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Help -- need Idiot's Guide to music server system

Squeezebox, FLAC, Mac Mini, lossy, lossless -- help, what does all this mean? I'm trying to find out more about taking a CD collection onto hard drive music server. Can anyone recommend a Beginner's Guide, whether online or in print? I'm not completely computer illiterate but I can't figure out the basic hardware needed. My main interest is not to broadcast music wirelessly to different rooms but to get a thousand-plus CDs into some more convenient and secure data storage system without loss of CD audio quality -- can it be done, and with what? If you can point me to an Idiot's Guide, I'd appreciate it.

If it matters, my current system (set up in a small listening room) is a Naim Nait 5i amp and Naim CD5i-2 player driving a pair of Spendor S3/5s. The rest of the room is filled with CDs. Thanks.
jhold

Showing 3 responses by kijanki

kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,451 posts
 
Jhold - I have new MacMini with OSX on it and 500GB Firewire drive "Neptun" from OWC (pretty quiet) for computer backup. I'm planning (in future) to create music server using another Firewire drive. With the current capacity of CD you could probably store 1500 CDs in Apple lossless format and it's only about $100. When you need to expand you can daisy chain another Firewire Neptun. Backup of the music server comes to mind since you spend a lot of time to rip and compress disks and don't want to loose it. When it comes to that point "Neptun" will be even cheaper and you can daisychain many. Keep backup in different house (Theft, Fire etc).

Connect MacMini's optical out using Tosslink (possibly glass one) to the DAC. I use jitter rejecting Benchmark DAC1 that cost around $1k. Get newer USB version ($300 more) just in-case. Benchmark has volume control - I use only digital (CD, DVD, TV) and connect XLR outputs of the Dac to Power amp directly.
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,451 posts
 
Slikric - Wav is not lossless (much less lessloss) . It is not compressed format. Try to run coax to DAC instead of pre and sound might be a little better.

Jhold - music server doesn't do anything different from CD player. Music is stored on hard disk instead of CD and the DAC is outside and not inside of CD Player. Don't listen to people who express negative opinion but never heard it.

Chasmal - I agree 100%
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,451 posts
 
Martykl - I ended up with Benchmark as well. A little unforgiving with class D amp and inexpensive speakers (that I intend to replace). New releases are often better and some of them have surprisingly rounded sound. Sadly many recording engineers don't care and I have quite a few CDs to prove it. We will switch to music servers, I believe, just for the practicallity of it. For the same reason I avoid LPs - too much hassle and not enough new releases. Server might even make me less dependant on format (new CODE 24/96 etc). There is nothing wrong, for instance, if you play old and poorly recorded music you cherish on MP3/4.
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