Okay, a completely new discovery for me - Music Server - Questions...

msg

VR3 wrote: »

Makes sense

Just seems like for the cost, complexity and maintenance and the fact streaming sounds so much better then physical media, just doesn't seem worth it.

Trey, for as much as I love the idea of listening to flac rips of my CDs, I have to admit that my native flac files don't seem to offer significantly improved quality over streaming services, and I'm just using Spotify most of the time.

Maybe if a spent a bunch more money in a bunch of areas on a purpose built system with every noise reduction and isolation option possible? For me, it's just easier to pay my $15 and use my LMS and SBTs to stream Spotify, DI.fm, soma.fm and even Pandora, yes. Daphile as @billbillw mentions would be a good, simple, easy to set up media server choice.

It would take a lot of money and new stuff for me to significantly improve over where I am right now. My ripped stuff is for that special content not available on the streaming platforms, otherwise I'm streaming services, yeah. So I agree.

@treitz3 - before your thread took off, I began to loosely outline what I did and what I'd be looking at if I were building something now for a media library and local streaming system. It was becoming complex without even having any specifics detailed yet. Many of the contributors here provided great details on their experiences and setups along the lines of what I was pulling together.

Taking the streamer-forward out of the equation, it's still a huge investment in time and or additional gear and software, not including your time to rip and maintain.

I think it's still worth trying out, but maybe start simple with just an external bus powered SSD if you can't put one in your streamer, just to get a sense for it. You could even just rip some of your rare stuff and throw it on a decent USB thumb drive and plug it into your streamer, just for some baseline sense of what the bare essential gets you. Frankly I'd start there. It would probably be the quietest thing you could try?

You'd get your feet wet without making a big commitment. That commitment is going to snowball if you really do it right, and even more so if you do it Tom-style.

Don't get me wrong, having a media server and library can be rewarding and a lot of fun, but it can also become a responsibility to take care of, mainly backing up, or the rare troubleshooting. I use some processes like BillBill to automate some of it, but it's still a chore. Wouldn't trade my LMS and SBTs for anything, though. So versatile even though antiques.

ChrisD06

msg wrote: »

but it can also become a responsibility to take care of, mainly backing up, or the rare troubleshooting.

It's a chore to take care of for sure. Arguably the only benefit I see is the slightly improved audio quality and the fact you don't need to worry about the condition of your discs but oh my lord. What a task.

You've gotta keep everything updated, some things break if your public IP changes, you have to check drive health every month, RAID arrays, power outages, man it's just a pain but I'll say the pay off is worth it for a media center.

For just music I don't know if I'd go through what I do to upkeep my HTPC. It's honestly, in my opinion, probably cheaper (electricity) and better to just pay for Deezer or Qobuz or Amazon Music. For a full media center I would definitely go for it.

I also could just be experiencing the consequences of running the same server software and configuration for multiple years considering it wasn't done to the standard I'd do now.

I will say the benefit of an x86 custom-built system is RAID1, you don't need to back up because it's redundant. Just make sure both drives don't start failing.

EDIT: Another benefit of a music server is convenience. No switching discs/records, and you can stream from anywhere. Still, HiFi services offer this too.

msg

RAID is not a substitute for backup.

Emlyn

msg wrote: »

RAID is not a substitute for backup.

True. Western Digital may say their Red Pro drives (that I use) have a mean time between failure rating of 2 million hours but they also say in product footnotes that's not a warranty and it doesn't really mean much of anything in real world use. A drive can fail at any time.

billbillw

Frankly, I am disappointed to hear so many of you discourage Tom from this endeavor by saying cost and time is not worth it.

With the vast amount that most of us have spent over the years on physical media, it is a crying shame to let it just sit and not be enjoyed. Streaming services are convenient, but they probably won't have the specific release of a certain album. I spent a lot of time collecting Hoffman masters through the years and various Japanese or German releases. I know that the streaming services are probably not going to have those exact versions that I have come to enjoy.

The cost to put together a rock solid server (that could be used for music, movies, photos, etc) pales in comparison any of Tom's major components. Software cost is also minimal. The only thing he really needs is dBpoweramp ($48), FreeFileSync, and TrueNAS Core which is also free open source.

