Looking for music server suggestions...

[E-6]

I'm one of those that own countless amounts CD folders and would like to find a server to rip and store CD's as I purchase them. I don't want it controlled by my laptop and would like to hook it up to my HK. Also, would perfer OSD vs. a small LCD display. Any suggestions or reference--I've looked at some prices and was like

 

[GreenJelly]

I'm one of those that own countless amounts CD folders and would like to find a server to rip and store CD's as I purchase them. I don't want it controlled by my laptop and would like to hook it up to my HK. Also, would perfer OSD vs. a small LCD display. Any suggestions or reference--I've looked at some prices and was like

Check out the last issue of Maximum PC, they created a media station...

Mike

 

[googdot]

I can highly recommend a squeezebox 3 from silm devices - it's a small dac/lcd display, hooked to any computer on your network or nas (that can act as an exclusive music server if you like) and also has the wireless option that works flawlessly. best piece of gear I've bought in quite a while

 

[wratran]

Sonus is the best out there...but very expensive...$1000

 

[GreenJelly]

I highly recommend you buy a cheep computer (like the one Im selling)...

And load it full with ATA drives on RAID-5 or get a Backup Drive. Use this as your media server. Its easy and cheap to get well over a terabyte of data on a machine. Then simply use laptops and other devices to control the audio and video in each room.

Silly Rabit, why limit yourself simply to Audio? Distributed Video is the way to go! If you look around there are Replay TV type devices that connect to the network and can store video on a server. I am sure these also support music formats.

Monitors and inexpensive computers have far more potential for configuration then any other solution. There is some amazing software, and you can get remote controls for them. A Laptop sells for $500 now, and can be plugged into the wall and probably has full surround sound. It also can play distributed video.

The software for these devices is better then ANYTHING you can find in a commercial product. People would have NO idea that you are actually accessing a computer. It also displays menus in full HDTV, and will include features you can only dream of... Almsot any Video Card now has a TV out, and even component video now. A TV Tuner is very inexpensive, and multiple ones can record multiple shows. You can ofcourse have more then one of these machines, one for your main tv, one for your bedroom, then buy a simply network audio player for your kitchen. I have even seen people frame tablet PC's in there walls of the kitchen and used them to control TV, and Music on the different devices

Maybe you are worried about security. You can easily add a few cameras that will store the data on a server, and you could then also access that from any tv in your house Hook up a device to your heater that will allow you to control the temp of your house in different rooms. Add some nice thermostats to your system, and then add some controlled central air outlets, and you could custom talor each room to your preference of temp. Late at night, close off all the air to the rooms except the upstairs.

These are things that exist today, and that can be utilized without much trouble. It is quickly becoming reality, and soon you will almost need to have a server in your house if you want some really good features.

There are so many options out there, but you got to understand that their are better ways to go. Build a Server is the best way to go, then simply distribute the files off of it. Then go from there

BTW; a Terabyte of data from 4 drives should cost you around $200! Thats ALLOT of video and music! Also this isnt far fetched, My uncle has an amazing system he put together himself, that does everything mentioned above.

 

[buckyg4]

Squeezebox hands down.. Its compact, has decent analog outs and an excellent digital out.

 

[sholling]

I have a totally different take (no disrespect intended) from most of the rest of the crowd. I want maximum sound quality. At the least I want lossless music. MP3s just don’t cut it for me unless I’m roughing it at the gym. So far I’m in the prototype stage using an old 1.8ghz spare PC. I chose to rip to the .FLAC format so that I could enjoy full CD quality with ~30% lossless compression. WinAmp with the FLAC plug-in is the playback tool. A pair 200GB drives in hardware RAID1 will hold over 200 CDs in perfect safety. An optical cable carries the signal from an old but tasty Turtle Beach Santa Cruz to my receiver. The only weakness of the prototype is fan noise.

I’m still researching very low noise cases and power supplies and have found some workable pieces. For now I have too much on my plate to take this project any further, but next summer I plan to ditch my current prototype case and power supply for some ultra low noise parts and bump the drive size to a pair of ultra quiet 500GB Seagate drives.

