Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Help me build a music server!

Wow, thanks! I never knew that you could do that before ripping. That makes a whole lot more sense.

Perhaps I've been too hard on iTunes software?

But seriously, how do stupid people even use computers? I've been using computers since the dark days of DOS and I'm still sometimes flummoxed!

Thanks Chris. I can always depend on you to clarify things. You are a good liaison between the pro/consumer worlds.

So... "clients" is the term I was looking for! Perhaps I need to learn more about the proper vernacular when discussing this subject...

I recently put Twonky Media Server onto my Dlink DNS-323 and love the way it works. I used EAC to rip all my discs and it was actually quite easy to set this up.

I just use my Denon 3808 to access all the music.

>> All you would need is a streaming app that you can put on a networked computer somewhere.

This statement seems so trivial, but it confuses the heck out of me. I', a computer guy and I still don;t get it. Why do I need to "stream", what is "streaming"? Why can't I just have the ripped tracks appear as files? And if I'm streaming on my NAS, what do I need on the receiver to process the stream?

I've been playing with my little toy ReadyNAS Duo with no luck. I seem to have a server side streamer up, it seems tracks, but my FreeAgent Theater doesn't see the streaming. (It does see files; but the interface sucks; and it plays in mono.)

BTW, as far as iTunes joining tracks at rip time; I thought that once you did that you no longer saw them as multiple tracks, it becomes one track as far as iTunes is concerned.

The DLNA protocol is a modification of HTTP, and rather simple (read cheap) to implement. It is streaming only.

It is possible for a media playback device to be able to mount SMB (Windows) shares, and access the files. This is more troublesome, but does offer more flexibility. Some devices do support this, and it does make things easier on the server side (just share the directory).

It comes down to how much work did the company spend building the client device. My TV and PS3 only support DLNA. So I need to use some sort of DLNA server (Windows Media Player is enough for those times that I need to do it, but there is much better software out there).

Somehow I forgot to hit submit on this hours ago. Here it now, out of time.



Really? I've never seen any debate (but I don't follow Apple news that closely). As long as a codec's input equals it's output, then it is lossless. I prefer FLAC (because it is open), but there's more than one way to remove the redundancies from digital data in such a way it can be restored.

Do you find Zip files, RAR, LHA, etc compromised? There's been decades of research showing that it is entirely mathematically possible to store data with patterns (i.e. not truly random) in less space.

Complex compression routines are difficult to explain. But RLE is simple. Though, it wouldn't work too well for audio, unless you're in the habit of listening to low frequency square waves. But I'll use that as an example.

Say you're using a sampling rate of 10 kHz with a bit depth of 1, and you're trying to store PCM samples of a 1 kHz square wave. 1 is the speaker pushing out, and 0 is the speaker pulling in. The signal would look like this:

0000000000111111111100000000001111111111

Using RLE (run length encoding), you'd use a system to store the first sample, and then the "run" of how many identical samples follow. So the lossless encode would look like:

0R10,1R10,0R10,1R10

What took 40 characters to store before now only takes 19. That's better than 2:1 compression (in this highly contrived example).

All lossless schemes work with the same basic premise. Come up with a way of detecting redundancies, or patterns in the data, and then use an encoding system that takes less space to represent that information.

One note: In truly random data, there will be no patterns, so the overhead of storing the file inside a container will make it larger than the original.

A more interesting note: The same can be said for a file that already has had its redundancies removed. Even if it is with a less superior method. Like if you take an uncompressed BMP file and put it inside a Zip, it'll shrink quite a lot. But if you RLE encode that BMP first, and then try to Zip it, you'll have a larger file than with the first try.

As a fellow Mac guy, I can recommend Windows 7. Best Windows version yet. You'll be using this server as an appliance, so you should focus on the features of the software rather than the platform.

Once again Chris, I must bow down to your deep knowledge of all things concerning computers and codecs!

Early on there was some controversy regarding the Apple lossless format due to the processing needed for converting it for playback. I assume this was because processor speed might be a consideration? Not sure but... I was actually mistaking Apple lossless for AAC which is lossy. My bad.

I just get all nervous when someone starts talking about throwing out bits!

But truthfully, I don't really see the need for compressing 16 bit wav/aiff files much anymore since storage space is so cheap now. Compression or not, it's really not an issue in terms of disk space. A 1.5 terrabyte HDD is big enough for around 3000 CDs in wav. That's a lot of storage!

I remember when I paid $600.00 for a 500 meg drive... ouch!

I am interested in FLAC since I've been hearing it's a great (open source) format for downloading large, higher bit files off the intertubes...

Man, after reading through these posts in the cold, hard, sober light of day I have to say...

It's still a bit confusing about how to set up a computer based music (server?) playback system that's future proof and audiophile worthy!!!

But, I think I might be leaning toward the Squeezebox as the interface/software and a Mac Mini (since I already have one) with external drives holding my entire (uncompressed ) cd collection. This might be the cheapest and easiest way to get started for me now.

But why on earth did they discontinue this product? It's perfect for us old timers that want a little "hardware" with their "software".

http://www.stereophile.com/mediaservers/207slim

I think it appeals to me because it has the heft and build of real audio gear.

I so hate the cheap plastic "computer" stuff that Logitech typically produces.

And I still would like to see someone post a how-to/step by step post on setting up their music server. I think it would be as interesting as a "setting up a HT" thread.

Boy, it sure seems like there's a few ways to skin this cat!

I believe Chris has his audio saved as WAV files, right? My collection is primarily FLAC (except for certain download-only tracks with no lossless option), but I don't have the perfect playback device for them yet. Right now I do most of my music listening on my computer, which is hooked up to my HT via HDMI, but I'm not sure how much of an impact the way Windows mixes its audio affects the signal, and I can't employ Dolby PLIIx or other matrixing without first setting my computer's audio to 2-channel, which I'll never take the time to do. It would be nice if you could buy a PLIIx/z package for MediaMonkey which would make use of the additional channels.

Blah blah blah. I know, I ramble about things no one here cares about.