Audiophile music servers for computer novice?

mcgsxr · « **Reply #40 on:** 2 Jul 2012, 05:10 pm »

What do you need to feed your main amp? Digital or analog input?

For my current basement system, I am using a bone stock first generation mini feeding a usb-spdif interface to a receiver.

Cheap (under $400 for the mini, the cables, the interface and the 2TB HD) and cheerful.

I miss the excellent resolution of the Bolder modded SB3 I had, but am living with it.

JLM · « **Reply #41 on:** 2 Jul 2012, 08:20 pm »

ted,

Maybe you're not a big league techie by some standards, but knowing "code" has nothing to do with this. Don't sell yourself short, you're way beyond the "grandmother" I envision (or me). I don't own a smart phone, a DVR, an MP3 player, a laptop, or anything made by Apple. Currently using a used business PC with 1 GB RAM and 100 GB HD that took 3 trips back to the shop before I could make it run (after a failed attempt trying to buy something new/comparable at BB). After that, my big high tech toy is a combo VCR/DVD player/recorder.

As you know, staying with CD's is a dead end. Frankly your response is exactly what I mostly find, something like: "I'm sure you can figure it out (on your own)". So thanks for nothing (not saying I'm mad at you or upset, just the bottom line as I see it, and not the way I'd want my grandmother treated - to be left on the technology curb).

This technology is only serving the tech savy (the whole premise of this thread).

JohnR's recent tutorial is a step in the right direction.

HAL · « **Reply #42 on:** 2 Jul 2012, 08:40 pm »

One of the things that I do provide is support for the MS-1 as Scott indicated. The system comes with the software installed and running. I have worked multiple folks through the learning curve on the PC side for the Music Server functions. This includes getting it working with home networks and download services. Email and phone lines are available to the customers.

I have tried to make it as simple to get started as possible. So far eight folks have them and up and running with playback, ripping and HiRez download functions. Most were novices to the subject and Windows 7.

In the system setup, I work with each customer to setup what is needed for their system. This is crucial to making the startup simple for the user.

Have tried to minimize the learning curve so folks can start playing PC based music quickly after installation.

Just my perspective for how to help someone get up and running for this area of music playback.

JLM · « **Reply #43 on:** 2 Jul 2012, 08:43 pm »

mcgsxr,

My main rig: Oppo 970 with coax output into a Behringer DEQ2496 (with modded DAC), Jaton RC2000S pre-amp, Channel Island Audio D-100 monoblocks (analog) that feed my EnABL'd Bob Brines FTA-2000 speakers (about $7,600 USD MSRP).

I envision replacing my living room system (made up of leftovers) with something like this: NuForce DDA-100 (DAC/pre/power, all digital) with Amphion Ion+ speakers. These are compact, high quality pieces designed cooperatively with lifestyle, good sound, and simple signal path in mind (about $2,000 USD MSRP).

So I could soup up/replace my old meager desktop and run a pair of SB, modded Touch for the main rig and a Duet for the living room, or a mini for the main rig and a Duet for the living room (about $2,000 USD).

JLM · « **Reply #44 on:** 2 Jul 2012, 08:47 pm »

HAL,

Your response is exactly what I'd hope could come out of collective resources here at AC. Your product offering (with Hi-Res audio, built-in Blu-Ray optical drive, internet streaming, flexibility, reasonable cost) and personal service is what's needed to bring we technology shy folks into this new age.

Thirsty · « **Reply #45 on:** 2 Jul 2012, 08:56 pm »

I have a Vortexbox Appliance 2 TB arriving today, I looked at most of the other options out there and settled on this one. It will be feeding a Squeezebox Touch into A Peachtree dacIt. Although the VB is Linux, it is supposed to be user friendly and up and running in only a few minutes. I know very little about computers and even less about Linux.

ted_b · « **Reply #46 on:** 2 Jul 2012, 09:06 pm »

Yes, the Linux boxes are basically dummy-proof, and run 24/7. That's what I was trying to explain to JLM. No need for any real complexity (in fact their minimalism takes away a lot of complexity cuz all they do is serve music), other than an ipod or ipad/android device to use as remote (browsing, cover art, etc).

