[geowak]

To all you SB owners and audiophiles, I have added a Benchmark DAC1 and SB3 to my system. I want to rip CD's to my HD and access internet radio through a router, (HD radio too). What have YOU done that has worked well? I have itunes but never used it. I have an inhouse router for wireless connectivity. Also, it seems that EAC is the software to use for ripping and FLAC is the file of choice.

I'm open to all suggestions. Thanks in advance.

[Rashiki]

The latest version of EAC will automatically rip to FLAC and can be set up to create files in folders named after the artist and album. In my opinion, this is the best way to store your files, as it's easy to find what you're looking for.

The next thing is to install SqueezeCenter, if you haven't already done it. Once it is installed, you open your web browser to the SqueezeCenter page, set your music folder to the appropriate place and select "browse music folder". It will eventually create an index and allow you to select songs by artist, genre, etc., but I still prefer to browse by folder.

 -Rob

[richidoo]

You can use the web browser to go to the website of your fav radio stations. Click listen online button to find out what the URL is for their streaming audio. It will probably end in .pls (playlist file.) Paste that into your Slimserver/Squeezecenter and listen to your stations through the SB. Here are some I like:

WCPE The ClassicalStation.org - http://www.ibiblio.org/wcpe/wcpe.pls
WBGO NYC's biggest jazz station - http://wbgo.streamguys.net/listen.pls
KKJZ Los Angeles biggest jazz station - http://www.jazzandblues.org/programming/listen/links/?path=kkjz1.pls (formerly KLON)
WGBH in Boston is another great radio station online. There are so many. Be sure to send the beggars some money once in a while if you listen to their streams.

I use dbpoweramp for ripping flacs. It has some nice features that EAC lacks, but I used EAC for a long time with good results.

If you have trouble with Squeezecenter, try slimserver 6.5.4 which is very stable. PM me if you need it.

Most important - Have fun!!

[Spidey9534]

You're in for some fun times ahead congrats. Some considerations you might want to keep in mind and suggestions from my own experiences.

1) What hard drive? If you use lossless (FLAC) files format the amount of disk space adds up pretty quickly. This might be the time to think about investing in an external hard drive or NAS device to allow for growth. Some of the NAS devices are already configured to run SqueezeCenter as a service which can be very handy. This depends on the amount of music you plan on ripping. There is also the consideration of backup and avoiding the potential loss of all that hard work you did ripping your cd's if your hard drive crashes.

2) iTunes works well and supports it's own lossless format, but if you don't own any iPod type devices you don't 'need' to use it. I have a couple of Nano's so I use it with Apple compressed file formats so I can get more music on the Nano's they sound like crap anyway, but who cares inside a motorcycle helmet . I also use dbpoweramp for FLAC files, which I highly recommend as a user friendly frontend for ripping, music library/catalog management and a player that I feed my SB3 with.

3) Once you get your Squeezebox and Squeezecenter up and going you can access Internet radio right through it. There is some free access and some pay to play access, you decide. Slim Devices (now owned by Logitech) has a very extensive support forum on their website that you can search for tons of suggestions How To's and FAQ's for configuring and tweaking you SB3 or SqueezeCenter. It's a great resource as well as this community.

4) Then let the tweaking/modding begin. There is a ton of info on this site about power supply swap outs, battery power, extensive mods to the digital and/or analog stages of the SB3, cables, you name it to raise the quality of sound to the next level, whatever that maybe for you.

[richidoo]

I also use dbpoweramp [snip]  a player that I feed my SB3 with.

I would like to learn how to do that!
(Sorry for the diversion)
Rich

[spudco]

I personally use itunes to manage my library.  My only problem is getting the album art loaded so the squeezebox can find it.  For this, I use Cover Scout.

I also have recently upgraded my programmable remote to a new Phillips TSU-9400.  I have ProntoSqueeze ($30) loaded on it and it is amazing.  Fast, wireless access to everything with a great display screen.  Better than the controller with the Duet and a much higher quality remote.  You have to do some programming to use one of these things, but if you have any experience, the learning curve is not too steep.  I'm having a blast with mine.  It controlls everything I own!

[Spidey9534]

Rich,

Re-reading what I wrote I guess i didn't make it too clear, but.....by 'feeding' I meant ripping FLAC's to a library on my Netversant (Netgear) NAS that SqueezeCenter can use. Sorry for the confusion.

I also use dbpoweramp [snip]  a player that I feed my SB3 with.

I would like to learn how to do that!
(Sorry for the diversion)
Rich

[richidoo]

OK cool, thanks spidey!!!  I always thought it would be cool to be able to play a CD direct to SB without ripping first, using CD-ROM drive, etc. But it never came about.

[geowak]

Thanks again for all the tips.

How much HD space should I need for ripped CD's?
Also... can anyone else recommend Radio stations they like???
(Seems like this topic could use it's own subject line)

[Spidey9534]

'How much HD space should I need for ripped CD's?'

I'm not sitting at my home computer to be able to give you a more definitive answer, but I'm in the process of re-ripping like 500+ CD's and it seems like for FLAC files it equals about 10 Meg per minute of audio. So like an average 3 minute song takes like 30 Meg. Figure about 12 songs per album at 30 Meg a pop and you have 360~ Meg per cd. 

Multiply that 360 Megs times the number of cd's you own and then double it. Hard drives don't like being full.

I'm sure there's somebody here that can offer exact numbers or provide a website link that can give it to you down to the bit count, but this should be close enough for hand grenades and horse shoes. Besides hard drives are getting cheaper and cheaper all the time.

[richidoo]

Stereo wav at 16/44.1 is 10MB/min, flac compresses to about 60% of that. I have 1TB total disc space on a network attached storage device, holding about 400+ albums, only 124GB used.  You can probably figure about 4 CDs per GB as flac. Reissues of older vinyl albums are shorter because LPs only can play 46 minutes. Redbook CD maximum is ~74 minutes?

If you are computer savvy, you could add another 3.5" drive internal to your computer, which would be the lowest cost way to get more drive space. The easiest way is to plug in a USB external hard drive. Get a good brand hard drive, like Seagate Barricuda. There are kits that let you install your own choice of HD into a case which connects to PC by USB. A little more money than whole goods, but then you know what kind of HD you have and can have a little more reassurance that it won't crash on you. Because ripping and compressing audio is so much work, many people opt for a redundant disk solution. Either a backup, or RAID array of some kind. I use RAID 5 which has 3 disks, allowing one to fail and still not lose any data. I do that for the family photos and movies, but the music files and other important files are protected too. If it was just for music, I would probably just get two external USB drives and mirror one to the other.

I just found this cool database for internet radio stations.
http://www.radio-locator.com/

Rich

[NewBuyer]

OK cool, thanks spidey!!!  I always thought it would be cool to be able to play a CD direct to SB without ripping first, using CD-ROM drive, etc. But it never came about.

There is indeed a recent plugin for doing just that, now available. Look here: CDPlayer Plugin...