I feel like a toothless hillbilly - PW DAC

So I have had some time to level off the medication and enjoy music just playing on iTunes. Now I need to look at my options for using the bridge. The most confusing thing I keep seeing on PS Audio's owners manual is the references to tagnplay. Has this been replaced by eLyric? If it has, then they REALLY need to update their manuals. I downloaded the manual last week from their website.

I would prefer to use a hard drive and router to connect to the bridge. Do you guys have any recommendations on inexpensive hard drives I can use? Once I have the hard drive, can I just hook it up to my current wireless router via CAT5 cables? Is there any real HiFi disadvantage to going this route? It sounds like a USB connection is the preferred way to go.

Thanks
Jeff

In order to be able to connect a drive to the network (i.e. to your router via CAT5), you need a NAS drive. NAS drives are quite a bit more expensive than a standard USB harddrive drive. I am using a synology NAS, but there are others that are probably a lot easier to set up. Once you have your music files moved to the NAS, you need three things: eLyric (fka TagNPlay) on an iDevice, a DLNA server on the network and a music server to manage your library. In my experience the easiest solution that gets you both the DLNA server and music server is to buy JRiver 17 for $50 and be done. It has a build in DLNA server. PS audio has their own server (also called eLyric), but I don't think it is quite ready for primetime (you could be lucky and never have a problem with it, or unlucky and have all sorts of issues - I would not risk it).

My take on it is that NO, you will not be playing through Itunes (don't know why you would want to...) elyric is downloaded to your computer-you can get it from the ps audio website. elyric "app" on itunes app store for $9.99 is downloaded to some sort of Iphone, Itouch, Ipad anything with a wifi connection. Elyric acts as the music server now (just like itunes). I am sure there are some other ways to do it, I don't know them though.

You load a library to the elyric software on your computer and control that library with your "Idevice".

As far as i can tell, Tag N Play does not exist. The PS audio instructions are terrible and really need updating.

I do not know how to hook up a hard drive direct to elyric to the router although I know it can be done. Just make sure you are "hard wired" with cat 5 from the router itself.

One other stumbling block for me.... Elyic could not find the DAC and I showed "no connection" on the bridge until i PULLED THE SD PROGRAMMING CARD OUT!!!! Eureka!!! Again, either that wasn't it or the instructions just suck and I got lucky. That's how I fixed my issue with the bridge not responding.

I have a Western digital 2 TB Raid drive I save all my music to. Called a "my book" or something like that. about $150 bucks. They all (unless solid state) make some noise so keep it in a closet or another room from your stereo unless you just don't care.

You can call me if you want 7169824189- chris

TagNplay and Elyric are the same. Most consider USB compromised. If you had the DAC MK II update, because the signal will now go through the digital lens via USB it should be very close if not the same quality as the Bridge. Most people involved would claim the Bridge is superior and the preferred way to go. If you don't upgrade the USB route is not as good as the Bridge method. This is one of the main advantages for some to upgrade to MK II status, that and of course the MK II sounds at least twice as good as the original. I've listened to both at the same time in my system, and there is no doubt in the superiority of the MK II upgrade.

Do I need JRiver? Isn't that kind of doubling up with the eLyric? Do they work together?

I have eLyric loaded on all of my devices. It has the music loaded into its library.

I have my computer connected to the router via CAT5. The PW DAC driver is loaded on my computer.

The PW DAC "sees" the network, but it doesn't look like the computer does (though I am not sure on that part).