[Firejedi]

Hey everyone,

Now that I have pretty much completed my system, I need to figure out how I am going to get music to it aside from CD's.

First; my system:

Odyssey Khartago amp (awaiting arrival)
Jolida Glass FX Tube DAC III (also serving as pre-amp)
Sony BluRay Player
Selah Transparente Speaker (awaiting completion)

I'm not looking to spend more than a couple hundred, so here are the avenues that I am currently looking at:

1. Inexpensive notebook/laptop to serve as a dedicated music server.
2. Raspberry Pi/Beagle Board, etc. This is very new to me, so I am reading a lot trying to figure out where to start.

Also, what software do you recommend and why?  I've seen Foobar, Roon, JPLayer, and Volumio.

My plan is rip my cd collection into flac files (or other. Not sure what is the best)
I will also use Pandora, and maybe Tidal.

Please offer thoughts, experiences, recommendations (including on file format).

Thanks.

[Firejedi]

Hey all,

I posted  a similar question in the Disclose Circle, but things seem to be a little quiet there.

I am wanting to put together a music server using either an inexpensive laptop, or solution utilizing a Raspberry Pi, Beagleboard, or something along those lines.

What software do you feel is the best for this?  Rune, Player, Foobar, etc.

If you know any good sites that would help, let me know.

I have a DAC.  I am looking for something to host and play the music.

Thanks.

[Odal3]

For C&C with minimal computer skills, my recommendation is a raspberry pi using the Moode player.

http://moodeaudio.org/

[Phil A]

There's lots of reasonably price small PCs - e.g. - http://www.amazon.com/arrival-windows-Computer-Q100S-Processor/dp/B012IIPKV0/ref=sr_1_10?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1461122213&sr=1-10&keywords=pc&refinements=p_36%3A14000-19900%2Cp_n_operating_system_browse-bin%3A12566246011

There's also JRiver, HQ Player, etc.

[jarcher]

Auralic Aries Mini & save yourself the headaches. Basically $310 if you consider that it comes with $240 of Tidal (year subscription free).

Add a cheap laptop hard drive to it and you have a self contain unit. And your friends and family can easily use it or AirPlay or Bluetooth to it.

FLAC is best. Spend the money on dbpoweramp. It's worth it.

[JohnR]

Here's a guide for you:

http://www.hifizine.com/2016/02/pifi-how-to-network-your-mac-music-system-with-the-raspberry-pi-and-hifiberry-part-2/

and

http://www.hifizine.com/2015/10/pifi-how-to-network-your-mac-music-system-with-the-raspberry-pi-and-hifiberry-part-1/

[matt_garman]

I am wanting to put together a music server using either an inexpensive laptop, or solution utilizing a Raspberry Pi, Beagleboard, or something along those lines.

What software do you feel is the best for this?  Rune, Player, Foobar, etc.

If you know any good sites that would help, let me know.

I have a DAC.  I am looking for something to host and play the music.

A while ago, I built a really simple music server using a BeagleBone Black (aka BBB, similar to Raspberry Pi) running Volumio.  I can't remember what made me choose Volumio, but I'm happy with it.  It is open source (free) as are the "competing" platforms such as Moode.  I think fundamentally these are more or less the same, unless one has a very specific feature that you need, you'll likely be equally (un)happy with any of them.

What kind of DAC do you have, an what input(s) does it support?  The Raspberry Pi has an arguably poor architectural design where the USB bus is shared by the network bus.  What that means, if you're using a USB DAC, and simultaneously doing a lot of network activity (e.g. retrieving music from a file server), you might get drops/breaks in the music.  That's why I initially chose the BBB, as I do use a USB DAC.

Now, I'm already starting to mentally plan out my next build.  And in this case I'll use a Raspberry Pi, but use the header pins to do direct I2S to a DAC.  If you do a web search for "raspberry pi i2s dac" you'll get lots of info on this.  The HiFiBerry is a popular example.  That's why I asked what kind of DAC you currently have.  If it's a DIY DAC, you might be able to integrate the Rpi's I2S output directly.  But if it's an off-the-shelf DAC, you probably won't be able to do that.  But, I believe there are I2S-to-SPDIF devices for the Rpi.  If you indeed have a DAC that won't easily accept I2S, I think this is your best bet: get the I2S-to-SPDIF device, and avoid the potential USB issues.

Having said all that... I think creating a music server with a Raspberry Pi is pretty easy.  Basic process is to acquire hardware and a memory card.  Flash the memory card with the software you want to use (e.g. Volumio), plug the flashed card into the Rpi, and go!  All these Linux+MPD based solutions work like this, and at least in my opinion, are very straightforward and well-documented.  (But I'm also quite Linux savvy, so this stuff is very natural to me.)