Just playing with the prototype I can tell you that it was cool being able to queue up 3-4 or more hours of full CD quality music and just kick back and let it play.

 

[Audioholics]

Both Sonos and Squeezebox (Burr Brown DAC) are excellent suggestions and require a PC for file storage. Once you cross over into something with a hard drive you enter the realm of more expense...

Another option is NAS - where you have essentially a hard drive with an IP address - very cool.... You can do that and a Squeezebox for around $500 or so. You'll still need a PC to configure the NAS of course.

 

[E-6]

Thanks for the Ideas

Appreciate your thoughts. Now tossed between adding another computer or going with Sonus or Squeezebox 3. Thanks for the options to look into...

 

[MichaelJHuman]

A macbook running iTunes and an airport express for each stereo system is what I use.

I am not saying its your best option, its simply the one I chose.

 

[Snap]

I use 1 of 2 media servers. The Escient Fireball is awesome and works very well. The other is Control 4 Media Server. But that is just me. The Control 4 server also comes with a remote, and the server has IR outs. So you get a universal remote that controls everything, and a media server that can provide 3 streams of audio at once.

I have not used the other stuff mentioned in the post above.

 

[GreenJelly]

Both Sonos and Squeezebox (Burr Brown DAC) are excellent suggestions and require a PC for file storage.

This would be the best options.

Centralized data storage is the only way to work with media, and is going to be the only way for a long time. To work with multiple devices from all over the house all with different files makes it very difficult to manage the media.

If you want to use a Mac, or a Squeezebox to access the SERVER, then all of that is totally acceptable and you have that freedom.

Their seems to be a misunderstanding of what a SERVER is... a Server is a machine that is hooked up to your home network (Wi-Fi or Eithernet). You usually put it in some closet or corner. Most people dont even have monitors hooked up to them. A server does one thing, and one thing only... that is to store and serve data to clients.

In this case it is basically a Very Large Hard Drive with some added benifits.

Then you choose Clients. The clients can be anything that access the files your server has, and can process them. These files can be music, video or anything else you want.

What is talked about in this discussion is that you need (client) devices that can then access this computer (server) and then play the files on it.

For example: If you have a Digital Video Recorder, you can then hook it up to this server, and store the Video you are Recording to this centralized location (the Server). This then can be used by any other client that has the ability to play these files. This allows you to record shows and then play them back anywhere in the room... and in this case you can record music, or download music, put it on the server, then EVERYONE else can access thoose files.

The reason I suggest a PC, is because it is much cheaper to build a server out of old computers, and some addon devices, then it is to buy a dedicated device. Additionaly a PC has Backup capabilities, ability to put permissions on files accessed, is expandable, reliable and faster then any commercial device out there.

I have an Athlon 3200XP, which is about 4-5 years old. If I put a PATA Raid device in it (>$100) and 4 or 5 250mb (around $300) HD's I would have an amazing amount of data available.

1 terabyte is over 110 DVD's at full quality, and/or is 1428 CD's at full quality.

The old replay TV's use to have 80gig drives and was able to record over 100 hours of video. You would have over 10x that amount if you used this centralized system.

In a few years, Hard Drive prices will drop further, and you could then add more terabytes with even less money.

 

[Nick250]

Two questions on this topic, does a home wireless network have the through put to handle DVD & CD media? Green Jelly implied it by mentioning WiFi and I wanted to double check.

Second question. I have not installed a second (slave hard drive) in a long time. I did it a number of times back in the dark ages was a minor PIA at the time with jumpers and such. Are newer hard drives mostly plug and play with the newer generations of computers running XP (if that matters)? I am asking about something other than a USB connection, probably internal for performance reasons.

Nick

 

[GreenJelly]

Two questions on this topic, does a home wireless network have the through put to handle DVD & CD media? Green Jelly implied it by mentioning WiFi and I wanted to double check.