CIAudio · « **Reply #47 on:** 2 Jul 2012, 09:18 pm »

Quote from: JLM on 2 Jul 2012, 08:47 pm

HAL,

Your response is exactly what I'd hope could come out of collective resources here at AC. Your product offering (with Hi-Res audio, built-in Blu-Ray optical drive, internet streaming, flexibility, reasonable cost) and personal service is what's needed to bring we technology shy folks into this new age.

JLM,

I'd look at HAL's solution... he designed his player for people like you

I've known him personally for many years... he's a great guy and will give you all the help you need. It comes set up and ready to go, so the learning curve will be short.
I doubt you'll find anything as full-featured and easy as this.

-Dusty

Quiet Earth · « **Reply #48 on:** 3 Jul 2012, 12:05 am »

JLM,

CDs are not a dead end. They are alive and kicking. The compact disc is easy to use, it is simple and convenient, and it even sounds good. It will not crash on you and you don't have to back it up. You just pick one out and play the tracks that you like. Buy a new CD transport for your DAC or get a new CD player.

The only place I ever find that CD is going away is in articles that are linked to audio forums. In real life, every time I go to the store or get on Amazon to buy music I find what I want in the CD format. Sometimes I even find it on vinyl and every once in a while on tape!

CD is not dead and it is not going away. Even if they stop production of new CDs in the next ten minutes, there are more CDs in circulation on the used market than all of us have time to listen to. Used CDs are a better deal yet. Buy a nice transport or player and enjoy listening to music again. You won't regret it.

Listening to David Sanborn on my CD player right now as I type this on my iPad.

HAL · « **Reply #49 on:** 3 Jul 2012, 12:17 am »

Dusty,
Thanks for the encouraging words!

Bob in St. Louis · « **Reply #50 on:** 3 Jul 2012, 01:26 am »

CDs are a dead end?

Kind of like those old records I suppose.

JLM, I know right where you're at Sir. Because I'm there too.

A couple days ago, I dug out an old CD player so I can listen to music. I've been without my tunes because JRiver is on something like day number seven or eight "analyzing" my library.

While it's doing that, if I try to play music it stutters and hiccups, so I found an old CD player to amuse me in the mean time.

I did this to myself because I was tired of Squeezebox.

You know what? If you're happy with CDs, then stick with CDs. Music should not be a pain in the ass. That's not why we're here.
In fact, the reason a lot of us are here, is to get away from the pains in the asses. Not end our hard day with aggravating pieces of technology trying to play music.

I have no idea what solution HAL has, but it even has me intrigued....and that's after I spent a bunch of cash moving away from the SB3 and Duet.

So I'd say you either need to cozy up to HAL, or stick with CDs.
Either way, I'll be lurking with you brother...cause you and I are in the same boat.

Good luck.
Bob

timind · « **Reply #51 on:** 3 Jul 2012, 01:45 am »

Quote from: Bob in St. Louis on 3 Jul 2012, 01:26 am

So I'd say you either need to cozy up to HAL, or stick with CDs.
Either way, I'll be lurking with you brother...cause you and I are in the same boat.

Good luck.
Bob

Or get a Mac (mini preferred). I was in the same boat two years ago and let my daughter talk me into a Mac Mini. I am not a techie at all but had no problem getting it up and running with an external hard drive and all.
Use itunes as your player until you are comfortable enough to experiment with other software. I read the thread and didn't notice many recommendations for Mac. Is that because this isn't in the Apple circle?

S Clark · « **Reply #52 on:** 3 Jul 2012, 01:53 am »

My reluctance to go with Mac was from listening to another AC member tell me about his issues in getting it going- and he was far more knowledgeable than me- so it's not universally painless.
I like the advice to stick to cd's or go with HAL's MS-1. I also don't want to give the impression that the MS-1 is totally plug and play; it's just that Rich has been very generous with his time to help me get functional.