I should also mention MPD, the Music Player Daemon.  This is the "heart" of the popular Rpi Linux distros (Volumio, Moode, etc).  It basically just plays music from a library or collection.  You control it from another device.  There are dozens (hundreds?) of MPD clients, most of them free/open source.  So you can control MPD with your PC, tablet, smartphone, etc.

[toddbagwell]

I'd recommend JRiver Media Center as well as dbPoweramp and mp3Tag for organizing, ripping and editing your files.

Foobar is free, but can require a larger investment of time to get it looking and functioning as you'd like it to, while JRiver is a bit more plug-and-play. dbPoweramp wasn't as intuitive as some software, but with a bit of trial and error and surfing their forums, I find it to be extremely powerful and very much indispensable for ripping CDs.


I use a dedicated desktop PC for storage/playback and I don't have any experience with other forms of networked audio, so I can't make any good suggestions for you there.

Todd

[JoshK]

"I've got the power!"  oh sorry...nvm

[charmerci]

FLAC is best.

I've read someone saying that WAV files are better - so if you don't have a gazillion CD's, I'd think it'd be best to do that - since they take up much more space.

[asliarun]

Not a full music server solution, but do consider getting a Chromecast Audio. It acts as a streamer, and has optical out and analog out, so you could hook it up as an optical input to your DAC. (It also supports 24/96 high res audio). You can cast audio from any source - such as Spotify, Pandora, or from a UPnP server such as a small headless PC or a storage NAS (most decent NASes come with a media server software). You would use your cellphone as your controller or user interface, and would "cast" the audio source you want from an app or from the browser (you would need to Chromecast plugin, and that is a 1-click install).

The neat thing about Chromecast Audio is that even though you cast, say, Spotify from your phone, it will actually make a direct connection with the source (Spotify or Pandora or your audio server) and streams directly from the source. The audio will not go through your phone at all.

And honestly, at $35, even if you are skeptical, you can take a chance on it. And from personal experience, I can say that the audio quality is quite decent. Don't let the price fool you. Comparing it to my old Squeezebox (digital out), CCA's digital out sounds as good.

[CurtisIIX]

The benefit of the laptop is not needing to run the music server headless.
This would get you up and running quicker, allow for easier tweaking of playback, and not limit your software choices as much.
In the long run, a headless server is a cleaner solution, but it took me a while to settle on software and controller options.

I recently went through the process of re-ripping my CD collection since it was mostly mp3 from the iPod days (also, being a college student).
I settled on ripping everything to AIFF using dBpoweramp. AIFF is lossless with metadata and can be used nearly universally (player and software).
It is possible batch convert with dBpoweramp so I didn't sweat the format much.

[Firejedi]

The benefit of the laptop is not needing to run the music server headless.
This would get you up and running quicker, allow for easier tweaking of playback, and not limit your software choices as much.
In the long run, a headless server is a cleaner solution, but it took me a while to settle on software and controller options.

I recently went through the process of re-ripping my CD collection since it was mostly mp3 from the iPod days (also, being a college student).
I settled on ripping everything to AIFF using dBpoweramp. AIFF is lossless with metadata and can be used nearly universally (player and software).
It is possible batch convert with dBpoweramp so I didn't sweat the format much.

I was actually planning on doing something similar in ripping my CDs.  I haven't decided on a file format yet.  The benefit of having a laptop is that I could rip the ads right to that particular laptop.

I like the idea of Chromecast if only for the cost.  The problem I have is that I am currently using my DAC as my preamp. so I am limited to one COAX, one Optical, and USB.  So USB would be ideal in that I could keep my blu ray player connected.

i like the looks of JRiver.  I also like the look of Roon, but haven't read much about it yet.

I do have an iMac that I have been using for videos.  It only has  a few songs in it's iTunes at the moment.

[jarcher]

I've read someone saying that WAV files are better - so if you don't have a gazillion CD's, I'd think it'd be best to do that - since they take up much more space.

No metadata or cover art with WAV, so impossible to search. I really doubt anyone can hear the difference between WAV and FLAC unless possibly you had a system way beyond the scope of "cheap and cheerful".

[matt_garman]

FLAC is a lossless format, meaning absolutely 100% of audio data is retained during the compression process.  So you can do WAV -> FLAC -> WAV and the subsequent WAV will be exactly the same as the original.  When you play a FLAC file, the bits hitting your USB/TOSLINK/SPDIF are literally exactly the same as if you were playing the corresponding WAV file.

