PC Server, IPod, Software, What would you do.

[Sheldon]

No doubt my questions are answered here somewhere. If so, please steer me there.

Here's what I'm looking to do.

Download all my music onto a hard drive (internal or external). For this, I want bit perfect files. This is for my home system. At some point, I want to record my vinyl too.

Load most (all?) of it onto a portable player. Decent MP3 or similar is OK here. It's for the road or casual listening.

I have a DEQX as my pre amp and crossover. I would plan to feed this digitally. It will accept up to 24/92 through either S/PDIF, or AES/EBU.

I have a phono pre amp. I would not use the DEQX to digitize, as my unit has only analog outputs.

Easy is good. I would like to avoid a steep learning curve.

What would you do? Hardware? Software? Needn't be freeware.

Sheldon

[dsavitsk]

VortexBox set to mirror your collection as both flac and mp3.

[kevinahcc20]

I'm using JRiver Jukebox to rip FLAC files to a Netgear Stora 2TB RAID and playing back through a Squeezebox Touch digital coax out to a HLLY DMK IV preamp/DAC...works well & sounds great!

[Michael Chua]

All my CDs are ripped to FLAC (24bit). PC Server is running cPlay with m-Audio Delta 44. Output is Balanced set for +4dBm. Speakers are active bi-amp with Balanced Inputs.

[Sheldon]

Thanks everyone. I'm new to the digital conversion/storage world.

It looks like the VortexBox and VortexBox Appliance are comparable to the combination of JR River Jukebox and the Netgear device. Any key differences I should take into account? I'm not sure yet which features are important. At this point, I don't have a network set up. Just music is what I want for now.

The Squeezebox looks fairly easy to use as an interface. I'd like to avoid a computer for the interface, if I can, as the DEQX handles the D/A conversion and crossover duties. One thing the SBox does not have is an analog input and A/D converter. I need that to digitize my LPs. DEQX has an analog input, but mine has only analog output. I guess I could use the computer for that purpose, as it's a one time deal. Would have to get a good external sound card.

Lotta discussion on the forum about clocking and jitter noise for playback. I know virtually nothing about it. Any issues there that would enter the picture?

Sheldon


Sheldon

[kec]

Originally Posted by Michael Chua

All my CDs are ripped to FLAC (24bit).

Why 24-bit for 16-bit CDs? What's the benefit?

[Michael Chua]

That's what I thought too. Initially, I ripped on 16-bit. Then out of curiosity, I tried 24-bit. Surprisingly, it sounds better on 24-bit. Don't know why. After all, the CD is only 16-bit. Maybe there's some other mechanism at work.

I suppose it's not much different from analog. Why bother to design preamps and power amps with bandwidth extending beyond 100kHz when the CDs don't even hit 20kHz. They simply sound better.

[kec]

Probably the same the reason I use upsampling on my DAC. It does seem to sound better.

How do you rip at 24-bit?

[Sheldon]

After much digging around here and on the net, I've gotten to these tentative conclusions:

Either the VortexBox software/appliance or the JR River Jukebox/Netgear NAS can be the storage device. With VortexBox, it looks like a dedicated PC is required. I have a laptop with XP Home that I can use for the uploads, but I don't want to dedicate a PC for playback, if I can avoid it.

I assume a PC is also required for JR River Jukebox to store the CD's, but I'm not clear on whether or not it's required for playback. Is this different for Jukebox and VortexBox?

My plan would be to use the SqueezeBox Touch or Duet (I like the idea of the display on the remote) for playback, for either system. I would use the SP/DIF connection to my DEQX.

For digitizing records, I would get a good external soundcard for the laptop, or get an older PC and a good internal soundcard. Once digitized I'd download them to the music server. I assume that VBox or JBox allow some sort of manual labeling for the albums and cuts?

Have I interpreted the issues properly?

Thanks,
Sheldon

[kevinahcc20]

JRiver Jukebox is only needed for ripping music files to the storage device and organizing playlists, etc. Squeezebox Touch needs to have Squeezeserver software running on a PC to manage the interface between the storage device and the Touch. It does not need to be a dedicated PC...you could use your laptop for this function. In my system I have an old desktop that runs Squeezeserver...I don't know if running it on your notebook while doing other functions will impact playback.