Hi. I have just ordered a BDP-1 and BDA-1 to drive my new Bryston/PMC system and I am now working out what kit I need to feed it with digital music files. I am thinking about controlling the equipment initially with a laptop (on my home wi-fi network) and a universal remote. So I will try out Max and GNOME. I understand that the BDP-1 can be hard-wired with ethernet cable to my wireless router for receipt of control signals from the remote control device (laptop). I may invest later in an Ipad.
I am more intrigued now about how and where to store ripped CD FLAC files and how to feed them to the BDP-1. I plan to use my desktop PC to rip CD's (using dbPoweramp or EAC) to FLAC files on my PC's second hard drive and I would ideally like to drag and drop them onto a networked storage device connected by ethernet cable rather than having to keep unplugging USB devices and moving them back and forth from computer room to lounge. Although I am sure I will make some use of USB flash drives and maybe a USB powered HDD (like the WD Pssport Essential SE) I am keen to be able to directly select music from my entire CD collection and any high res downloads I acquire over the next few years, so I will want to connect a couple of large hard drives to the BDP-1.
In the absence of a Bryston dedicated NAS drive I am attracted to the
Synology DS211j NAS http://www.synology.com/us/products/DS211j/index.phpwhich adds all sorts of additional functionality to being a bay for two hard drives. It could double as a back-up file server for all my family's computers and could ocasionally be used to stream music, photos and video to any devices on my home wi-fi network (and over the net to anywhere else) as well as feeding the BDP-1 with FLAC files via its USB output. It is a powered device containing computer circuitry - 1.2GHz Marvell Kirwood CPU, 128MB DDR2 RAM with support for JBOD, RAID 0 and RAID 1 arrays plus iSCSI support - so it is basically a low power computer as well as a data storage device. I imagine any objection to using this with the BDP-1 will be the risk of noise contamination degrading the audio chain? It runs very quietly apparently and could be located well away from the hifi or in a cupboard by using a long USB cable. It has many very good customer reviews over here in the UK but has anyone actually tried it with the BDP-1? Is there any reason why I should not go down this route? I would obviously not want to compromise sound quality.
James, when is the planned Bryston USB file server going to come out?
And a merry Xmas to everyone!
Nigel