He could put together a brand new HPE Microserver with 4x4TB drives and a 500GB boot SSD for under $1200. I could guide him to less cost easily, but that was with retail prices I see today. I calculated 4x4TB because if he's going to put in the effort, he might as well max out the drive bays. TrueNAS and its ZFS file system doesn't really allow for easy expansion once a pool is created so it is better to max out the drives. That extra space could be used for photo storage, system backups, etc.

I'm not sure what he has for a PC right now, but if he needed to add an internal or external drive for the initial ripping, that is at most another $200 for an 8TB external. If he needed an external DVD/CD drive for ripping, that is less than $100 for a good Vantec NexStar case and a solid 5.25" drive (which I would recommend over a slim drive).

That is less than $1500 for everything which I am sure, pales in comparison to the combined cost of media and hardware that Tom has invested in. That could be substantially reduced by using a smaller disc array, used hardware, etc.

The real cost is time for ripping, but once you setup dBpoweramp, a dozen CDs in an hour is really easy to accomplish if you keep up with swapping out discs. It can run in the background while you are reading news or typing forum posts, or whatever you do on your computer.

Eventually, it becomes a source of pride. You have a personal, curated digital music library that can be enjoyed for years. Streaming services have come and gone. They sometimes loose artists due to contract issues. That will never happen with your personal library.

I haven't had a chance yet to compare songs that I host on my server with the same music on Qobuz, but I started a 1-month trial yesterday, so I will definitely have something to report before the end of the weekend. It may turn out that Qobuz sounds every bit as good as my local server files, but I cannot fathom any way they will sound better than my rips. If they do, I will be shocked and come back with some humble pie.

billbillw

billbillw wrote: »

For reference, 4TB WD Red drives are currently about $65 at Microcenter (coming soon to Charlotte)
https://www.microcenter.com/product/672225/wd-red-plus-4tb-5400-rpm-sata-iii-6gb-s-35-internal-nas-cmr-hard-drive

Dang, that must have been a big sale yesterday because now they are showing $91 each...
I guess its that time of year for big sales.

Emlyn

Not that many years ago when I got nine 8TB drives for a NAS system the price was around $220 a pop if I remember right. Well worth it though considering I use my NAS for a lot of music and movie content.

Prices are way down and storage is way up!

billbillw

msg wrote: »

RAID is not a substitute for backup.

Absolutely true. For Tom's or anyone's purpose for a Home media server, I would recommend a ZFS pool over RAID any day. The only limitation ZFS has is that you can't expand the pool once you create it. However, that is outweighed by the industry's best data protection polices. ZFS monitors for bit rot and corrects it. RAID does not. ZFS does not require any specific hardware controllers either, whereas proper (not software) RAID does. I could go on an on, but for a media collection, you definitely want to have it stored in a least two locations that are independent of each other. Some would say 3 (including 1 offsite), but that might be extreme for most of us.

billbillw

Emlyn wrote: »

Not that many years ago when I got nine 8TB drives for a NAS system the price was around $220 a pop if I remember right. Well worth it though considering I use my NAS for a lot of music and movie content.

Prices are way down and storage is way up!

I still don't trust discs beyond 8TB and I absolutely won't use an SMR disc. Seems like the larger discs are showing higher failure rates. 4, 6 and 8 are the sweet spots right now.
If Tom had any inkling of storing movies, I would recommend larger drives, but even after all this time my entire digital music collection of FLAC, DSD, and 40,000+ MP3s has barely reached 700GB.

ChrisD06

msg wrote: »

RAID is not a substitute for backup.

I semi-disagree, it's very hard to back up terabytes of data, and very expensive. Maybe not a complete substitute but if you're not storing critical data then you can get away with using RAID with high redundancy.

For instance: I have 4TB of music alone. Backing up ALL of my media would require multiple very expensive hard drives and it would take such a long time.

In a large server, backups are needed, but for a media server, it's extra money for something the computer solves for you. RAID 1 with 4 drives would provide 4 drives storing the same info, meaning you could lose 3 of them and still have all of your data.

If you want to keep the media and not worry about redownloading it, then make a backup, just prepare to buy some 20TB+ drives and wait a while for the backup to complete, and ensure no power loss during this time.

ChrisD06

billbillw wrote: »

Emlyn wrote: »

Not that many years ago when I got nine 8TB drives for a NAS system the price was around $220 a pop if I remember right. Well worth it though considering I use my NAS for a lot of music and movie content.

