Best for storing music? Ipod, HTPC, etc..

[Lu(ky]

Hello,

I just bought a Yamaha RX-V2700 Receiver and I see I can buy a Ipod dock for it, and it says I can connect my computer to it as a music server using (Windows Media Connect 2.0). I already own a Ipod nano. I was also planning on building a HTPC in the next couple of months. My question is what is the best for storing your music on and listening to it back on? Ipod, computer/server? I want full CD quality sound out of it with no compression. I see my Yammy has a built in enhancer for music. I just hate to go one way and waste so much time and having to redo everything. I am currently using I-tunes, and I was thinking of upgrading to a new 80GB Ipod? Tell me what you think.

Thanks

 

[lowmagnet]

For full sound quality with no compression, you want ALAC (Apple Lossless) if you're using iTunes. You can connect your computer to your stereo via either S/PDIF or coaxial digital (if it's close enough or if you're using that HTPC down the line) or via airtunes on airport.

 

[rtcp]

Firstly, I'm guessing you'd want to avoid that music "enhancer". I doubt it would actually improve the sound, because as far as I can tell, it would probably just colorize the sound. But I haven't actually gone out of my way to figure out what exactly it would do.

Your most practical choice would be to use an HTPC. Lossless storage is quite practical if you're using a computer, simply because 3.5" hard drives are very cheap, as opposed to the 1.6" or whatever they are in iPods.
Also, it might be preferable to interface with an HTPC instead of an iPod, because with the iPod you are required to use the DAC built into the iPod. If you were to connect your HTPC to your reciever via a Toslink cable, you wouldn't have ground loop/noise issues, and you'd be sending a purely digital signal to the reciever for it to decode. The nice thing here, too, is that there are many motherboards with onboard optical out, and you can many cheap soundcards with an optical out. Whereas the analog sound coming out of onboard sound, as well a cheap soundcard, is not so stunning, if you leave it in a digital format, you don't get those drawbacks.

In general terms, I don't see the iPod as being a viable source for discerning audio playback. It simply has too many technical drawbacks that hold it back in terms of sound quality. It's built for portability, not so much for great sound.

 

[Lu(ky]

Firstly, I'm guessing you'd want to avoid that music "enhancer". I doubt it would actually improve the sound, because as far as I can tell, it would probably just colorize the sound. But I haven't actually gone out of my way to figure out what exactly it would do.

Your most practical choice would be to use an HTPC. Lossless storage is quite practical if you're using a computer, simply because 3.5" hard drives are very cheap, as opposed to the 1.6" or whatever they are in iPods.
Also, it might be preferable to interface with an HTPC instead of an iPod, because with the iPod you are required to use the DAC built into the iPod. If you were to connect your HTPC to your reciever via a Toslink cable, you wouldn't have ground loop/noise issues, and you'd be sending a purely digital signal to the reciever for it to decode. The nice thing here, too, is that there are many motherboards with onboard optical out, and you can many cheap soundcards with an optical out. Whereas the analog sound coming out of onboard sound, as well a cheap soundcard, is not so stunning, if you leave it in a digital format, you don't get those drawbacks.

In general terms, I don't see the iPod as being a viable source for discerning audio playback. It simply has too many technical drawbacks that hold it back in terms of sound quality. It's built for portability, not so much for great sound.

Great I was leaning towards the HTPC side anyways. I have a nice computer now with a SoundBlaster X-fi sound card.
I pre-orderd my Xbox 360 Elite with a 120GB HD maybe I can turn that into a music server I will not use all that space??

My Computer:

 

[Nestor]

My 429 cd / 5270 song collection swallows 140g in FLAC lossless compression. It's approx 50 to 60% the equivalent WAV format. You can use that as a guide for your own present and future collection.

A PC in the livingroom can be pretty noisy due to the fan. If you use a music server, such as a Sonos or Squeezebox, you can leave your pc out of the living room, but still have full control of your music collection in a high quality audio format.

 

[MDS]

If you want to have uncompressed versions of your music library, you will need a lot of storage.

My approach is similar to Nestor except that I save the full uncompressed WAV files on a large external hard drive. I currently have 525 or so CDs and 5074 WAV files ripped from those CDs. They consume 210 GB of the 300 GB drive. I consider this my music archive.

I rip the CDs one by one because sometimes I need to do minor editing of the tracks. It takes forever and I would not want to have to start all over again. You need a good backup strategy so that you don't lose everything in the event of a hard drive crash. My strategy at the moment is low-tech - I buy a new drive every few years and copy the files over to it.

Once you have the library saved somewhere, either in WAV or FLAC, you can then either play those files directly or transcode them to a lossy format like MP3 without having to re-rip the CDs.

 

[Lu(ky]

If you want to have uncompressed versions of your music library, you will need a lot of storage.

My approach is similar to Nestor except that I save the full uncompressed WAV files on a large external hard drive. I currently have 525 or so CDs and 5074 WAV files ripped from those CDs. They consume 210 GB of the 300 GB drive. I consider this my music archive.

I rip the CDs one by one because sometimes I need to do minor editing of the tracks. It takes forever and I would not want to have to start all over again. You need a good backup strategy so that you don't lose everything in the event of a hard drive crash. My strategy at the moment is low-tech - I buy a new drive every few years and copy the files over to it.

