[Brad]

I ordered the Panasonic SA-XR25 receiver - the model with digital amps and digital signal path that's been getting pretty good raves recently.

I'm going to try using my iBook out to an M-Audio Sonica USB card that has a digital output.   Theoretically, I should be able to pass WAV files directly to the Panny's digital inputs and end up with pretty good sound.  The iBook connects to my network via 802.11b, and it can connect to stored music files on my Win2k3 server.   I picked up the Sonica new on *bay for $40 shipped, so it's a budget friendly idea so far.

Also, when I'm at work, the Sonica should be a much better DAC than what's built into the iBook.  I run it into the aux input of my Kloss table radio, which already sounds pretty good.



Whaddya think?

[JoshK]

Sounds like a plan!

I put this project on hold for a while but have been thinking about it again. I noticed that Onkyo now has their version of the Turtlebeach Audiotron that accepts an ethernet plug and plays mp3s, wavs, internet radio and am/fm radio with what looks like a pretty cool display.  Only downfall is it doesn't have digital out.    I would pretty much require my solution to have a digital out so I can use outboard DAC.

[Rob Babcock]

I've been tinkering with a music server a bit, but nothing major.  I did install Music Match Jukebox on my dad's PC and hooked it up to his stereo.  Not super elegant, but as soon as I can help him rip all his CDs to the harddrive he's planning to box up his whole CD collection and put them in storage.  Dad's not an audiophool like me, so the hi bitrate VBR MP3's is plenty good for him.

[dfaber]

The New Mac G5 models have a digital output (Toslink). Combined with the excellent iTunes software, that would be the ultimate Jukebox!

[Brad]

The Panny came in today.
Boy is it slim.   Weight is about 9 lbs.
Sounds pretty good on movies - watched 3 today at home sick.

The usb-spdif adapter should be here this week and I can get started ripping a bunch of CD's.    I would love to use APE, but iTunes doesn't support it yet, so I'll be using WAV.

Thanks for the feedback - I'll update again later this week.

[Thump553]

Good timing on the illness Brad, just when the new toy came in.

I've done some off and on research on this but haven't really done anything yet.  In my setup, I can put a computer in a (dry) crawlspace, so I don't have to worry too much about making it silent.  I haven't really found a cheap but decent looking touchscreen yet.  I have an old Athlon 750 I just cobbled together, but it would need a mega hard drive and it is too slow to run Win2k so I have Win98 on it.

Does iTunes support any sort of lossless format-FLAC and SHN are both supported by the Mac, I think.

[Brad]

An Athlon 750 should run Win2k without any problems - just needs 256mb or more of memory.  With an add-in controller card, it should handle any of the new large hard drives.


iTunes is only currently supporting
AIFF, AAC, MP3, and WAV (for it to encode)
I'd love for them to support APE or FLAC though

[Brad]

SliMp3 released a new device

http://www.slimdevices.com/index.html

Fixes most of the issues I had with the old one.  It's wireless now and has digital out.  Also supports WAV natively now.  It looks a lot more like a finished product, too.
Price went up to $299, but still worth considering I think.  They also do a great job of multi-platform support.

[JoshK]

FYI,

I got my M-Audio external USB Audiophile 24/96 soundcard hooked up last night.  I use the RCA outs on it into a McCormack Micro Int. Drive powered a pair of tangband micros. The improvement over my internal SB Live was astounding!  First time I have heard imaging from my computer system.  Noise floor went down tremendously.  For $150, I highly rec'd this for use with one's jb rig.