Prices are way down and storage is way up!

I still don't trust discs beyond 8TB and I absolutely won't use an SMR disc. Seems like the larger discs are showing higher failure rates. 4, 6 and 8 are the sweet spots right now.
If Tom had any inkling of storing movies, I would recommend larger drives, but even after all this time my entire digital music collection of FLAC, DSD, and 40,000+ MP3s has barely reached 700GB.

I got a free 20TB Seagate drive and it's been running for 3 years now, no errors. I was very skeptical but I think they've matured over what they were. Failure rates are higher which isn't a surprise but it's much better than what it was.

Also ZFS is more redundant, yes, but since you can't expand it then you'll run into to some issues once you run out of storage. Or, you might have too much storage and never use it, and you've spent too much money.

RAID is also easier to set up for a beginner.

treitz3

Gentlemen, can we please stick to the thread topic and not go off on tangents that I wouldnt be interested in? There is already enough information to absorb/read through without going into areas that are not applicable.

If you want to discuss this, please move it to another thread, so that this one can stay focused.

Tom

Emlyn

Music isn't really all that space intensive. For example, I have 40K plus tracks in a minimum of WAV format that takes up just 1.9TB as my archive source. Storage is cheap. I keep a couple backup copies of the archive even though I run a RAID system that's worked in great health for several years.

The same tracks in FLAC format are under 1TB. That'll fit on a thumb drive these days for under $20. Not that I'd recommend doing archive backups on the cheap sticks though.

ChrisD06

Emlyn wrote: »

Music isn't really all that space intensive. For example, I have 40K plus tracks in a minimum of WAV format that takes up just 1.9TB as my archive source. Storage is cheap. I keep a couple backup copies of the archive even though I run a RAID system that's worked in great health for several years.

The same tracks in FLAC format are under 1TB. That'll fit on a thumb drive these days for under $20. Not that I'd recommend doing archive backups on the cheap sticks though.

I have no idea how I've managed to rack up so much usage then. I've every single artist that appears in my 'liked songs' list on Spotify's discography, in FLAC 24-bit/96KHz. Plus, all of my CD and DVD-A rips.

I suppose I'm thinking about this from a general media center perspective (which is not what Tom wants) in which case a backup would require tons of space, for a music only server an 8TB drive is less than $200, so that's my bad there.

billbillw

ChrisD06 wrote: »

I got a free 20TB Seagate drive and it's been running for 3 years now, no errors. I was very skeptical but I think they've matured over what they were. Failure rates are higher which isn't a surprise but it's much better than what it was.

Also ZFS is more redundant, yes, but since you can't expand it then you'll run into to some issues once you run out of storage. Or, you might have too much storage and never use it, and you've spent too much money.

RAID is also easier to set up for a beginner.

ChrisD06 wrote: »

msg wrote: »

RAID is not a substitute for backup.

I semi-disagree, it's very hard to back up terabytes of data, and very expensive. Maybe not a complete substitute but if you're not storing critical data then you can get away with using RAID with high redundancy.

For instance: I have 4TB of music alone. Backing up ALL of my media would require multiple very expensive hard drives and it would take such a long time.

In a large server, backups are needed, but for a media server, it's extra money for something the computer solves for you. RAID 1 with 4 drives would provide 4 drives storing the same info, meaning you could lose 3 of them and still have all of your data.

If you want to keep the media and not worry about redownloading it, then make a backup, just prepare to buy some 20TB+ drives and wait a while for the backup to complete, and ensure no power loss during this time.

Sorry, but there are some IT professionals here that will say you don't know what the eFF you are talking about. You clearly haven't experienced a RAID failure. RAID was designed to keep a server running in the event of a disc failure, but never as a means of backup. Statements like this will get you put on the bozo list around here...which I suspect many have already done.

billbillw

treitz3 wrote: »

Gentlemen, can we please stick to the thread topic and not go off on tangents that I wouldnt be interested in? There is already enough information to absorb/read through without going into areas that are not applicable.

If you want to discuss this, please move it to another thread, so that this one can stay focused.

Tom

Agreed. I touched on it earlier, but what is your current PC setup like? Do you have a PC that can fit an extra storage drive or just a laptop?

