About 30 years ago I created a Monster

sucks2beme

blakeh wrote: »

This is so true! I set the SqueezeBox to 'random' last night and listened for about two hours. Three songs played that I'd never heard before (or at least don't remember hearing) that I really ended up enjoying and quickly added to my 'favorites' list.

I still really like the tactile qualities of a CD -- the cover art, the liner notes, etc. But it's hard to beat having all your music instantly available in one place.

There's an Imerge music server that was traded in at a local dealer.
It has been calling to me! This server downloads cover and track info
from the internet. It can display from a tv or a monitor. Or be controlled from a webpage.
It doesn't have the raw storage you have. But it's supposed
to have a very good output sound. Also, it's easily backed up and restored.
Please keep us posted on quality of sound Vs. cdp.

AndyGwis

Wonder where you found that Imerge server, Keith :rolleyes:

thejck

blakeh,
i am guessing your H9's brother? pleasure meeting you. My name is Alan i go by Jack and we should talk computer sometime.

I plan on setting up something similar to you but I am not using a squeezebox as I dont have the heart to ask my wife for more money. I am just going to use a really quite pc (god knows i have plenty lying around) with a chaintech doing digital out to a external DAC (thinking about a number cruncher) using kernel streaming and foobar. i read somewhere that you can set up foobar with a small webserver and then connect to it using a laptop (using wireless) to control it..

bikerboy

That is an amazing server. A friend just set up a server but nothing like this for capacity. Looks like he knows what he is doing. I hope someday I can get a server setup using a squeezebox and my pc. Not having to find a cd to listen to a certain sound would be nice.

blakeh

sucks2beme wrote: »

Please keep us posted on quality of sound Vs. cdp.

My ears can't tell the difference, but after reading thousands of messages about audio, I'm quite sure that sound quality is just about the most hotly contested topic planet earth has ever known!

I do take care to rip each disc with EAC so there are no errors. I also use an external DAC for conversion because I find the SqueezeBox's DAC to be very harsh (I can tell a difference between the Monarchy DAC and the internal Wolfson DAC chip). I have a number of HDCDs in my collection (around 100 or so) and I can always tell that EAC has done it's job because when I output a .FLAC file that was ripped from an HDCD to my ADCOM GDA-700 DAC, the HDCD light always comes on which means that the rip was bit-perfect.

I think the music coming from the SqueezeBox is every "bit" as good as when I listen to it from CD. I'm very anal about sound quality and id I didn't think I could get the exact same quality of music out of the SB as I did my CDs, I never would've spent the 18+ months it took me to rip all the discs.

P.S. The music server is still working out wonderfully. I've ripped 4,886 albums (42,903 songs) into lossless FLAC format and they currently take up about 1.25 terabytes of space (which leaves me about 580GB free -- enough for another 1,900 or so discs).

hearingimpared

Um how does it sound?

treitz3

heiney9 wrote: »

I take a little pride in knowing he's following in my foot steps when it comes to music appreciation and audio appreciation

As well you should!:)

[sorry, I'm a little johnny come lately to this thread]

thejck

why did u choose to go with a windows OS.
you could have used a Unix/Linus OS with a samba file server. a lot more reliable and less bloated.

MrNightly

Ok... assuming you could get each CD new at $14.99...

We are looking at almost $67,500 worth of music. That's insane. No really... that is insane...

blakeh

MrNightly wrote: »

Ok... assuming you could get each CD new at $14.99...

The Chicago area used to have the best record/CD shows (the Hillside Holilday Inn, every first Saturday of the month). They had a lot of bargains and special deals. You could buy UK CD singles for $5 each and full length albums anywhere from $2-$8. I could come home with 40 CDs for less than $200.

Unfortunately, those days are gone. The music show is completely different now -- very few vendors anymore. But back in the day, it was a collector's paradise!

A55HAT

heiney9 wrote: »

About 30 years ago I created a Monster -H9

I'm not sure of the some of the way it worx, but if you were there in the creation process, he might not actually be your brother/ but i'm wrong alot/

:eek:

treitz3

You do realize that this is an audio site, right? Feel free to talk about anything concerning audio or leave. From what you've posted so far, I would be surprised if you could do either.

gdpeck

blakeh wrote: »

...
P.S. The music server is still working out wonderfully. I've ripped 4,886 albums (42,903 songs) into lossless FLAC format and they currently take up about 1.25 terabytes of space (which leaves me about 580GB free -- enough for another 1,900 or so discs).

Your music server is so cool I can't believe it. I have a couple of SB3s, but have just been ripping my CDs to FLAC on a 500GB SATA disk in an old Dell desktop. I've been wanting to build a music server for a while, but yours is just so over the top I can't even comprehend it. I loved the screenshots showing your available disk space as well. Nicely done.

dkg999

"I'm not sure of the some of the way it worx, but if you were there in the creation process, he might not actually be your brother/ but i'm wrong alot/"


Welcome to MOX part 2

hearingimpared

A55hat, seems to be a good name!


Blake or H9,

I still have to ask, maybe if I write louder . . . HOW DOES IT SOUND?

SKsolutions

Is that Vista you have running, and do you find any benefit other than the indexing/search functionality?

Also, are you getting clean sound out of that card? I realize it's essentially an I/O device and no on-card functions are performed, but I've seen specs on even the best cards and I get all askeered of using a PC based server.

