What kind of Music Server does everyone have??

[amey01]

Not the current system...but I have a 2006 Olive Opus that I loaded a few discs on (well about 60...lol) and am considering reviving...

mmm - seriously - why would you want your music locked down to an appliance when you can just put them on a disk and play them through any computer that takes your fancy. The Squeezebox / Sonos type architectures are far superior in my opinion.

 

[tonepub]

For those of you that feel that way...Olive offers a very affordable service when you buy their machine. Send them you CDs on a spindle and they preload the Musica or the Musica HD

Not that easy to box up 6500 CD's...

Don't think I would trust anyone else with my music collection either...

 

[amey01]

Not that easy to box up 6500 CD's...

Don't think I would trust anyone else with my music collection either...

...... It looks like CDs - too - grow on trees for you.

 

[tonepub]

Nope, just been buying a lot of music all of my life. I wish it grew on trees...

I've probably got the smallest collection of most of my staff, about 6500 CD's, about 500 high res discs and about 5000 albums. Our music editor easily has three times that, and our "Musical Advisor", Terry has about 45 thousand LP's and about 30 thousand CD's, but he's owned a record store for over 25 years, so he's gotten a lot of great promos.

 

[robertawillisjr]

mmm - seriously - why would you want your music locked down to an appliance when you can just put them on a disk and play them through any computer that takes your fancy. The Squeezebox / Sonos type architectures are far superior in my opinion.

Turnkey?

However,I am just beginning to explore the options

1 -> To cull my CD collection (Many CD's only have a few selections that I like). Perhaps store in boxes, sell or donate afterwards.
2-> I would really like to do the same with my lp collection only at 24/96 or better. The hi-res recordings will be for home use. If I am correct, I'll be able to burn them to CD at 16/44. I'll keep the lps

 

[tonepub]

I'm with you on the turnkey aspect...

 

[amey01]

Turnkey?

Okay - I guess fair enough.

There are a couple of things that bother me though:

Firstly (as we all know), equipment comes and goes. I don't want my music tied down to a particular device or proprietary format. I want to be free to chop and change as I please.

Secondly, the backup. Basically - there is none. Even with an easy turnkey device like the Olive or Naim HDX -- it is still a pain to rip CD after CD.

Ripping (for me) is something I've invested a lot of time in - something that I have spent much effort getting right and how I want it. I now want that to be as portable, pliable and malleable as it can be. I want to be able to use it anywere I see fit - on any device I see fit.

 

[DrJRapp]

mmm - seriously - why would you want your music locked down to an appliance when you can just put them on a disk and play them through any computer that takes your fancy. The Squeezebox / Sonos type architectures are far superior in my opinion.

That's the whole idea of the Olive ...it's a network server as well as a player!

 

[JRace]

I use a mini-itx HTPC that I built last summer.
It is both a music and video server as well as a TV decoder.
Foobar/ASIO for music and Zoomplayer for video.

I have it wired directly to a Denon AVR and also wireless to a PS3 which then acts as a front-end playing both video and audio.

I for one enjoy tinkering with PC's.

 

[wallacefl]

Modwright Transporter in main system gives a little of that tube depth to Pandora and can also bypass the tube analog stage and send it to the Benchmark pre/dac if I just want the facts. I also use the standard Squeezebox in the other system and it is hard to fault for the $.

 

[tonepub]

Okay - I guess fair enough.

There are a couple of things that bother me though:

Firstly (as we all know), equipment comes and goes. I don't want my music tied down to a particular device or proprietary format. I want to be free to chop and change as I please.

Secondly, the backup. Basically - there is none. Even with an easy turnkey device like the Olive or Naim HDX -- it is still a pain to rip CD after CD.

Ripping (for me) is something I've invested a lot of time in - something that I have spent much effort getting right and how I want it. I now want that to be as portable, pliable and malleable as it can be. I want to be able to use it anywere I see fit - on any device I see fit.

Don't know what you're talking about as far as the "Proprietary format" goes. Naim rips in .wav and will read .wav, .flac, MP3 and others. Same for everything else. If Meridian or Naim ever go away, I've got 6500 CD's ripped in .flac with EAC. Can easily change hardware.

The main reason I like the Sooloos so much is that all the backup is done automatically. It's more expensive than building a NAS, etc. but I don't have to think about any of it. One of the drives fails, the Sooloos tells me which one to replace, it formats by itself and then repopulates. Easy.

 

[amey01]

Don't know what you're talking about as far as the "Proprietary format" goes. Naim rips in .wav and will read .wav, .flac, MP3 and others. Same for everything else. If Meridian or Naim ever go away, I've got 6500 CD's ripped in .flac with EAC. Can easily change hardware.

