Music server 411 beginning

 

New member
Username: Dmoss

Post Number: 1
Registered: Feb-08
hi,

i am trying to come up with an idea for a home music server, but keep freezing up when i go to get any components.

i can't decide which route would be best, so i'm going to ask in here, since this is he only forum i've found that specifically deals with this subject.

here's what i have. a main PC, where i do my work and everything else. my kids have a computer they kill out in the living room. i also have another PC laying around doing nothing (my first idea was o use this). i also have an older laptop that rarely gets used (idea 2).

some things that are making me pull hair are: which music software to use. i like itunes, but am no a mac user, and the only lossless codec they use is their own.

where to store the media? i would just assume get USB drives, since they are very reasonable now, but hear things about NAS servers, etc. and then there's the whole squeezebox route!

on and on it goes for me....

so what i am thinking is..get a 750 GB USB drive, burn my 700 plus CDs on it, as either ALAC. or FLACs. from there, i will probably make the laptop the connecting pc to the stereo unit.

now that makes for another problem. my computer seems to have a problem accepting a newer PCMIA usb 2.0 card, so i know that creative makes a PCMCIA 24/96 soundcard of their own. if that works, and sounds good enough, i will deal with that. teh built in soundcard on the laptop is a bit weak, since i have been playing around with itune and the two computers already.

would that be the beat route? or would the squeezebox be better? retooling the old pc? and wht about having some kind of remote control for this whole thing? i don't mind being able to share from my main library on itunes, bu again, no FLACs wit them!

any help or suggestions would be great!
 

Bronze Member
Username: Snapcat

Post Number: 18
Registered: Oct-07
Dave,

I've been wrestling with this also. I don't know very much yet, but there appear to be a few routes.
1) pc to squeezebox (either wifi or ethernet) to dac (or you can use internal squeezebox dacs) to stereo
2) pc to USB dac to stereo
3) music server to dac to stereo with music server access to pc files also (either ethernet or usb I think)

I'm not ready to jump to wifi yet.
Windows media player has a reasonable capability based on the Benchmark site.

http://extra.benchmarkmedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
 

Bronze Member
Username: Snapcat

Post Number: 19
Registered: Oct-07
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1139715855&openfrom&1&4#1
 

Bronze Member
Username: Snapcat

Post Number: 24
Registered: Oct-07
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Topic_Index

Most folks may know about this already.

Dave, I'm probably not helping with your specific question. I don't know the answers yet.
« Previous Thread Next Thread »

Add Your Message Here

Bold text Italics Create a hyperlink Insert a clipart image Add a YouTube Video
Need to Register?
Forgot Password?
Enable HTML code in message
   



Main Forums

Today's Posts

Forum Help

Follow Us