Scott

HAL · « **Reply #53 on:** 3 Jul 2012, 02:40 am »

Ok, I will make this offer if someone wants to give this a try.

I have my original prototype MS-1 that is a silver chassis with my original prototype wood top. This was the test unit all the rest of the units are based on. Not pretty, but works just fine. If someone is interested, I will ship it to them for a 30 day trial. If we can get you up and running and you like the sound quality with your DAC, I will build a full production unit and ship it once the payment is made. Just ship back the prototype at the users expense after the new unit arrives, which would be about $25 for USPS Priority Mail Large box insured. You can just transfer the 1TB external drive to the new unit once it arrives as it is part of the full package. This is where all the ripped files are stored by the user. It will come with preinstalled Foobar2000 and Exact Audio Copy. I will also send an external DVD drive setup to rip CD's. I would hartily recommend the user back up his ripped music files to a USB drive. This will not have the Blu-Ray movie capability or DVD movie capability, as I want to keep this a simple beginning for the user.

Exact Audio Copy will be setup to rip to FLAC files so that the user can download cover art via EAC and embed the metadata during the ripping process.

The only thing the user will have to do is setup the system with their home WiFi or Ethernet setup as I cannot do that here. This will include a way to have an external web browser access the MS-1 for remote control via the home network. The user supplies a monitor, keyboard and mouse of their choosing. The mouse and keyboard need to be USB and the monitor can have SVGA, DVI or HDMI connections.

This offer is good only in the USA, as the Windows 7 version I use is not for export.

My request is that if someone tries it to give it a review here on AC of how it works out.

You will need to contact me via PM so that we can arrange the details and I can ask questions about the home network that it will be connected to the internet.

How does that sound?

Bob in St. Louis · « **Reply #54 on:** 3 Jul 2012, 12:28 pm »

That a kind offer HAL.
What the price range of the unit?

Bob

JohnR · « **Reply #55 on:** 3 Jul 2012, 12:34 pm »

So much for no advertising.

Quote from: S Clark on 3 Jul 2012, 01:53 am

My reluctance to go with Mac was from listening to another AC member tell me about his issues in getting it going- and he was far more knowledgeable than me- so it's not universally painless.

I think part of the issue here is that people seem compelled to make things more complicated than they have to be. You will read that you "have" to do this, and "have" to do that.. before you know it everybody has been hoisted by their own petard - the compulsion to get it right first time around. In actual fact, you don't "have" to do any of those things. Just get something going. Then do the next thing. Then the next. etc.

eclein · « **Reply #56 on:** 3 Jul 2012, 01:50 pm »

My next play is a Vortexbox which I have been saying for like 2 years now...LOL.... its easy and leaves open options for different DAC, Transport etc.....Wire it via ethernet (Which by the way is the best tip I can give anybody-Wire everything, the less wifi involvement the better).

Every issue I see folks have with connectivity, cutouts- dropouts by the way always happen in the middle of a party or showing someone how cool your stuff is are because of wifi.....WIRE it!!!! If you can't, you can't, move on...

HAL · « **Reply #57 on:** 3 Jul 2012, 01:58 pm »

JohnR,
If I have violated that rule, then please delete my post. I do not want to cause any issues. Just trying to help.

Jazz and Baroque · « **Reply #58 on:** 3 Jul 2012, 02:06 pm »

Quote from: ted_b on 1 Jul 2012, 04:46 pm

it includes a $350 SoTM USB card, the one the highly touted Windows Caps V2 is spec'd with (for good reason).
I added a Paul Hynes external power supply to replace the PK90USB's cheap wallwart,

Hi Ted,

I am organizing myself to put together a server with the SOtM USB card. I would like to get a separate power supply for the card. What kind of supply did you get from Paul Hynes?? The SOtM card is spec'd to draw 2 amps at 12 volts on start-up.