Also, these tangential topics are not as off topic as you might think. If you go down this road, drive size, reliability, and backups will become important. You will have to become a bit more of a computer geek to pull it off. If that's not up your alley, then maybe you should scrap the idea. I don't think you should, but its not for everyone.

ChrisD06

billbillw wrote: »

ChrisD06 wrote: »

I got a free 20TB Seagate drive and it's been running for 3 years now, no errors. I was very skeptical but I think they've matured over what they were. Failure rates are higher which isn't a surprise but it's much better than what it was.

Also ZFS is more redundant, yes, but since you can't expand it then you'll run into to some issues once you run out of storage. Or, you might have too much storage and never use it, and you've spent too much money.

RAID is also easier to set up for a beginner.

ChrisD06 wrote: »

msg wrote: »

RAID is not a substitute for backup.

I semi-disagree, it's very hard to back up terabytes of data, and very expensive. Maybe not a complete substitute but if you're not storing critical data then you can get away with using RAID with high redundancy.

For instance: I have 4TB of music alone. Backing up ALL of my media would require multiple very expensive hard drives and it would take such a long time.

In a large server, backups are needed, but for a media server, it's extra money for something the computer solves for you. RAID 1 with 4 drives would provide 4 drives storing the same info, meaning you could lose 3 of them and still have all of your data.

If you want to keep the media and not worry about redownloading it, then make a backup, just prepare to buy some 20TB+ drives and wait a while for the backup to complete, and ensure no power loss during this time.

Sorry, but there are some IT professionals here that will say you don't know what the eFF you are talking about. You clearly haven't experienced a RAID failure. RAID was designed to keep a server running in the event of a disc failure, but never as a means of backup. Statements like this will get you put on the bozo list around here...which I suspect many have already done.

It's not a means of backup, it's a means of redundancy, and for my rips and downloaded stuff, I won't spend hundreds of dollars on drives for backups when I can just re-download or rip them again, and I advise against it unless you have a very high budget. I don't think a true professional IT guy would tell a complete newbie to have 2 or 3 backups of his music which he has physical source material of, use ZFS pools, and use Linux/TrueNAS. It's expensive and it's complicated compared to the alternative.

And yes, RAID was designed to keep a server redundant, that is infact correct. RAID literally stands for "redundant array of independent disks", because it's redundant. It's cheaper to use RAID1 than it is to make 2 or 3 backups. Heck, you'll have to monitor your backups anyways to keep them up to date and make sure the drives are healthy. In RAID you swap the disk that's in poor health and rebuild the array. It's not that complicated for a RAID1 array, and I have done it because I was, at one point, using some shucked drives from old PVRs (because I was cheap). One of them failed. Good thing I have RAID1.

pitdogg2

Pretty sure Bill knew what Raid stood for....🤦🏻‍♂️

billbillw

ChrisD06 wrote: »

It's not a means of backup, it's a means of redundancy, and for my rips and downloaded stuff, I won't spend hundreds of dollars on drives for backups when I can just re-download or rip them again, and I advise against it unless you have a very high budget. I don't think a true professional IT guy would tell a complete newbie to have 2 or 3 backups of his music which he has physical source material of, use ZFS pools, and use Linux/TrueNAS. It's expensive and it's complicated compared to the alternative.

And yes, RAID was designed to keep a server redundant, that is infact correct. RAID literally stands for "redundant array of independent disks", because it's redundant. It's cheaper to use RAID1 than it is to make 2 or 3 backups. Heck, you'll have to monitor your backups anyways to keep them up to date and make sure the drives are healthy. In RAID you swap the disk that's in poor health and rebuild the array. It's not that complicated for a RAID1 array, and I have done it because I was, at one point, using some shucked drives from old PVRs (because I was cheap). One of them failed. Good thing I have RAID1.

Considering that EVERYONE here has pointed out that TIME is the constraining cost here for creating a large library, it is absolutely recommended to keep at least two copies of the digital library. That doesn't have to be a backup server. Two copies of a library is very simple, not expensive, and it shouldn't be time consuming if you do it right from the start. Rip or download to one large drive on a PC/Laptop/External, and sync to the server every time you rip or download new media. That is an easy task to complete with FreeFileSync. If one side goes bad, it can restore the other side.

