PC streamer.

I think we all know by now what this section is for.
Neal
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#61

Post by Neal »

pre65 wrote:
andrew Ivimey wrote:Squeezebox now £233 on Amazon or has the price already gone up - that's no bargain I'm afraid.
It was £135 when I looked, I was almost tempted. :wink:
Yep you missed it Andrew, it was also the same price on xmas eve so you have to keep an eye on it and get in quick...
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#62

Post by Neal »

Double post
Last edited by Neal on Mon Jan 02, 2012 8:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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The Stratmangler
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#63

Post by The Stratmangler »

andrew Ivimey wrote:to the DAC...
I asked where it was connected to, not what it was connected to :roll:
Which server are you connected to, the one on your computer or the one on the Touch itself?
Chris :happy3:
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andrew Ivimey
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#64

Post by andrew Ivimey »

the PC through wi-fi not ethernet cable.
Philosophers have only interpreted the world - the point, however, is to change it. No it isn't ... maybe we should leave it alone for a while.
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The Stratmangler
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#65

Post by The Stratmangler »

Me thinking you's got wireless issues, Mr. I.
Have you done a network health test from your squeezebox?
http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/D ... nce_Issues
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Ray P
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#66

Post by Ray P »

Max N wrote:I think we are all making this much more complicated than it needs to be. If I am reading this correctly, Phil just wants to hook a DAC up to his PC.

Phil, I think you have two options - SPDIF or USB....
Agree, I don't see the need to get into streaming if you only want to play the music in one place from the device on which the music files are resident. Not sure what the max acceptable/allowable cable lengths are (I know you can get quite long USB cables) but a longer cable might give some flexibilty on PC placement (put the PC outside - could give a whole new meaning to 'Open a Window' :lol: )
Max N wrote:Regarding software, you just need a player, preferably with support for playlists etc. iTunes is really nice to use but you would have to convert your FLACs to Apple lossless. This can be done as a batch process, involves no loss of quality, and you could always keep the original FLAC files as well.
iTunes just seems like an extra complication for no real benefit; stick with foobar, which has rich functionality and will play FLAC without any fiddling about
Max N wrote:...but don't worry about all the tweak options initially, just get it up and running. Then later if you decide you like Fubar you can have a fiddle and make sure that your files are being played bit-for-bit etc.
Agree; I hope my previous post didn't deter you. With my experimenting with J River on my laptop I am surprised how good the music sounds routed to my AV receiver or via headphones plugged into the laptop and thats without any tweaking for bitperfect playback etc.
pre65 wrote:If I leave the main computer where it is, something like a Squeezebox might be the most cost effective solution.
Save your money towards your bike and experiment with hooking an output from the PC to your DAC, that way you'll at least learn more about the art of the possible; if the PC option sounds OK you can build from it and if it doesn't you can explore other options.

Ray
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andrew Ivimey
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#67

Post by andrew Ivimey »

Hi Chris, I'll have a look at this when I get home. Brrrrrrrrrrrr its windy wild and wet!
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#68

Post by Mike H »

Maybe "streaming" has a different context to what me & Phil thought it was, 'least I thought it was just - well - play a load of music files from off your 'puter Image
 
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richardcooper2k
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#69

Post by richardcooper2k »

I use my laptop as source to my DAC. This is what i brought to Owston

I would like to try it with a purpose built music player to see if the laptop is affecting sound quality but havn't got round to it yet.

If there is a difference i will try a quieter supply for the laptop as i like being able to play CDs, DVDs, MPs, etc, spotify, utube, BBC iplayer, etc off the same source.
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floppybootstomp
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#70

Post by floppybootstomp »

Must confess, I'm a little confused about what streaming is myself, but this is how I understand it, I could very easily be wrong.

In a premises, usually a domestic home, different rooms have devices capable of receiving networked audio which are connected or integral to a sound system. A computer acting as a server or a dedicated 'headless' server stores the audio files and is kept active all the time that the user(s) wishes to 'stream' music from it.

This can be done with hard wired ethernet cable or most commonly wirelessly. The Squeezebox or similar device is used to control this setup with the user selecting the audio of their choice and directing it for playback at one of the locatoions set up for playback.

And I think that's it, isn't it?

I don't actually know what a Squeezebox does or looks like but I'm imagining a hand held device with a screen where the user can control the setup I've outlined above.

I don't think I need that. Where I live I only have two locations where I want music (bedroom and living room) and I have three computers that are hard-wired networked. My media computer is connected to a 37" TV where I can watch films stored on my hard disk or play audio files stored on my hard disk. As long as both computers are switched on I can watch or listen to all the contents of the media machine in the living room in my bedroom.