In an absolute sense, WAV is "easier" on your system, as there is no processing that needs to be done.  WAV is just raw PCM data, so playing it entails simply copying it from storage to the audio device.  FLAC, however, requires the CPU to decode the compressed data back to the original PCM data.  This process is not compute intensive, however... I'm quite sure any CPU made in the last decade (including low end ARM stuff) can comfortably decode FLAC without issue.

I've seen people argue that the the extra CPU activity required for decoding FLAC can affect sound quality.  Knowing how computers work, I don't see how this is even remotely possible.  The reality is that both WAV and decoded FLAC are buffered in system RAM before being sent to the audio device.  So the net result is exactly the same, unless you have a substantial performance issue.

[glynnw]

"No metadata or cover art with WAV" - I keep seeing this on the internet and I don't understand.  I use dBPoweramp to rip to WAV and I have cover art, choice of metadatas, etc.  I use JRiver for playback and to keep tagging data correct (when I do find an error).  So far, all is well.

[Firejedi]

Best Buy has an Asus laptop on sale this weekend.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-15-6-laptop-intel-celeron-4gb-memory-500gb-hard-drive-chocolate-black/4831400.p?id=bb4831400&skuId=4831400

Any thoughts?

I've never been a huge fan of Celeron processors, but for something that will only be dedicated to the audio task it may be enough.

I plan on loading it up with FLACS (or other file type) and connecting to my DAC with USB.  Will also use it for streaming Pandora, maybe Tidal.

On a side note, I picked up a Google Chromecast Audio to play with to give me a temporary solution.

[charmerci]

Best Buy has an Asus laptop on sale this weekend.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-15-6-laptop-intel-celeron-4gb-memory-500gb-hard-drive-chocolate-black/4831400.p?id=bb4831400&skuId=4831400

Any thoughts?

Deal! I might get one myself!

[Odal3]

If you don't need the CPU power, celerons are great since they draw less power = less heat and noisy fans. I dont know how well windows works on them, but I have a chromebook with similar specs (android or linux based) and it is fast enough for normal internet, netflix, audio etc. Also take a look at the smaller boxes used for HT setups having the same type of processors since that will allow you to maybe ditch the fans completely. My personal recommendation is still running a headless setup that you can control via a tablet or phone.  It's not that hard and there are many good setup guides. I'm using the raspberry pi as the streaming interface. My music is on a separate computer (nas server) and I control it via my phone or browser on another computer. This allows me to hide away the big power hungry computer with fans in another room, and only have the tiny raspberry pi hidden and completely silent behind all my stereo equipment.I know it's not for everyone, but there are many similar preconfigured solutions as well

Btw: unless you take care with how you power the laptop, fans and hardrives, you may actually find it to be equal or even better audio performance using the chromecast than feeding the dac from the laptop due to the fans and hardrives power spikes. That was at least my experience when comparing the chromecast vs. using an old laptop.

[Firejedi]

If you don't need the CPU power, celerons are great since they draw less power = less heat and noisy fans. I dont know how well windows works on them, but I have a chromebook with similar specs (android or linux based) and it is fast enough for normal internet, netflix, audio etc. Also take a look at the smaller boxes used for HT setups having the same type of processors since that will allow you to maybe ditch the fans completely. My personal recommendation is still running a headless setup that you can control via a tablet or phone.  It's not that hard and there are many good setup guides. I'm using the raspberry pi as the streaming interface. My music is on a separate computer (nas server) and I control it via my phone or browser on another computer. This allows me to hide away the big power hungry computer with fans in another room, and only have the tiny raspberry pi hidden and completely silent behind all my stereo equipment.I know it's not for everyone, but there are many similar preconfigured solutions as well

Btw: unless you take care with how you power the laptop, fans and hardrives, you may actually find it to be equal or even better audio performance using the chromecast than feeding the dac from the laptop due to the fans and hardrives power spikes. That was at least my experience when comparing the chromecast vs. using an old laptop.

I've been looking into the Raspberry Pi, but I still get a little confused by how it all works.  I used to build my own pc's but it's been a while.  I have an old Galaxy Note 3 phone sitting around that could potentially be used to run it.  I guess I'm just a little apprehensive about going that route even though I really like the idea of it.

The benefit of that particular laptop is that it has a cd/dvd drive.  That would make it easy to rip my cd's into it as opposed to using a separate computer (which I do have).  I guess I could rip them onto an external drive which i could connect to the Raspberry Pi.  There are so many options that it gets confusing.  Of course, I keep getting recommendations to buy something like the Aurelic Mini, I just don't want to spend that much money right now.