I want to play my mp3 and Flac Files

[dpnaugle]

I am considering buying the Denon 3808 or the Onkyo 905 for the network capabilities. I currently have a Denon 2807 and love it, however I want the marriage of my computer and receiver to add to my music experience. I want to play my MP3, FLAC, and streaming audio.


How well do these units match up to a computer. Will itunes work?


The features of the Onkyo have me leaning in that direction but I have owned Denon for the last 15 years with no complaints.

Experience and relevant threads appreciated.


Thx
DN

 

[fmw]

I wish I had experience with the receivers you mention but I don't. Let me make some comments that might be helpful, however. Some receivers with network connectivity require you to control audio streaming from the computer rather than from the receiver itself. That means you can't control things with the receiver remote from the listening position. If you see that as a potential issue, then check it out.

I do my audio streaming with a Slim Devices Squeezebox. It connects to my network with a built in wireless ethernet adapter. It has a wired ethernet port as well. It has its own display, DAC and remote and it costs just $300. It will allow you to use your present receiver to do exactly what you want to do. It decodes both MP3 and FLAC codecs as well as well as others. I have it programmed into my Harmony universal remote so operating it isn't any different than operating the rest of my system. When I show it off to visitors it blows many minds. Check it out also.

 

[JJMP50]

You may also want to check out the Roku Soundbridge 1001. I've had mine for over a year and love it. There were some complications in the beginning, but after updating the firmware, it became a jem.

 

[dpnaugle]

I had the Roku and was didn't have the success I was hoping for. I don't think I would have a problem controlling things from my computer. In fact one of my complaints with the Roku was that the display was too small. I don't think the display on any receiver would be much better. I will look at the squeeze box, but hopefully someone can share their experience with the receivers I have mentioned.

Thanks for the tips.

DN

 

[808htfan]

FYI, Slimdevices just intro'd a couple new devices. http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_duet.html

 

[jcPanny]

Audio streaming.

A device like the Squeeze box or Apple TV will do a better job of audio streaming than features built into a receiver.

If you like iTunes, check out the Apple TV. It has a 160 GB hard drive and can also store and stream pictures and video and has a very nice GUI. If you don't mind using a PC or laptop to control iTunes then just pick up an Airport express for about $100 and use it with any receiver.

iTunes does not support FLAC, but the Apple Lossless format would work just as well.

 

[masak_aer]

I use the very primitive way out. Just get an audio card with the aux out. Use the Y-cable and connect it to the receiver. In the meantime, i use my tv as my monitor via S-video (from my video card), you can use the PC monitor cable to your tv anyway. Works like charm so far. Squeezebox will work very well when your computer is far from your receiver.

 

[evilkat]

My receciver is also able to do the whole networking thing, but it's a bit cumbersome and slow to navigate through the menus to select the music u want to play. I prefer to directly hook up my rig to the reciever via digital out. Then I can use iTunes/WMP or whatever digital player of your preference to play music/movies.

This has the added benefit of applying any custom decoding from your PC before sending it to the receiver (i.e. if ur receiver cannot decode FLAC or something).

 

[pmac]

I am considering buying the Denon 3808 or the Onkyo 905 for the network capabilities. I currently have a Denon 2807 and love it, however I want the marriage of my computer and receiver to add to my music experience. I want to play my MP3, FLAC, and streaming audio.


How well do these units match up to a computer. Will itunes work?


The features of the Onkyo have me leaning in that direction but I have owned Denon for the last 15 years with no complaints.

Experience and relevant threads appreciated.


Thx
DN

I use the audio streaming all the time with my new 3808. Works great for MP3's. FLAC not so much, but if you convert FLAC to WAV then there is no issue. You can use the "Burrrn" program to do the conversion in a couple minutes per album to .wav files.

Just to note. For networking I hated the cable running across the livingroom floor. I made a small investment all over the house and installed the Power line network adaptors wherever I have an internet capable device that isnt wi-fi. plug one from router to the "wall socket" (I had problems when plugged to a power surge protector) then plug one from the power sockets to the devices, connection is plug and play and should work on apartments on their own fuse box to full houses. 11mbps and 54/84mbps speeds I have seen, currently i use 11mbps all over the place. i think i should have a 54mbps at the router though.

 

[ErinH]

I wish I had experience with the receivers you mention but I don't. Let me make some comments that might be helpful, however. Some receivers with network connectivity require you to control audio streaming from the computer rather than from the receiver itself. That means you can't control things with the receiver remote from the listening position. If you see that as a potential issue, then check it out.

I do my audio streaming with a Slim Devices Squeezebox. It connects to my network with a built in wireless ethernet adapter. It has a wired ethernet port as well. It has its own display, DAC and remote and it costs just $300. It will allow you to use your present receiver to do exactly what you want to do. It decodes both MP3 and FLAC codecs as well as well as others. I have it programmed into my Harmony universal remote so operating it isn't any different than operating the rest of my system. When I show it off to visitors it blows many minds. Check it out also.

