Music server 201

[otto88]

I have a player running (on a Win PC) and it's very handy

Now i want to also access the music in an adjacent room. I have an unused old Mac Mini . .
To share the files, a mix of FLAC and some high grade MP3s, what is needed?

At Step 1 of considering an "NAS" with USB ports to go to both Win PC and the MAC.
Is an NAS basically one or more HDs, with multiple in/ outlets?
I’d want two HDs, one as backup to the other
I don't really care if its headless or not

If in the US, I might go for something like an unRAID Server http://www.lime-technology.com/
Though I'm in Australia; something similar would be here . .

For music, does Firewire or Ethernet have any advantages over USB?

Any particular product or a link suggested

Thanks

 

[otto88]

Two simoultaneous . .

Thinking:
to give people in each room the ability to make different choices of music at the same time, apart from back-ups, would(?) two duplicate (mirrored) drives be necessary?

 

[audio-kraut]

I run three computers connected to each other and the net through a wireless router.

I have installed foobar and foobar UPnP server on all of them. This permits me to access the library on the unit acting as the server where the music is stored either by copying the complete library or by selecting from the library at the client units through the UPnP browser and play it on the clients.
I can also from the client units control playback on the server and vice versa through the UPnP control panel. This is however only possible if the foobar player is open on your main unit that acts as the server.
I can also stream from the main unit or the client units to all other units, there is a time lag between units however.
You can also through filesharing in windows 7 copy the library content to you foobar player on the client computers, again however you can only play if the foobar player is open and the path to your memory is accessible.

BTW - i have used various players in the past, from media monkey to winapm, dbpoweramp, VLC, windows media etc. and found foobar the most customizable, the most crash resistant of any of them, and would never consider installing another player - and it is free and under constant improvement.

Her a screenshot of foobar display on the client:

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

and a shot of the browser panel

http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/4042/foobarwbrowser.png

 

[otto88]

While at present the PC and the Mac aren’t networked, I do have a router with a “spare” ethernet lead.

Even with a time lag, streaming to all units would sometimes be very nice.
Your customized interface looks very good. Is that foobar's 3rd party plugin Panels UI?

so foobar2000 runs on Windows (though not Macs)?

“i have used various players in the past”
Customizability and robustness aside, did you find any differences in sound quality between the various players?

I read ~ on foobar as it was in 2008 (version 0.9.5):
"if you know nothing about programming, you might as well forget it"
Hydrogenaudio Forums > Why is everything about foobar much more difficult than it should be?

~ ease of set-up for an, er modestly skilled aging PC user?


Thanks

 

[otto88]

foobar2000 "automatic" ripping

To save lots of time: can foobar2000 do "automatic CD ripping"

* Automatically tag files from an online music database
&/ or
* Automatically download the cover art?

 

[audio-kraut]

so foobar2000 runs on Windows (though not Macs)?

unfortunately yes, it is for windows only.

I have not heard any differences in sound between players, I even heard no differences between ASIO direct out to spdif and passing the signal through the windows audio stack.
There is an component for foobar to rip cd - I use foobar also to play cds - but I found jet audio by cowon the fastest ripper. I had used EAC in the past, but the secure ripping takes a lot of time. Jet audio also converts to Flac in one go and it is easy to set the pathway to the proper folders.
It also tags the files, but to include artwork I use mp3tag.
Within Foobar there are tag options, but I have only used "tag box" to change manually artist etc. For every serious tagging I found mp3tag the best - but it will only tag compressed files, not wav. files.
I have ripped over 1800 cd by now and also transferred about 100 lps.

I found no audible differences between flac and wav, and also no differences between
Lp in flac and Lp direct - but I run everything through an m-audio soundcard anyway,
so in my replay chain everything is digitized and only converted to analogue within the hypex amp that I built into my kefs 104/2. I sample all signals to output at 48Khz at the soundcard spdif output, this is what the hypex amp uses to operate.

BTW - I am 62, not a computer specialist by any means but with a little time, patience and some reading i managed to set foobar up including spectrum display, biographical display, lyrics display etc. Yes, it is this ability to customize the bejeezus out of foobar that makes it attractive and requiring a bit more brain grease to make it work AS YOU WANT.
There are simple displays available right off after install, and use foobar 1.1.5, not the old version.

 

[otto88]

With all that ripping, your advice sounds very believable (I'm a sceptic) . .

"I sample all signals to output at 48Khz at the soundcard spdif output, this is what the hypex amp uses to operate"
Cool!

 

[audio-kraut]

Just as a bit of background. I started into highend again in the early 90's, with at first nad amps, preamps, micro mega cd player, several record players (which I still own) diy speakers with active marchand crossovers, satellites in d'appolito configuration with compound loaded subs that went straight down to 20Hz.
I then switched to Bryston amps, preamps, included after careful consideration behringer digital deq's, later digital crossovers (which was as good as the marchand with the advantage of no hiss at all) and finally wound up including a sample rate converter. Through all this processing I could not hear any difference, and I did a lot of listening before finalizing each change. But I liked it.

So, the next step then was two years ago - sell off the whole shebang, buy 2 hypex digital amps for my then beloved kefs, a Bash 300 amp for the single compound loaded subwoofer fed through the hypex adjustable crossover, put together my own media computer with an asus highend motherboard (meant for serious duty) and an i7 dual quad core processor, the m-audio soundcard (1010lt), an ATI all in wonder HD video card capable of HD TV and a pioneer bluray cd rom.
I feed my three TT's (a technics sl10, 2 thorens td 25 with sme/airbearing arm respectively), the satellite dish audio all into the soundcard, included about 3TB internal memory in the PC, and about 8TB external in raid 5, and another external 2TB unit that is the ultimate storage which will eventually be stored in a save place, set up foobar as not the only but the solely used player and haven't looked back since. ( I still have winamp in there, cowon audio player, VLC and WMP.
Every CD i buy is ripped immediately, checked and goes into a storage box in the attic.

I only have still about 2000lps in shelves in my listening/living room. I am a bit nostalgic about that.

The next step is to include a loudspeaker control program, similar to what the deq could do. There seems to be some good ones out there, but not cheap.