:

1. Reconstitute a CD back to its' original
2. Transcode to other formats

You can do the exact same thing with FLAC while wasting less space and tag support is much better with FLAC. Have you ever seen dbPoweramp's batch converter? You can transcode flacs to anything with no loss in quality. The last of my WAVs were converted years ago and I don't miss them even a little a bit. Add in the fact that more and more better than CD 88-192khz 24bit FLACs are becoming available from commercial sources like HDTracks and it's time to bury that old dinosaur. Technology has moved on.

Wav's are perfect for this. Cmon' we are talking about $70 here. Spend another $70 and you can back everything up and keep one drive offline. It's chicken scratch.

You sound like a friend trying to convince me to ask her fat girl friend out on a date.

OP I'm not a mac guy or a pod-person but I'd stay with an Apple lossless format for Airplay just because Apple are such control freaks.

 

[GoFastr]

First off, it is a good idea to never ever store your music/movie data collection on the same physical disk drive as your Operating System is running on (no not even in a different partition/drive letter on the same drive).

I would always store it on a separate portable drive so if (when) the O/S screws up you can still access your collection from another PC or wait until after you reload your O/S. I also agree with previous posters that it is an even better idea to use a separate raid array.

How many times have we encountered a virus/syware etc. issue that doesn't seem to get cleaned up properly or a new version of the O/S comes out that says to do a clean install rather than an upgrade?

As far as connecting your PC/lapto to the receiver goes, most of the new receivers have an ethernet port on them. Once connected to your home network it finds your PC (at least Windows7 & Vista does) automatically and you can stream music or movies directly from it through whatever speakers you have connected to your receiver with all the album art etc. displaying right on your big screen TV.

Hope some of this helps, Good luck, it is definately more enjoyable!

 

[modman]

Good thoughts. How about something like this, coupled with external dual hard drives?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856158017&cm_sp=Pers_ProductSimilar-_-56-158-017_1_AG-_-56-158-016

 

[jinjuku]

Add in the fact that more and more better than CD 88-192khz 24bit FLACs are becoming available from commercial sources like HDTracks and it's time to bury that old dinosaur. Technology has moved on.

I thought that FLAC:

1. Was simply a container (compressible like .zip) not a format
2. Is free of any patents/licensing

I do wish MS supported FLAC natively. Something else I have to rig Win7 MCE to be able to play.