Good points Arbuckle. I'm considering a Sooloos-like device because the interface could get other family members more involved in use of my system. Once you get started, there's no reason not to rip everyone elses music into the system. In my case that's several thousands more songs, leaning toward Radiohead, Brazilian traditional music, to a really eclectic bunch of stuff. Right now, they're afraid to touch my system.
After using iTunes at work for the last couple of years and on planes with my iPhone, I really like that type of interface, finding it much easier to find what I'm looking for, or putting together a program mix to suit my mood.
The troubles with most "servers", including the Sooloos, includes; little attention paid to the the DAC (I can overcome that with the excellent DAC in my Playback Designs); lack of hi rez; 1/3 of my album art isn't available for the system; my 1200 LPs will need to be manually archived then ripped; and pricing is out of character with performance (Sooloos, Mac, Linn).
Pluses are; digital ripping services as low as $1 per disc; all in one solutions; nice interfaces.
Mac-based solutions tend to be overly minipulative and controlling. I've got an Apple TV for viewing my photos. It's basically a hard drive with a wireless reciever. Unfortunatly it only works with iTunes running on a nearby computer. Doubly unfortunately, Apple feels compelled to "improve" iTune periodically and it screws up the wireless connection. In the nine-months that I've had the Apple TV I've had to set it up (bacially reinstall it) about three times. Last weekend, it took 3-hours to resync several gigs of photos that had been synced two time previously. Imagine doing that with a terabyte of hi rez data.
SO, I can never trust Apple. In the PC envirnoment at least hard drives act like hard drives and don't puke all there data everytime the application changes. I'm waiting another year and if there's no pre-packaged solution that does almost everything right, then I'll probably build my PC-based server.
Dave
After using iTunes at work for the last couple of years and on planes with my iPhone, I really like that type of interface, finding it much easier to find what I'm looking for, or putting together a program mix to suit my mood.
The troubles with most "servers", including the Sooloos, includes; little attention paid to the the DAC (I can overcome that with the excellent DAC in my Playback Designs); lack of hi rez; 1/3 of my album art isn't available for the system; my 1200 LPs will need to be manually archived then ripped; and pricing is out of character with performance (Sooloos, Mac, Linn).
Pluses are; digital ripping services as low as $1 per disc; all in one solutions; nice interfaces.
Mac-based solutions tend to be overly minipulative and controlling. I've got an Apple TV for viewing my photos. It's basically a hard drive with a wireless reciever. Unfortunatly it only works with iTunes running on a nearby computer. Doubly unfortunately, Apple feels compelled to "improve" iTune periodically and it screws up the wireless connection. In the nine-months that I've had the Apple TV I've had to set it up (bacially reinstall it) about three times. Last weekend, it took 3-hours to resync several gigs of photos that had been synced two time previously. Imagine doing that with a terabyte of hi rez data.
SO, I can never trust Apple. In the PC envirnoment at least hard drives act like hard drives and don't puke all there data everytime the application changes. I'm waiting another year and if there's no pre-packaged solution that does almost everything right, then I'll probably build my PC-based server.
Dave