Nice (and cheap) 24/96 Network Transport!!

ashok · « **Reply #20 on:** 20 Apr 2009, 05:02 pm »

Quote from: cmryan21 on 16 Apr 2009, 02:13 am

Do you know if there is a fairly simple way to test this or do we need to jump through some complicated and/or expensive hoops?

I imagine a sound card or USB interface with optical or co-axial s/pdif inputs and the capacity to handle high resolution digital streams should work well.

By the way, I am sure the NMTs play high resolution files without any problems. Numerous users at www.networkedmediatank.com have confirmed (via display on their DAC or receiver) that 96kHz or 192kHz data are output properly by the NMT. It is just to satisfy my own curiosity that I would like to test it myself.

cmryan21 · « **Reply #21 on:** 20 Apr 2009, 08:32 pm »

Quote from: ashok on 20 Apr 2009, 05:02 pm

Quote from: cmryan21 on 16 Apr 2009, 02:13 am
Do you know if there is a fairly simple way to test this or do we need to jump through some complicated and/or expensive hoops?

I imagine a sound card or USB interface with optical or co-axial s/pdif inputs and the capacity to handle high resolution digital streams should work well.

By the way, I am sure the NMTs play high resolution files without any problems. Numerous users at www.networkedmediatank.com have confirmed (via display on their DAC or receiver) that 96kHz or 192kHz data are output properly by the NMT. It is just to satisfy my own curiosity that I would like to test it myself.

Oh, alright. That's actually really encouraging. Thanks for that info and the link.

JDUBS · « **Reply #22 on:** 21 Apr 2009, 08:40 pm »

Ashok, how is the Iobox working out for you?

Can I ask where you purchased it from?

Thanks!
Jim

ashok · « **Reply #23 on:** 22 Apr 2009, 03:08 pm »

Quote from: JDUBS on 21 Apr 2009, 08:40 pm

Ashok, how is the Iobox working out for you?

Can I ask where you purchased it from?

Jim:

It is working out great. I installed the Music Player Daemon (MPD) on it. There is a thread on networkedmediatank about it. The client is QMPDClient, running on my laptop. It is working great - playlists, shuffle, gapless playback - all now possible.

Nils' mediatank controller application is pretty good, but I was not able to get it to work consistently. Something wrong with my set up, I think.

I bought my ioBox from www.gizmodaddy.com in Missouri. Tim Hertel, the owner, is great to deal with. (No affiliation, just a satisfied customer.)

Ashok

JDUBS · « **Reply #24 on:** 26 Apr 2009, 07:27 pm »

Ashok, thank you for the gizmodaddy link. I ordered one up on Tuesday and had it for when I returned from vaca on Friday. Setup was a breeze and I'm using the coax digital output (the feature that sold me on the unit). I will sell the Popcorn hour and optical->coax converter and get back most of what I put into them.

I'm trying out MPD right now as well. I'm using the Minion Firefox plug-in and I like it a lot so far. The only issue for me is that I can't figure out how to change the music directory from local to a drive on my network. If I can get this to work, this will be a pretty terrific all-around setup. The playlist and gapless playback is huge!! Honestly, for around $250, you cant get a better .flac transport capable of high resolution playback.

Next up will be power supply mods. I have the stock switching ps plugged into a big balanced power transformer I rigged up for my non-amplifier components. I think I'm going to take apart the stock ps and put the insides as well as a Felix conditioner in another box. NMTs only pull 10 watts or so, max (or so I heard on the Networked Media Tank forums).

Thanks for the tip on the Iobox and MPD!

-Jim

ashok · « **Reply #25 on:** 27 Apr 2009, 06:44 pm »

No problem Jim. It is a great solution, IMO, for high-resolution playback.

Did you figure out how to get MPD to locate your network drive? There is a start-up script, which I believe you would have run at install time. I am pretty sure the script can be customized to look not only in share/Music but elsewhere. I will take a look tonight to see if anything obvious like this pops out.

Ashok

JDUBS · « **Reply #26 on:** 3 May 2009, 01:58 am »

Quote from: ashok on 27 Apr 2009, 06:44 pm

No problem Jim. It is a great solution, IMO, for high-resolution playback.

Did you figure out how to get MPD to locate your network drive? There is a start-up script, which I believe you would have run at install time. I am pretty sure the script can be customized to look not only in share/Music but elsewhere. I will take a look tonight to see if anything obvious like this pops out.

Ashok

Ashok

I'm still working on MPD. I think I'm pretty close, but not quite there yet.

-Jim

JoshK · « **Reply #27 on:** 3 May 2009, 06:16 am »

Hey Jim,

What material do you get in 24/192 for use with this?

JDUBS · « **Reply #28 on:** 4 May 2009, 12:28 am »

Quote from: JoshK on 3 May 2009, 06:16 am

Hey Jim,

What material do you get in 24/192 for use with this?