Sorry to veer this off the original question, but I think this is what I've been looking for.

Basically this acts as a 'media computer' itself? You connect this to your Receiver via optical (this would be how I'd do it), and the squeezebox has a screen that displays all the music on your network? So, I can stream all my music off my desktop with this, rather than having to bring my desktop into the living room?

I've been trying to figure out a way to stream my music and play it through my speakers via the receiver. This might be it.

 

[gus6464]

Sorry to veer this off the original question, but I think this is what I've been looking for.

Basically this acts as a 'media computer' itself? You connect this to your Receiver via optical (this would be how I'd do it), and the squeezebox has a screen that displays all the music on your network? So, I can stream all my music off my desktop with this, rather than having to bring my desktop into the living room?

I've been trying to figure out a way to stream my music and play it through my speakers via the receiver. This might be it.

Do you have a laptop or an iphone? If so you can get an airport express for 1/3 of price and have it do the same thing as the squeezebox. I have an airport express hooked up via toslink to my receiver and have it set up so that my wife can control the music server in the office through her macbook pro or iphone.

 

[ErinH]

No mac products for me.

When you stream the music, do you use a regular ol' media player or iTunes? The only issue I have with using iTunes on my wife's laptop is that I have hers setup to copy & organize all songs that I play on her iTunes. Whenever I play a song from my library on her computer it'll copy it to her computer. I'd hate to have to disable this feature everytime. But, for $300 I could deal with it.

 

[808htfan]

...Basically this acts as a 'media computer' itself? You connect this to your Receiver via optical (this would be how I'd do it), and the squeezebox has a screen that displays all the music on your network? So, I can stream all my music off my desktop with this, rather than having to bring my desktop into the living room?...

Yep, just install the server software on your desktop. You can try out the server software here, http://www.slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html. That has to be running on the computer you connect the Squeezebox to (unless you use an alternative like iTunes, I think), you point it to your 'music' folder (create shortcuts in that 'music' folder pointing to other folders/drives holding music if they're not in its sub folders), the rest is pretty much adding the Squeezebox to your network if I remember correctly.

You can also connect to the Squeezenetwork when your desktop is off.

 

[gus6464]

No mac products for me.

When you stream the music, do you use a regular ol' media player or iTunes? The only issue I have with using iTunes on my wife's laptop is that I have hers setup to copy & organize all songs that I play on her iTunes. Whenever I play a song from my library on her computer it'll copy it to her computer. I'd hate to have to disable this feature everytime. But, for $300 I could deal with it.

Yeah I just have all the auto crap on itunes turned off on my wife's laptop. Every time I rip a new CD I just rip it to the music server. That way if she just wants to listen to music through her laptop with headphones or something she still can. So it really boils down to if you want to have a separate screen near your receiver for $300 or just have your own laptop do the controlling for $100. Also make sure you use the mini toslink -> toslink cable if you go with the airport express so that you can bypass the AE's DAC and use the receivers.

 

[bandphan]

Simply adding a computer as a source component would be the easiest.(using an extender with mce, adding the flac plugin for wmce) since the FLAC files are going to be the only ones with "good" sound quality using a av cat5 balun to get sound from the computer to the reciever would be the best if the comp is not used a source component

http://nilesaudio.com/product_detail.php?recordID=Component CAT-5 Baluns&categoryID=Cat-5 Baluns&catcdID=14

I am considering buying the Denon 3808 or the Onkyo 905 for the network capabilities. I currently have a Denon 2807 and love it, however I want the marriage of my computer and receiver to add to my music experience. I want to play my MP3, FLAC, and streaming audio.


How well do these units match up to a computer. Will itunes work?


The features of the Onkyo have me leaning in that direction but I have owned Denon for the last 15 years with no complaints.

Experience and relevant threads appreciated.


Thx
DN

 

[gus6464]

I have also played around with FLAC, Apple Lossless, MP3 and AAC when ripping my CD collection and honestly you would be very hard pressed to find a difference between any of the lossless formats and 320k AAC or MP3. But that is only if you want to save hdd space. With the prices of HDD storage nowadays it wouldn't really matter. I just rip all my stuff with EAC in AIFF format (fully uncompressed).

 

[ErinH]

Yeah I just have all the auto crap on itunes turned off on my wife's laptop. Every time I rip a new CD I just rip it to the music server. That way if she just wants to listen to music through her laptop with headphones or something she still can. So it really boils down to if you want to have a separate screen near your receiver for $300 or just have your own laptop do the controlling for $100. Also make sure you use the mini toslink -> toslink cable if you go with the airport express so that you can bypass the AE's DAC and use the receivers.

Okay, but will Airport work with a Windows based PC? hmmm

 

[gus6464]

Okay, but will Airport work with a Windows based PC? hmmm

Yes all you need is itunes. Once you get it just PM me and I can guide you on how to get everything set up through your PC that is going to be the music server.