Once you have the library saved somewhere, either in WAV or FLAC, you can then either play those files directly or transcode them to a lossy format like MP3 without having to re-rip the CDs.

Great info thanks alot. So basically above info is only if you own your own cd's and converting to WAV/FLAC/ files. I can not do this if I buy a song from ITunes for 0.99 right. Only the CD's I own already. With all of this copy protection stuff it seems one way I go it works then I try to use it this way and it says NO WAY. I just dont want to run into those problems. All of you guys helped me out alot. One more question can I convert SACD or DVD-A cd's too WAV/FLAC? And what HD do you guys use. I use Western Digital Raptors in a raid-0-, but I have a feeling that would be very bad idea. May be 2 WD HD 320GB mirror for protection.

 

[MDS]

RAID (mirroring) is actually a great idea to solve the backup problem. I just haven't gotten around to it yet myself.

I use a Maxtor 300 GB external drive at the moment but really WD and Seagate are just as good. I have WD drives in one computer and Seagate in another and they both are reliable (so far!) and work well but the Seagate is a tad quieter than both the WD and Maxtor.

iTunes: If you purchase a DRM protected file from iTunes the only way to save it as a WAV would be to burn it to a CD and the rip it back from the CD. Doing so will NOT improve the quality - you'll just have an uncompressed version of the original file. You do gain the advantage of now having a file with no DRM that you can do with what you will.

You cannot rip the hi-resolution tracks from SACD or DVD-A but hybrid SACD also contain a 2 channel PCM track that will play in a normal CD player and you can rip that version.

 

[solomr2]

I'm at the same crossroad myself at the moment. The iPod dock is nice for integration, but the other drawbacks already stated about the iPod are tough to overcome. And iTunes is not my favorite musica management software. I've been copying my entire CD collection to my external 160GB HDD using the highest setting variable bit WMA format. Although VB WMA is not lossless, the sound quality if virtually indistinguishable from lossless and the file size is a lot smaller (150MB vs 600MB per CD).

Connecting the PC to the receiver is an option, but for me I would need a cable about 18 feet long, so it's not practical. Another option is to put my wireless router and Cable modem closer to my receiver and then get a wireless adapter for my PC, but I don't exactly have the space on my AV rack for these two devices, so I prefer not to do that. I think there are better ways.

I am now looking at getting a PS3 as a media server. It has the ability to store and rip media (although I'm not sure if it can transfer files from other sources besides CDs). It includes a Blu-ray player. It has built-in wi-fi, so I don't need to reconfigure my router and PC setup. It takes regular 1.5" hard disks, so I can buy more capacity when I need it - in fact I may take the 60GB out, put it into my laptop to replace my 30GB drive, and then buy a 120 or 160GB for the PS3. Besides all that, it seems to be a pretty good gaming machine.

I'm not convinced the PS3 is the be all, end all, solution. But it seems to do 80% of what I need from a media server. That may be enough to reel me in. If I buy one I'll go to one of the big box stores with a money back guarantee just in case I get it home and discover some horrible limitation that I wasn't aware of.

 

[solomr2]

And what HD do you guys use. I use Western Digital Raptors in a raid-0-, but I have a feeling that would be very bad idea. May be 2 WD HD 320GB mirror for protection.

For music, I don't bother with any raid schemes. Since I own the CDs themselves I can always recreate my archive if it was ever necessary. However, I only buy seagate drives with their 5 year warranty, and I only use external drives for the music. They work great, they're reasonably quite, and I have never had one fail. I've had WD and Maxtor give out on me (although that was years ago), so I just don't trust them anymore. But my two computers and my laptop came with Maxtor inside and they seem to be just fine.

Incidentally, I don't bother buying music from Apple or other similar services. If I like the songs, I'll buy the whole CD and then I can do whatever I want with it and not worry about copy protection issues. I hate the whole CP sillyness, and few sources offer lossless or high resolution VB formats, so I just don't bother with them.

If you want to find good deals on CDs, check out eBay. There are a few reputable sources that sell new, sealed, original CDs for very reasonable prices (most are under $10). And they're not knock-offs.

 

[solomr2]

Quick update:

I just discovered the PS3 will allow you to connect an external USB HDD, so you can have virtually unlimited storage, you can rip from any PC and play on your PS3. So, this is proving to be a really tough package to beat as a central media server for the HT.

 

[Lu(ky]

Quick update:

I just discovered the PS3 will allow you to connect an external USB HDD, so you can have virtually unlimited storage, you can rip from any PC and play on your PS3. So, this is proving to be a really tough package to beat as a central media server for the HT.

Dont forget the new Xbox 360 Elite with the new HDMI and a 120gb HD. I think that one will sink up better with the Windows Media Connect 2.0 thru the Media player.

 

[solomr2]

Dont forget the new Xbox 360 Elite with the new HDMI and a 120gb HD. I think that one will sink up better with the Windows Media Connect 2.0 thru the Media player.

You only need Media Connect if you're going through a network and want to access media files on your PC. But with the external HDD plugged directly into the console you simply access the files just as though they are local files on the internal drive. Much more elegant and much faster than going through the network.