Also, Also, Also (feel like I should be raising my hand) . are you streaming. . ?

blakeh

hearingimpared wrote: »

I still have to ask, maybe if I write louder . . . HOW DOES IT SOUND?

Sorry, I thought I'd covered how it sounded in my post earlier in the thread, but let me elaborate.

There are only two real systems in my house that I listen to critically; my main system in the living room and the computer system in my office. Let me cover the main system first...

I am extremely happy with how the FLAC files sound streamed through the SqueezeBox 3. In the case of most discs, I cannot tell the difference between the sound my Denon CD transport outputs and the sound that's coming through via the SB3. I think this is due to a few reasons:

1. I rip all my music using EAC which provides excellent error control.

2. I don't use the SB3's internal DAC (which, personally, I think sounds sub-par, but then again I've been listening to music through outboard DACs for years now and I find most players that have DAC chips built-in pale in comparison. Just my opinion).

Recently I had my girlfriend help me with a blind A/B test between the SB3 and my Denon CDP (which is also run through the same external DAC the SB3 is plugged into). I had her play 30 seconds of 20 different songs that I was very familiar with on both devices. I tried to differentiate between the CDP and the SB3. I only guessed 9 songs correctly. They sound very similar.

The second system I spend quite a bit of time listening to is my office system. H9 can tell you that it is not setup for optimal listening (I sit about 18" from the LSi9s). Not great for an accurate soundstage, but still quite enjoyable to listen to while I'm computing.

This system has no SqueezeBox device -- the digital signal is output through a toslink connection to an outboard DAC via a Prodigy 7.1 soundcard. I'm not sure how fair it is to rate this system because the speakers are in such a poor location, but I have to say, I rather enjoy the sound quality of the FLAC files.

Hope this answers the "how does it sound" question!

blakeh

SKsolutions wrote: »

Is that Vista you have running

It's actually Windows 2003 Server running on that machine.

SKsolutions wrote: »

and do you find any benefit other than the indexing/search functionality?

I do IT for a living (as I'm sure a few other people here on the forum do) and I haven't yet found a great use for Vista. IMHO it's bloated and adds very little functionality that I would use. It may get better (or I may become more used to it) but right now I'm not running Vista anywhere.

SKsolutions wrote: »

Also, are you getting clean sound out of that card?

Well, it depends on what you mean by "that card". The music server doesn't have an audio card. It strictly streams via TCP/IP to the wireless router which, in turn, streams to the wireless SB3.

My office system has a Prodigy 7.1 card that is connected to and Adcom GDA-700 DAC, and I'm very happy with the sound coming out of that card. As you said, the signal skips Windows kmixer and is essentially output without any modification to the external DAC. I suppose an argument could be made that a slightly higher amount of jitter is added to the signal because of the fact that the audio card is an electronic device in a case that likely has a lot of "noise", but I find it more than acceptable.

blakeh

gdpeck wrote: »

Your music server is so cool I can't believe it.

It was a fun project, that's for sure!

gdpeck wrote: »

I've been wanting to build a music server for a while

I'm not sure if I had to do it all again if I'd build another server. I think I may be tempted to look at some sort of NAS device. The only criteria I had is that I didn't want the tracks to be stored on my main PC because I didn't want to keep it on all the time. That's why I built the server. But these days, a NAS device would meet my criteria.

gdpeck wrote: »

but yours is just so over the top I can't even comprehend it.

I am genuinely flattered you think so, but by today's storage standards, it's a bit on the small side. Hell, you can buy a 1TB external drive now for under $400!

hearingimpared

Yep thanks for a well thought out and detailed explaination.:) I'm surprised that is doesn't sound compressed.

SKsolutions

Either of those set-ups would be viable for me, and I think you've done a good job of explaining it further. I've had some misgivings about setting up a PC based system, but it seems that what I thought of as limitations, are no longer an issue with the right config. Just the bits and nothing but the bits. . cool.

Ditto on Vista. It's getting written to zero on this laptop as soon as I can find my XP pro. What a testy little pig it is.

gdpeck

blakeh wrote: »

I'm not sure if I had to do it all again if I'd build another server. I think I may be tempted to look at some sort of NAS device. The only criteria I had is that I didn't want the tracks to be stored on my main PC because I didn't want to keep it on all the time. That's why I built the server. But these days, a NAS device would meet my criteria.

I've thought about that too, but it seems like it would be nice to have some computing power in case you decide to do other things with it, like stream video or something. I've read a lot about this on the Slim Devices forum, and it seems like the limited processing capacity on most of the available NAS devices is a tough load even for slimserver. There really wouldn't be much ability to add other functionality. The Thecus devices look pretty cool though.

heiney9

hearingimpared wrote: »

Yep thanks for a well thought out and detailed explaination.:) I'm surprised that is doesn't sound compressed.

Joe, why would it sound compressed? Using EAC gets a bit perfect rip and then using FLAC as a lossless medium giver one 100% of the original. Or are you thinking about the fact that it's wireless and perhaps the delivery compresses the signal. It sounds excellent and I have been toying with the idea of getting a dedicated server. The convenience factor is off the scales for a large cd collection.

The audio purist in me is resisting but I can't hear any loss of anything when I listen to blakeh's system. And I'm pretty damn critical.

As always YMMV

H9

sucks2beme

Seems you've got it covered pretty well. With that sheer volume of media,
it was the only way to go. How many times did you end up buying the same disk twice?
The use of a dac with this setup seems to be key. I also have a lot of
pc power just taking up space. Nowhere the number of cds, though!