Thanks,
Mike

adydula · « **Reply #59 on:** 3 Jul 2012, 02:47 pm »

Hello,

I spent the last few months playing with Vortex Box software and setups, Windows based stuff, silent very quiet setups etc for audio and some video in regards to a HTPC.

Been putting this off like the plague but am finally convinced having all my music in flacs is a very efficient way to be able to access any song or cd etc instantaneously.

I started with a laptop, not very fast with a 320gb hard drive, 1.8 Ghz and used a HRT Music Streamer + USB dac. Jriver was the media player...this all worked ok, but the speed that the JRiver software was responding to was at times not 'instantaneous' etc....and so we looked for another system which would be small. very quiet and with more horsepower etc...

The vortex box was ok, did this on a laptop, but was a pain to deal with for me with linux etc..and getting bitperfect to work with the dac etc, after editing files and figuring out stuff I got what I wanted to work, but was not completely happy with this setup.

Back to looking at Windows 7..and a small HTPC. We decided on the ASUS mini-ITX board with an integrated graphics chipset, the board I decided on was the F1A75-I Delux. Based on an AMD chipset called A75. One of the criteria was the onboard sound chipset had to allow for HDMI bitstreaming..or passthru so the AVR would do the decoding of the high resolution audio for movies...without the need for a high end graphics card etc.

This board has 4 sata ports, 1 eSata port has USB 3.0 ports, HDMI out, Optical S/PDIF, etc...just about any connection needed as well as LAN, and wireless. Even DisplayPort connection.

The case I chose was a Lian Li small compact cube type with a large slow speed very quiet fan:
http://www.amazon.com/PC-Q08B-Black-Aluminum-Mini-ITX-Computer/dp/B003MRSRM6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341325001&sr=8-1&keywords=lian+li+pc-q08

The processor was a AMD A8 3870K Quad Core, running at 3 ghz, with a AMD Radeon HD 6550D APU for graphics.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819106001

I replaced the fans in the case and upgraded the heatsink and fan on the cpu with a very efficient quite fan as well....the whole thing is quite inaudible even when overclocking it 10-15% up from 3.0 Ghz to 3.3 Ghz, which in reality is not needed.

I also chose a fanless 500 watt fullsize power supply, 2 ssd's and a 2 TB hard drive as well.

The OS is loaded on one of the SSDs, all the 6000+ flacs on the other SSD and the 2 tb hard drive has 100+ movies on it as an experiment.

The latest Jriver 17.X is loaded and setting up for bit perfect was easily done in a Win 7 environment. This use to be a real pain, but now its really not that hard at all...

The overall performance is wonderful, very fast, not stuttering etc with songs or movies...this is more about audio though, and I listen via speakers and headphones and at times I find myself browsing while listening etc...and see no impact on the playback etc ....even using wireless! I might say the htpc and the wirless hub I have are in the same room, which means very good connection via wireless.

I stuck in a Blu-Ray DVD as well...and it works well.

I have the HDMI going to my AVR for sound and video, as well as the USB out from the HTPC to the HRT Dac to my 2 ch stuff etc...I can easily compare the dac in the avr with the HRT dac.

I use Jriver in Theater Mode for all my music...using a 58" plasma for the disply which makes it very easy to select any music I want to listen to ASAP, the display is wonderful....and I use a wireless keyboard for control. You could use a iPad or iphone or android phone or tablet with an App to do this if you dont want the TV on etc..

Again the hard part would be to build the pc from parts, loading the OS and laoding the software and setting up bitperfect stuff...but again its not really that hard at all.

Getting the hardware to allow for all this magic to happen is important up front, knowing what you want to do or have happen...for me again having hardware that would pass thru audio etc for movies, handle bitperfect audio with flacs and allow for hdmi, display port, eSata, lan, wirlesss and speed....this setup meets all my needs.

Is it perfect, no....but for audio it is for me...the only detractors would be the video rendering etc compared to a discrete Blu Ray player....but again for audio...100% ok.

The cost was $600 + to do this all, I had some stuff lying around that I did use to help keep the cost down for me...

All the best!
Alex