Both audio systems in the bedroom and living I'm happy with, btw, so to my ears it sounds pretty good. My daughter can also access the media machine wirelessly with her Netbook in her bedroom should she so wish, though she never does. In the kitchen I have an amp and speakers and an I-Pod dock and I can live without sounds in the karzi.

So, given that setup, I don't think I need a Squeezebox, Apple TV gizmo or a SB, whatever an SB might be ;)

I recently purchased one of those E-Bay DAC's so popular here and this is connected to the optical out signal from the media machine's motherboard onboard sound. It has made a difference, sounds a lot nicer to me, but I wonder whether adding a pci sound card to the machine may improve things.

This is my media machine setup, just in case anybody's interested, imo a modest machine:

Antec Fusion Media case
Asus M4N78-VM Motherboard
2Gb Memory
AMD 5050 Dual Core CPU @ 2.6Ghz
74Gb WD Raptor hard drive for Win Vista OS
2Tb hard disk for storage
350W Jeantech PSU
A DVDRW optical drive

The case came with some media software named i-Mon and a remote control but I don't use that software. The remote control works with some of the Windows functions though.

I only use Vista, btw, cos I paid for it and it does ok for media but I do know it's el poopola.

I tried a couple of Media players today, Foobar and XBMC. Foobar's ok but no better or worse than Winamp, very basic. XBMC was initially confusing and any software that I can't get my head round in the first few minutes I usually dump. But I persevered with this one and I think it's actually very good now I've worked out the confusing controls.

I like the fact XBMC has a bookmark facility on film playback, none of the other media players I have on this machine have that facility, including Windows Media Centre. What I'm not keen on are the inbuilt screen displays during audio playback, I wonder if I can disable those?

I may very well stick with XBMC.

I also noted J-River software mentioned here and I must say it's spec looks good on paper but it's 50 dollars (currently £32) and as there's so much open source software available I'm loathe to shell out for something as common as a media player.

The full Nero burning suite, incidentally, has a good media player that's very similar to Windows Media Centre but Nero costs fifty quid and to be quite honest isn't worth that much, even after all these years it still has bugs.

To sum up, do I need a streaming device with my current setup or no?
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Ray P
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#71

Post by Ray P »

My take on Streaming....

Although there appears to be 101 different ways to 'do' computer-based audion (i.e. squeezeboxes, PCs, Apple TV, Linn DS, etc) in basic process terms they all boil down to similar building blocks;

1. somewhere to store your audio
2. a mechanism to extract it
3. a mechanism to transport it to a renderer
4. a mechanism to render it.

(as an analogy, think of a cinema film projector as a renderer - it takes 'data' (in this case a roll of film) which in itself is meaningless to us and processes the data into something that is meaningful, i.e. consecutively arranged frames delivered at the correct rate. In a film projector these can be seen directly, in computer audio it is a string of binary digits arranged in the right order and at the right rate, suitable for decoding by a DAC - one could argue that a DAC is part of the renderer).

It is entirely feasible, as in the case of Phil's PC, for process steps 1 thru 4 to take place inside a single box but it is also possible to separate where the audio is stored and where it is rendered by some considerable distance, connected by some means; it is transporting the audio data over that physical separation that has become known as streaming.

You can get into all sorts of semantics around the detail because arguably even a single box solution 'streams' data from a disk to a processor.

Ray
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cressy
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#72

Post by cressy »

ive been pretty sceptical about streaming a'la sb, atv, pc having seen the issues that can be had and the frustration trying to set up the borrowed sb, but now i have a working system i cant see me not having one. i'll never get shut of the turntable, a cursory listen this morning showed just how far the setup i have would need to evolve and get better to come close to the jbe/ rega/ sae cart/ nuvistor phono combination. pretty much as far as my cd replay would need to as it happens. but the user friendliness and the potential of the streaming system has me excited.

i'd really like to hear a high end system like the linn or meridian. i cant say i'd ever afford one but i can dream. edit... i think id save up for one of those brinkmann dd turntables and buy one of them first :D arent dreams wonderful..........
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#73

Post by Max N »

Another high end streaming candidate is Chord Electronics. But they seem to be sticking with Bluetooth which seems like the wrong technology to me.
Good for streaming from a mobile phone, but I think we've moved beyond that?
I think most people will end up wanting to stream from a NAS or similar.
In general I think all these 'high end' solutions like Linn, Meridian etc are poor value (and I speak as someone who bought a fair bit of Meridian back in my single days). I'm sure they sound good, but it should be possible to get the same quality for less.
I have a feeling that something will emerge out of the DIY melting pot, or out of China, that will tick all the boxes. Wireless streaming, support for all the file formats, high resolution, high sample rate, great user interface. High quality on-board DAC or transformer-coupled low-jitter digital output. To be honest, if Sonos supported higher res, I would be happy to stick with them.
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