Josh, I honestly don't listen to 24/192 with the NMT. None of the music I like comes in that format and my DAC can only do 24/96. The stuff I've tried at 24/96 works great.

Its ability to do 24/192 is based on experiences of users over at networkedmediatank.com.

-Jim

JDUBS · « **Reply #29 on:** 12 May 2009, 03:11 am »

Guys, thanks to ashok I gave MPD a shot with ioBox, specifically using the Minion plug-in for Firefox. It is awesome!! Playlists, gapless playback, easy to browse my library, its all there. Check this out:

Good stuff.

-Jim

mgalusha · « **Reply #30 on:** 12 May 2009, 03:19 am »

Jim, this looks way cool. After reading your and Ashok's posts I took the plunge and mine arrived today. Now you need to write up exactly how to get to where you are so I don't have to search a ton of thread on networkedmediatank.com. Self serving request? You bet.

Quote from: JDUBS on 12 May 2009, 03:11 am

Guys, thanks to ashok I gave MPD a shot with ioBox, specifically using the Minion plug-in for Firefox. It is awesome!! Playlists, gapless playback, easy to browse my library, its all there. Check this out:

Good stuff.

-Jim

JDUBS · « **Reply #31 on:** 12 May 2009, 03:36 am »

Mike, I'm happy to put together a guide tomorrow night. Its a pretty easy process and the reward is well worth it!

-Jim

EDS_ · « **Reply #32 on:** 12 May 2009, 04:02 am »

Tagged..........

Great thread, thanks everyone.

ashok · « **Reply #33 on:** 12 May 2009, 02:38 pm »

Jim:

I saw your message on the NMT forum that you figured out how to get MPD to see music stored on a network share. That's great.

I have taken my interface one step further. When my laptop is on, I use Minion and MPD.

But if I feel like turning on my TV, then I use the Music Jukebox user-application, but with a twist. One of the enterprising folk on the NMT forum has developed a skin for the Music Jukebox so that when you click "Play All" on an album or just play one song, control is transferred to MPD. This allows gapless playback, and browsing of your music while something else is playing, all using the NMT remote and the TV.

Further, if I turn on my laptop now, Minion shows me what MPD is doing. Nice solution all around.

At AK Fest 09, I had my ioBox hooked up as the computer source in one of the SMAC (Southeast Michigan Audio Club) rooms. Here is a picture of the setup (with permission from the photographer). The ioBox feeds a Keces DA 131.1 (black box just behind the ioBox). From the Keces to a Juicy Music Blueberry preamp. Power amplifiers are a pair of KT88 monoblocks by NOS Valves. Turntable is a MMF 5.1, Bottlehead Seduction. Speakers are PSB 6T (not in picture). Sounded great.

JDUBS · « **Reply #34 on:** 13 May 2009, 02:47 am »

Ok, guys, so these instructions are basic and assume you have a general knowledge of computers / networking. I've been pretty good with computers for a while but only ok with networking and I was able to get MPD running, if that tells you anything. Also, I use Vista and Windows 7, but Windows XP should be fine, too. I haven't tried OSX either but given this is browser based I don't see any issues with using it.

Also, this assumes that you are able to see your NMT on your network already and that you have a hard drive or other local storage installed (just for the applications; local storage is not necessary for your music).

Ok, so first you want to make sure that your NMT is telnet-capable. I think the easiest way to do this is to download Community Software Installer (CSI) onto your PC from:

http://www.nmtinstaller.com/?p=download

CSI is a really cool user-developed program to ease the installation of various applications onto your NMT. Setup is easy...for the ioBox, these are the default settings:

Server: SMP8634
Username: ftpuser
Password: 1234

The program you want is called "Telnetd". Follow the onscreen instructions to install this program on you NMT. Once installed, you're ready to load up MPD. To do that, you'll need a telnet application. I like PuTTY, a free telnet app found here:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

Open up PuTTY and drop in your NMT's IP address and make sure you check "Telnet" as the Connection Type and click Open. You'll then see an archaic looking terminal screen. This scared me, but its not too bad. For this part, you'll want to reference the official MPD instructions found here:

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=17306&page=1

I recommend that you copy and paste these commands shown in the first box titled "Code". Do it one line at a time, pressing your Enter key after each one, five lines in total. The second line actually downloads the program to your NMT and the subsequent lines deal with the installation.

Once done, you're ready to go and just need a way to interact with your newly MPD'd NMT. Do a search online and there are a variety of front ends. I use Minion which is a Firefox plugin. It works really well.

One point of note, the installation of MPD assumes that your music collection is housed locally. If your music collection is housed elsewhere on your network, you'll need to modify a file called "mpd" in the /Apps/mpd/etc folder on your NMT. If you take a look at the official MPD thread on
networkedmediatank.com, you can see what I did for my situation.