Nobody wants to re-rip 1000 CDs. At an average of 5 minutes per rip, that's at least 85hrs of time to recreate the library. Time is money for most people. Do the work once. Never do it again.

ChrisD06

billbillw wrote: »

it is absolutely recommended to keep at least two copies of the digital library. That doesn't have to be a backup server. Two copies of a library is very simple, not expensive, and it shouldn't be time consuming if you do it right from the start. Rip or download to one large drive on a PC/Laptop/External, and sync to the server every time you rip or download new media. That is an easy task to complete with FreeFileSync. If one side goes bad, it can restore the other side.

This is precisely what RAID is except without being confined to the server. It also adds needless complexity.

msg

treitz3 wrote: »

Gentlemen, can we please stick to the thread topic and not go off on tangents that I wouldnt be interested in? There is already enough information to absorb/read through without going into areas that are not applicable.

If you want to discuss this, please move it to another thread, so that this one can stay focused.

Tom

The storage piece of what you're looking to do is a primary consideration, Tom. Unless you buy a turn-key solution for $27k (Har), you'll want to know what you've got going on at the storage level. The choices you make here determine life, reliability, and loss protection before you even get to audio quality refinements.

You can go simple, or you can get as advanced as you want. There are so many ways to go about it.

No right or wrong, just depends what your priorities are, but you're talking about a data system of some sort, either storage only, or a computing system running an OS, storage, and a streaming service platform.

I get that your main focus is audio refinement. Some of those goals may overlap with general server, storage and networking best practices, others may not. One thing you absolutely should consider though, is your tolerance for data loss. It can occur in any number of ways - it happens to the best of us, and you hope it happens to the cockiest of us - from file corruption to accidental deletion, for example. Without backup, you'll be abandoning the system or re-ripping everything. (RAID doesn't save you here.) and for God's sake don't ever get rid of your media.

This is one of the reasons it may not be worth it to you. I've done a version of it on a system that runs both LMS and Plex.
It works nicely, and I use it for the audio sometimes, mostly with LMS and the SBT swarm. Outside of my rare and unavailable albums, I just stream because it's a better fit for my listening in general.

It can be expensive, even before you get to the kinds of refinements you'll be looking at, but there are a few ways to mitigate. For example, maybe you just have a single large disk or array of solid state storage, say because you don't want spinning discs because you've read it can impart noise or something. So you could just back that up one time, and every time you update it. There's software to automate this safely. I've used the one @billbillw uses; it's good.

You can probably estimate the size of your library to get an idea of how much storage you'll need before you even begin.

Decide on a file format and sample rate/bit depth, and multiply by average length of a disc and number of discs. Decide whether you'll want to grow your library.

Again, before you do anything else, I'd say buy a quality USB thumb drive, rip a few discs, and plug it into your streamer's USB port if it has one. I'm presuming this would be one of the "quietest" source attachments you could have.

Feeling overwhelmed? You should be for what your goal is! 🤣🤣😈😎

Start small. Don't spend any big money yet.

ChrisD06

Might I add that you don't need to worry about mechanical disks introducing noise. Because the server isn't doing any analog conversion, rather storing digital files and sending the data to devices, it remains digital and the noise from mechanical drive isn't a concern.

You also don't need to worry about a DAC in your server because nothing is being converted to analog. You DO want to worry about your networking though. I'd wire it directly to your router using a Cat6 STP cable (Shielded Twisted Pair. Minimizes electrical interference)

msg

I won't speak to any of that because I don't have any experience with it, and don't know for sure. Neither do you. That site that @DarqueKnight linked seems to be for those looking to squeeze the absolute best quality out of their audio, and I'm a bit curious to read up a bit. Though, I think maybe I should just keep taking the blue pill.

I'm saying that my flac rips don't noticeably outshine Spotify 320k mp3 while others greatly enjoy flac? I've got pretty decent gear throughout, multibit DACs, direct connectivity in some cases, but somewhere in the process, from rip to speakers, something's likely not optimal. Probably a bunch of somethings.

That's what this thread is about.

I think I might take my own advice and see if there's any improvement with direct, solid state storage at the player.

Everything matters.

GlennDog

Tom, one thing's fo sho . . . @billbillw is your touchstone

treitz3

He sure does know quite a bit on the subject, fo'sho'!

So, I was able to locate what inputs the Lumin has. Not sure if I can use more than one input but I am fairly positive I would be able too. Would probably be switchable from the Lumin app, in settings.

