[danieljtb]

Hi folks  Why do we not see discussions about using these media players as servers? the WD mini and live both has the cap. of usb drive on one end and spdif out on the other end.  Seems a pretty simple way to go.  Is the sound quality of the digital out or the player software lacking?  have people on these forums tried these and found them not up to audiophile standards?  Would love to find a good solution that would free up my notebook   thanks Dan

[ebag4]

I am currently using an Egreat M34A Network Media Tank feeding my MHDT Havana DAC (via glass Toslink).  I A-B'd it against my Windows SP Pro 3G machine running Foobar2K and Asio4all via USB and didn't hear a real difference.  The real plus is that the Egreat is fanless, running MPD and only uses about 5 watts.  The NMT website has many people writing code for these units, one of the programs I am using is a GUI for MPD (which i can also control via a remote client) which uses the NMT's remote and a computer monitor via HDMI.  Works great, simple solution.  Of course Linux experience is a plus, unfortunately I have very little.

Best,
Ed

[wushuliu]

I'm curious as to why more use isn't made of these as well. I've had a WDTV for a good while now and it seems like a no brainer solution for a music server for cheap if all you need is an hdmi or optical out. I found the WDTV sound quality to be very good, neutral with the newest firmware. I thought that w/ digital out that there should be no difference in sound but apparently WD added digital gain to the units early on. After complaints they released an update and you could hear the difference in digital out.

That said I just purchased a Patriot Box Office because WDTV downsamples hi-rez to 48khz and I want to output straight to my new dac w/o any alteration. So far the PBO sounds kind of brittle w/ raw hdmi out. I don't know if media players need break in or what (seems doubtful), but I'll give it a few days. I remember the Asus O play I demo'd a few months ago having the same sound.

I wish there was more info and transparency about these players. It's hard to get info and what's out there seems strictly geared for the PC/video/torrent geek crowd ( I mean seriously just how many video/networking formats does a person need?)

The Patriot seems a good deal because of the rebate, internal hd space, and you can buy a wireless dongle for cheap.

[wushuliu]

FWIW, I've just spent a little time A/B'ing the WDTV (original) v. Patriot Box Office (uses same chips as Cinematube, Asus O!Play, etc) and the sound quality of the WDTV via hdmi out is *much* better. Clearly someone is setting different output levels on these players or the audio on the other chips (Realtek) just plain suck.  It sounds compressed, my music sounded like bad mp3s. I'm guessing someone sets audio at sizzle levels they think will wow consumers or appeal to HT crowd. So even digital, 'bits is bits', isn't safe.

I guess I'll stick w/ the devil I know. The WDTV sounds very good to my ears, too bad about the 48khz limitation.