Anyway, hopefully this is helpful and I'm happy to try to answer any questions I can. Its also a good idea to read the whole thread on networkedmediatank.com.

-Jim

JDUBS · « **Reply #35 on:** 13 May 2009, 02:52 am »

Ashok, nice ioBox action shot!! Very cool and I'll have to try out Music Jukebox next.

I just downloaded the iPhone MPD app (MPoD) off of the App Store and its working great, too.

-Jim

mgalusha · « **Reply #36 on:** 13 May 2009, 03:11 am »

Thanks Jim,

I'm a software/network kind of guy so this shouldn't be a problem. I've tinkered with enough Linux boxes over the years to know what is what. I very much appreciate the condensed version as I really didn't want to spend more time looking for the info than setting it up. I have a 32gb SSD coming on Friday, so with any luck I'll get this up and running over the weekend.

mike

Quote from: JDUBS on 13 May 2009, 02:47 am

Ok, guys, so these instructions are basic and assume you have a general knowledge of computers / networking. I've been pretty good with computers for a while but only ok with networking and I was able to get MPD running, if that tells you anything. Also, I use Vista and Windows 7, but Windows XP should be fine, too. I haven't tried OSX either but given this is browser based I don't see any issues with using it.

Also, this assumes that you are able to see your NMT on your network already and that you have a hard drive or other local storage installed (just for the applications; local storage is not necessary for your music).

Ok, so first you want to make sure that your NMT is telnet-capable. I think the easiest way to do this is to download Community Software Installer (CSI) onto your PC from:

http://www.nmtinstaller.com/?p=download

CSI is a really cool user-developed program to ease the installation of various applications onto your NMT. Setup is easy...for the ioBox, these are the default settings:

Server: SMP8634
Username: ftpuser
Password: 1234

The program you want is called "Telnetd". Follow the onscreen instructions to install this program on you NMT. Once installed, you're ready to load up MPD. To do that, you'll need a telnet application. I like PuTTY, a free telnet app found here:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

Open up PuTTY and drop in your NMT's IP address and make sure you check "Telnet" as the Connection Type and click Open. You'll then see an archaic looking terminal screen. This scared me, but its not too bad. For this part, you'll want to reference the official MPD instructions found here:

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=17306&page=1

I recommend that you copy and paste these commands shown in the first box titled "Code". Do it one line at a time, pressing your Enter key after each one, five lines in total. The second line actually downloads the program to your NMT and the subsequent lines deal with the installation.

Once done, you're ready to go and just need a way to interact with your newly MPD'd NMT. Do a search online and there are a variety of front ends. I use Minion which is a Firefox plugin. It works really well.

One point of note, the installation of MPD assumes that your music collection is housed locally. If your music collection is housed elsewhere on your network, you'll need to modify a file called "mpd" in the /Apps/mpd/etc folder on your NMT. If you take a look at the official MPD thread on
networkedmediatank.com, you can see what I did for my situation.

Anyway, hopefully this is helpful and I'm happy to try to answer any questions I can. Its also a good idea to read the whole thread on networkedmediatank.com.

-Jim

JDUBS · « **Reply #37 on:** 13 May 2009, 03:20 am »

Quote from: mgalusha on 13 May 2009, 03:11 am

Thanks Jim,

I'm a software/network kind of guy so this shouldn't be a problem. I've tinkered with enough Linux boxes over the years to know what is what. I very much appreciate the condensed version as I really didn't want to spend more time looking for the info than setting it up. I have a 32gb SSD coming on Friday, so with any luck I'll get this up and running over the weekend.

mike

Happy to do it, Mike. You won't have any problem with this at all. I bet that 32gb SSD will work out well, too.

-Jim

ashok · « **Reply #38 on:** 13 May 2009, 01:58 pm »

The guide you put together is very good Jim. Those were exactly the steps I followed. I used telnet directly from the DOS command prompt in Windows. That worked without any problems.

I think it is a nice solution for music playback. I suppose we can now start to debate about whether the digital output is "audiophile" quality and how the jitter on the output affects the quality of the sound, etc. (Just kidding of course,

, I am very happy with its performance.)

mgalusha · « **Reply #39 on:** 13 May 2009, 05:18 pm »

Quote from: ashok on 13 May 2009, 01:58 pm

I think it is a nice solution for music playback. I suppose we can now start to debate about whether the digital output is "audiophile" quality and how the jitter on the output affects the quality of the sound, etc. (Just kidding of course, , I am very happy with its performance.)

Being that I can't leave anything alone I already ordered a top quality isolated BNC jack and have some precision coax to wire it to the board. I will likely try it with and without an output transformer but adding a transformer is tricky without the gear to measure what is happening.