USB storage, flash drive, USB hard disk (Single-partition FAT32, exFAT and NTFS only)

I do have some high-rez files I bought years ago (3 albums) but have not heard them because I never figured out how to go from the laptop to the streamers. I believe I could figure that out now (in theory).

I have a HP Spectre x360 2 in 1 laptop that runs on Windows 11. The desktop I have has a CD-rewrite that I have used (rather, my son has used) a couple of times. I would either need a stand alone unit to play the CD's to the laptop or use my old computer to rip them in my son's room (I gave it to him).

There's many questions asked of me on this thread and hopefully, this answers at least some of them.

Tom

billbillw

Scott is probably right. Start small with the USB thumb drive. If you like that, maybe spend a little for a portable SSD, which would be more reliable than a thumb drive.

Maybe take inventory of how many special releases you have on CD. If you can only come up with 100 or so special ones, then a server probably isn't the best bet.

Your HP laptop should have plenty of processor, but depending how many albums you rip, you might need a big external spinning drive. Not sure how old your sons PC is, but anything built in the last 10 years should be fine.

Emlyn

Merging the benefits of Qobuz with the benefits of local storage makes a lot of sense to me. Top quality 2TB portable external SSDs with high transfer speeds are available for around $120 or less these days. That's a huge amount of local storage for music purposes. If someone wants to they could even purchase and download some high-resolution albums from Qobuz itself and store them locally for use anywhere.

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-Portable-Photographers-MU-PE2T0K-AM-dp-B09VLHR4JC/dp/B09VLHP827/ref=dp_ob_title_ce?th=1

jbreezy5

erniejade wrote: »

Late to this one. Since 2011, i have gone though Jriver on a laptop usb to a dac, minimserver on a nas to a streamer to the dac, ripped cd's to wave with dbpoweramp, had an external drive hooked to a streamer and I could hear the difference between flac and wave.
I have found my Innuos zen mk3 internal drive for my ripped music to be the better sounding.
I also found when I had an Auralic mini with an internal drive as a streamer to be better sounding for my ripped music vs the NAS, thumb drive, external drive via usb, external drive with a jitterbug usb.

I have not tired roon. I guess that would be my next step?

In any case, for my ripped wave files, I have found the internal drive on my Innuos to sound better then anything housed external. Not sure if its because its less cables, not going though wires, better power supply or what but, to my ears, it just sounds better. Also i can use the Innuos to stream to other devices on the network.

I still back it all up to my nas.

I’ve been looking at Aurender streamer/servers, and a review I read said they run Linux which they claimed as an OS it is more stripped down compared to windows/mac. They reported similar to your findings of internal server sounding better than other methods of playback.

Haven’t experienced this myself (yet), so can’t opine.

jbreezy5

billbillw wrote: »

Emlyn wrote: »

As with analog audio the shortest signal path is best. For that purpose music streamed directly from a high quality audio device as a local player with a solid state drive might be the best option. DSD files and other high resolution files are supported this way with no loss of fidelity other than what the player's output devices are up to.

I missed this comment last night. I am going to have to strongly disagree with that statement. Digital files are digital files until they are read by the Streamer and sent to the DAC. It is not comparable to analog audio. It doesn't matter if the digital file saved on the streaming device or it is coming from 1000s of miles away on the internet. As long as the file is not corrupted, the sound should be identical. This is of course assuming a healthy network and no bottlenecks from the Server to the Streamer. In my experience, any properly configured home network with a GigE backbone and a strong AC wireless (or better) will provide plenty of bandwidth for any audio stream, even DSD.

Be careful, the 1s and 0s are 1s and 0s crowd are harshly rebuked on this site. Adding “1000s of miles” to the equation could be a death sentence.

treitz3

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/ENVPMCA10/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=shoppingengine&utm_campaign=googlebase&utm_term=&utm_campaign=PMax: External drives (smart shopping) US&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&hsa_acc=9360794409&hsa_cam=17553315506&hsa_grp=&hsa_ad=&hsa_src=x&hsa_tgt=&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1

Would this be good to test with? I know it's a little more than some might want to spend for "just a test" but if it doesn't work out for this? I could use it elsewhere, especially when on vacation. What are your thoughts?

Tom