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 martykl

For your purposes, there are really 5 main concerns:

1) What type of compression? You want a lossless system (like FLAC or Windows Media Lossless "WMA lossless") which preserves all the data on your CDs - any of the lossy compression schemes (MP3, etc) drop some data to save disc space. There is probably more music "out there on line" in FLAC than any other lossless format, but WMA lossless seems to be closing the gap, a bit. There is no perfect call here. Some server software will read both FLAC and WMA lossless (like the latest QSonix) and this obviously allows more flexibility.

2) The user interface. i-tunes is the defacto standard. It is a text-based interface which allows you to access music alphabetically by track, artist, or album name. Some systems, including the very expensive stand alone servers from QSonix or Soolooos use a graphic interface. You can choose music by browsing through album covers, for example. Find one you like.

3) Storage capacity. Calculate the maximum # of CDs you expect to put on the system in the future as best you can. Once you know which compression scheme you've chose, you can calculate the hard drive space you will need. Your dealer will help if you need him to. Remember that you need 2 drives, each with this storage capacity - a main drive and a back-up.

4) Price. A computer with server software will offer a lot of capability for a moderate outlay. Dedicated servers can be less expensive (Squeezebox) or more expensive (QSonix) or much more expensive (Sooloos) depending mostly on the user interface. Graphic touch screen systems are great - but pricey.

5) Choice of DAC. IMHO, this will have the biggest impact on playback quality.

Good Luck

Marty

PS - Some systems are noisier than others. Although not a major issue like those above - just bear in mind that a noisy drive system must be isolated or covered during use.
To clarify #5, above - the DAC. All servers that I know of -even PCs or Macs -include an internal DAC. The most expensive servers like QSonix and Sooloos use pretty good internal DACs. However, if your new server is going to replace a cd player as a source component in a high end system, I'd get an appropriate external DAC, even for the QSonix or Sooloos.

Marty
Chasmal and Kijanki,

You might be surprised. I'm a vinyl first guy -Oracle,Graham 2.2, Graham Nightingale - but I also use a QSonix/Benchmark digital system. Now, my hearing isn't what it was 10 (or more) years ago, but IMHO this is a very good sounding souce. In direct comparison, the vinyl still sounds a bit rounder, but the best cds sound awfully close to their LP counterparts. You might find the gap more significant than I do, I'd be surprised if you liked the sound of a good LP on my system and disliked the digital presentation of the same recording. Of course, I've been surprised before!

Marty