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Confused With Options To Obtain BestQuality iTunes

I have been reading a lot these days and still confused on the plethora of options available in hooking up a computer based digital system and the pros and cons to each and every selection. I am quite new in this so please bear with me.

I have friends who stream wireless music(Itunes) via an Apple Airport Express that supported this idea and do know many folks are using this setup in their homes. Others who are into Logitech stuff advocated the Squeezebox Classic and Touch. However, another group who uses top-flight gears in their systems(upper range MBL and Revels) advised that wireless degrades sound quality, and the best option is to hook it all up with wires.

Suggested options to play Itunes in WAV or AIFF format are as follows.

1) iTunes in 1TB/2TB External Hard Drive => Mac Mini/Macbook => DAC (iPad to control music selection)

2) iTunes in 1TB/2TB External Hard Drive => Logitech Squeezebox Classic/Touch => DAC (iPad to control music selection)

3) iTunes in 1TB/2TB External Hard Drive => PC => Apple Airport Express => wireless => DAC (iPad to control music selection)

4) iTunes in 1TB/2TB External Hard Drives => wireless => Apple TV => DAC

Out of the four options above, is it a general consensus that option 1 will yield the best sound reproduction from iTunes followed by option 2? Will options 3 and 4 come close to options 1 and 2? Are there any other alternatives to do all this?

Basically my priority is to use an iPad to control playback from iTunes stored in 1TB/2TB external hard drives WITHOUT using a Mac/PC. Apple Airport Express and Apple TV were said to degrade sound quality. What other cost-efficient options do I have?

An advice would be most appreciated.
ryder

Showing 7 responses by tpy

tpy's avatar
tpy
68 posts
 
Could someone clarify if iTunes will stream high rez files to a Squeezebox Touch? And what the best way to get high Rez downloads into (and out o_ iTunes on a Mac?

I too am going through the learning process this week and downloaded the HDtracks free sampler to see if I can get it to work before buying some other interesting high rez downloads they have. I converted from flac to wave with XLD. and that would play through iTunes on my computer but not stream to the SQbox. Then I converted them to AIFF and they stream fine and sound noticeably better than 16 bit, but there is drop out when playing, as if the streaming is not keeping up with the music.

Any suggestions?
tpy's avatar
tpy
68 posts
 
Thanks Tobias. To my surprise I've got Snow Leopard 10.6.5. Is there any advantage of Pure Music over AyrePlay? I'm not very savvy about setting these things up. Is it just a matter of downloading and installing and the program does all else?

Any thoughts about why I'm having music drop out on hig rez (but not other) files (I'm using wireless)?

This thing is pretty amazing but I'm anxious to see what it will sound like in high rez/
tpy's avatar
tpy
68 posts
 
I appreciate you're patience -- I'm obviously very new at this.

I like using iTunes because it's familiar, and have tried a few others and often have trouble figuring out how to get them to work. So far, I've tried Max without really getting it to work, used XLD to convert flac24 or other flac files, and then get them to play on iTunes, but for some reason they wouldn't get through the squeezebox software to my touch until I converted them to AIFF.

I've just downloaded Air from sbooth.org, which I've heard is very good and does format switching automatically. My questions are:

1. I have squeezebox set up to read my iTunes files. But it won't read them unless I first convert from hi rez flac to wav and then to AIFF. Weird. Is there a simpler way?

2. I've loaded my iTunes library onto Play and Squeezebox. Is there a way to get my Squeezebox unit to take in both the Apple and the Play sets of music files so I can just choose between the 2? How would I do that.

Again, many thanks for your patience and my newbieness
tpy's avatar
tpy
68 posts
 
Thanks Tobias. Apparently sbooth has both a Play and an AyreWave software. I had downloaded Play first but I take it that AyreWave is better, so downloaded that too. I've loaded both with my iTunes playlist and would like to use AyreWave as my primary source for my SqueezeTough, but keep iTunes for my iPod.

What I can't quite figure out is how to tell the Squeezebox to get my music files from AyreWave, or maybe better yet, from both AyreWave and iTunes. From the Logitech site,

I read that you can run multiple folders (right term?) by saving one into the other. So I take it the easiest thing would be to save the AvreWave directory in ITunes as a folder -- which would make it a subdirectory. Is that right?

I'm no sure how to do that. How do I set up SqBox to read music stored in my AyreWave directory -- not sure where to find the AyreWave directory. When I find in my Mac's Finder, and click on it, it opens up but I'm not sure how to enter it into SqBox.

Part of my problem is I fairly recently switch to my Mac from PCs and am still not quite up to speed on it.

Many, many thanks.
tpy's avatar
tpy
68 posts
 
Jax2 -- Many thanks One question though.. You say "If AyreWave is just accessing your iTunes library anyway, then you don't need to do any of this - just tell Squeezeserver to use iTunes. Squeezeserver will deliver full res to 24/96 via Touch or Transporter."

Wouldn't doing it this way bypass AyreWave, which has my iTunes folder saved into it, and just take it directly from iTunes, without the sonic benefits I'd get from running AyreWave? How would it know to run it through AyreWave this way?

Thanks.
tpy's avatar
tpy
68 posts
 
My guess is that everything from the computer goes through Squeezeserver to the Touch. Or can other software directly interface with the Touch? So the question is, if my music library is loaded into both iTunes and AyreWave, how do I set this up so that I can play the files on the Touch through EITHER of these two librarires (iTuens or AyreWave)? It would be nice to be able to compare the two to see which sounds best.
tpy's avatar
tpy
68 posts
 
What I don't get, though, is how to access both programs through the SqTouch. The screen there just says owner's library (or something like that). I actually have had both programs running and one of them is sending music to the Touch, but I'm not sure which one the SQserver has iTunes selected so I'm assuming its getting its feed from iTunes. How do I get the SQserver to send the AyreWave to the Touch, though? As you can tell, I've got alot to learn about this stuff. But I'm getting there, thanks to your advice and the other folks on this forum.
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