That's fine. I was talking in general - not about specific products.

You're lucky. As long as it is just as easy to get the music OFF the unit.......?

The main reason I like the Sooloos so much is that all the backup is done automatically. It's more expensive than building a NAS, etc. but I don't have to think about any of it. One of the drives fails, the Sooloos tells me which one to replace, it formats by itself and then repopulates. Easy.

This is not fine. I've said before, RAIDed disks are not backup. What if both disks fail? Eg - power surge, flood, it is bumped while writing, water spillage, overheating, power supply failure burns out both disks, RAID corruption, it drops on the floor, heaven forbid - theft (a sexy [and expensive looking] Sooloos unit is easier to steal than 6500 CDs!)........the list goes on.

A backup should be on an entirely independent device that is unplugged, removed and stored separately. Ideally, you should have two.

In my case - I have a 2TB USB external disk that is a mirror of my server. Periodically, I take this to the office and back it up to HP Ultrium tape. The tapes stay in the office.

 

[tonepub]

The Sooloos doesn't use RAID's. The backup drives are mirrored to the primary, and just to be safe, I bought a 6TB Drobo that I back up once every couple of months and then shut off. Have kept all my physical media just in case, and for serious listening still use the transport on my dCS, as it sounds the best.

Have started to use the Naim HDX as a "High Res" server only. All 24/96 files (downloads and DVD-a rips) are here as well as LP transfers that I've been doing at 24/192 with the Nagra LB and Manley Massive Passive.

Makes it a lot easier to keep things straight. Naim has a SS drive internal and then rips files to a 2TB external, with an addl. 2TB drive for backup. Again, this disc is shut off.

So far, so good.

 

[amey01]

The Sooloos doesn't use RAID's. The backup drives are mirrored to the primary, and just to be safe, I bought a 6TB Drobo that I back up once every couple of months and then shut off. Have kept all my physical media just in case, and for serious listening still use the transport on my dCS, as it sounds the best.

Have started to use the Naim HDX as a "High Res" server only. All 24/96 files (downloads and DVD-a rips) are here as well as LP transfers that I've been doing at 24/192 with the Nagra LB and Manley Massive Passive.

Makes it a lot easier to keep things straight. Naim has a SS drive internal and then rips files to a 2TB external, with an addl. 2TB drive for backup. Again, this disc is shut off.

So far, so good.

Yep - sounds good!

 

[Audiophiliac]

I have not posted or even browsed the forum much lately, as my focus has been shifted over the last year. I got married and we had our first baby and things are great. Just had to reallocate some of my "free time" to other areas.

Anyway, I have a ton of music sitting on my PC in FLAC and no proper way to listen to it. I have been in this situation since I moved into this house. I moved my Audioengine A5 speakers to the TV room because playing Rockband on the TV speakers was a joke. The speakers in my monitor are lame at best so listening to music on the computer just is not fun.

So today, since my wife took the baby on a trip overnight, I pieced together something to get all my tunes playing on the "good" system. I have an Xbox 360. I have been working on getting it set up with TVersity to stream video of Formula 1 from my PC since I shut off my cable service. Turns out, I can also stream FLAC to the Xbox with TVersity as well!

Of course, as with anything it seems, this took 3 or 4 pieces of software downloaded and installed to make it work. But all the stars aligned and voila! I have access to all my music from the living room. TVersity transcodes the FLAC on the fly to .wav to stream....since nothing Microsoft natively handles FLAC (retarded).

Its not as elegant as a Kaleidescape or Sooloos , or even a Sonos or Squeezebox (the interface is akin to navigating an iPod)...but it gets the job done and it was free. Now if I could get motivated to build a rack in the closet and get that loud and obnoxious Xbox out of the room.....hmmmm....yeah....or I could just turn up the volume.

 

[TheHun]

simple PC setup - works fine

I’m an IT guy, I stick to PCs (well notebooks).
I have used cPlay for ASIO capable devices but today I’m using an M2Tech Hiface so I turned to Foobar WASAPI under Win7 (supported by the Hiface driver).
I use a large buffer to load titles to the memory, but I’m yet to check if it really makes any difference or not (on my rig).
I use a really simple IR/USB remote that mimics keyboard strokes and as such are digestible by foobar. I know it is a lazy IT setup, but I rather spend the bucks on other components.

If all goes well, very soon I’ll have a new DAC based on the ESS Sabre32 chip, the Buffalo II. It is supposed to be a DIY but I have asked friends to DIFMP (do it for me please) with custom power supply and output stage. Uh-oh, can’t wait to get it!
I haven’t heard it singing so it’s still a chill if it lives up to expectations or not, but general feedback is very positive. We’ll see. Or hear.