Second question. I have not installed a second (slave hard drive) in a long time. I did it a number of times back in the dark ages was a minor PIA at the time with jumpers and such. Are newer hard drives mostly plug and play with the newer generations of computers running XP (if that matters)? I am asking about something other than a USB connection, probably internal for performance reasons.

Nick

A standard DVD is limited to 9000-10000 kbps. A WiFi Could handle that output depending on distance and interferance. I dont know how the network would work if you tried to play a DVD from another computers DVD drive. I also dont know of any software that will play disk images (ISO's) on a stream type basis. I do know of software that allows you to mount disk images to virtual disks.

The best solution is to convert your DVDs -> DIVX! This would work without fail, and DIVX is very interested and committed to streaming Movie Quality Files over networks. The quality loss would be VERY minimum.

The second question is answered with two different responses.

The hard drive / optical drive CPU world is in transition. The techknowlodgy is changing from an old standard ATA (or now known as PATA) and Serial ATA (SATA). SATA is faster, and on the larger drives, this speed is needed. However ATA is still very valid. In a RAID array, PATA can become very fast.

SATA drives cost more then PATA drives. I think the world is quickly lowering stocks of PATA devices, and are reducing production.

PATA Drives allow for 2 devices to connect to 1 ATA source. That can limit the speed further, if both drives are used at the same time. The old day this was known as Master/Slave. Master was the end of the ATA cable, and the Slave was in the middle. Then they went to Cable select to simplify things. Now you have to have a Cable Select cable, and simply put the jumper on the drive to Cable Select.

SATA Drives are one cable, for one drive.

 

[MDS]

Master at the end and Slave in the middle IS Cable Select but only if you jumper the drive as cable select. If you explicitly place the jumper on either Master or Slave, it doesn't matter which connector you use. Most drives are shipped with the jumper in the Master position.

As was said already, IDE controllers allow 2 drives per controller and most motherboards have 2 ide controllers. If you have two hard drives and one optical drive you want the two hard drives on one controller and the optical drive all by its lonesome as the master on the other controller.

 

[jake51s]

This is pretty cool

http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/audio/7b1c/

 

[Nick250]

That clears things up. Thanks guys.

Nick

 

[stratman]

Sonos with a 400 GB Buffalo Linkstation, works flawlessly in my home. No PC required.

 

[gooders]

I read through this thread and found it pretty interesting as I am also in the same boat as the guy with the original post.

I am just about to move to a new house (and recently moved countries) so am starting a fresh. I can't afford everything I want now so need to plan for the future. I have over 80GB of music. I have all the CDs but they take up so much space that many are kept in boxes and hard to find so it suits me to be able to send my MP3 equils around the house to different rooms whcih will have amps, or will have! I need to have some sort of interface in each room to manage what is playing etc and it needs to be wireless as the PC won't be in the same room as where I want to play the music. I've got an External (not NAS) drive with all the music stored currently rigged up to my PC.

After reading I'm going to try and play back some of what I read to see if I am on the right track...

It sounds like the most sensible route to take is to buy a barebones PC and stick a big drive or two in it. Use it as a server, configure simple wireless network, use Squeezebox in the rooms to control the music. Does that sound like a good idea? will that work? I need one squeezebox per room- but do i also need one that is connected to the server? or can it read from a network drive?

Any help is appreciated as I don't want to make impulse buys that screw me up later on down the line. thanks all.

 

[MDS]

It sounds like the most sensible route to take is to buy a barebones PC and stick a big drive or two in it. Use it as a server, configure simple wireless network, use Squeezebox in the rooms to control the music. Does that sound like a good idea? will that work? I need one squeezebox per room- but do i also need one that is connected to the server? or can it read from a network drive?

Sounds like a great plan to me and reasonably cost effective unless you really have a lot of rooms. The Squeezebox requires server-side software so you need at least one PC. In the server you configure where your music is located so you have many options - it could be stored locally on that machine, it could be an external drive attached to that machine via USB or Firewire, it could be on a NAS after you map that drive to the PC to which the Squeezebox is connected, etc.