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Author Topic: Dedicated Audio PC and Music Server Chat  (Read 4964 times)

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Questhate

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Re: Dedicated Audio PC and Music Server Chat
« Reply #10 on: January 16, 2014, 02:06:42 AM »

A separate issue is how you store your files now. I'd really recommend getting a NAS for convenience and redundancy. I've had a drive fail in college and had to re-rip a couple of TB's worth of music and shit was NOT fun. Once you get a network storage drive in place, you don't have to worry about physically moving files -- just rip on your computer and transfer them over. Then, you can also do cool stuff like install Plex server.
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DaveBSC

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Re: Dedicated Audio PC and Music Server Chat
« Reply #11 on: January 16, 2014, 02:12:00 AM »

MPD is basically transparent, it's not really something you have to interface with like iTunes or JRiver. I use MPDroid on my phone, it's about as easy as you could possibly want. Pick an artist or album or song, start playing or create a playlist.

If your music is still mostly on CDs, rip them all to your PC, copy them all at once to a USB hard drive, and then plug that in to your server. If you just want to be able to add albums as you go, that's an area where VortexBox has an advantage over the Auraliti box. You can use an internal hdd, which is always accessible on the network. You just copy the new album over to the "music" folder, and as long as its tagged correctly, you're good to go. 


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Stapsy

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Re: Dedicated Audio PC and Music Server Chat
« Reply #12 on: January 16, 2014, 03:03:30 AM »

Thanks for the screenshot Dave.  I was diddling around trying to find something like that but I see technical information and my brain gets easily distracted.

Like QH suggested a NAS should be my first priority.  I am almost finished ripping all my cd's for the second time after my laptop crashed this summer.  I am periodically backing them up, but NAS is a much better solution.  Part of my problem is that my music collection is growing so rapidly that making the time to backup every single rip is getting annoying when all I want to do is listen to my new music.  I think I would be better off separating my mobile needs from interfering with my home set up.  I am just trying to think ahead about how I will integrate everything together.
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LFF

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Re: Dedicated Audio PC and Music Server Chat
« Reply #13 on: January 16, 2014, 03:30:20 AM »

I am just trying to think ahead about how I will integrate everything together.

You and I both!

I also want a central music server for home.
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Questhate

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Re: Dedicated Audio PC and Music Server Chat
« Reply #14 on: January 16, 2014, 05:20:34 AM »

Thanks for the screenshot Dave.  I was diddling around trying to find something like that but I see technical information and my brain gets easily distracted.

Like QH suggested a NAS should be my first priority.  I am almost finished ripping all my cd's for the second time after my laptop crashed this summer.  I am periodically backing them up, but NAS is a much better solution.  Part of my problem is that my music collection is growing so rapidly that making the time to backup every single rip is getting annoying when all I want to do is listen to my new music.  I think I would be better off separating my mobile needs from interfering with my home set up.  I am just trying to think ahead about how I will integrate everything together.

FWIW, RaspyFi/Volumio uses MPD protocol as well. I use that exact app (MPDroid) to navigate my collection of music. Best part of something like RaspyFi or the Auriliti is that it's headless and can be controlled with any phone/tablet/computer on the network. When I was running my music through a laptop using JRiver, i sometimes didn't want to bother with booting up windows, waiting for jriver to load my library, or waiting for windows to finish installing updates and rebooting, etc.

But yeah, I don't know of anyone who regretted spending the effort/money to get a NAS set up. Once that's good to go, the playback part is easy whether you decide to just plug in your laptop, build a dedicated HTPC or a headless option. For me, it's been sorta life changing because I could finally ditch having a desktop PC, centralized my entire music and movie collection, have a repository for me and my girlfriend to dump all of our pictures from trips/outings, can backup all of my important documents.

You can do a DIY NAS using old computer parts that you can expand with something like unRAID or FreeNAS, or the dozens of off the shelf options. I did an unRAID pro and ended up spending about 175 + 75 for license + hard drives. Can expand up to 24 drives so it'll be a long while before you fill all of that up.
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DaveBSC

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Re: Dedicated Audio PC and Music Server Chat
« Reply #15 on: January 16, 2014, 02:33:08 PM »

As far as off the shelf solutions go, I highly recommend Synology. You can get a two-bay NAS from them for as little as $200, and you get the same superb Diskstation Manager OS as the top end models.
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Kirosia

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Re: Dedicated Audio PC and Music Server Chat
« Reply #16 on: January 16, 2014, 04:09:17 PM »

As far as off the shelf solutions go, I highly recommend Synology. You can get a two-bay NAS from them for as little as $200, and you get the same superb Diskstation Manager OS as the top end models.

The Synology DS212J goes on sale every few months, for as low as $150. I see it pop up regularly on Slickdeals. Not sure if the specific model is actually good though, tried to get a friend to buy one for his parents to stream video.
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Stapsy

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Re: Dedicated Audio PC and Music Server Chat
« Reply #17 on: January 16, 2014, 05:05:22 PM »

Ok explain this to me like I am an Apple user, do you use the NAS as a backup system or to feed directly to the server. I think ideally I would like to have the NAS set up as a backup serer and then be able to sync multiple computers to the NAS. So I rip from one CPU and then have it available on other CPUs in my network by transferring from the NAS to the CPU hard drives. I hope that makes sense.

Also I found a couple of remote applications for IPhone that will allow me to control Jriver from my phone, so that will likely be a cheap and easy solution to my mobile music set up. I am going to download that and see if I can get it to work by turning my phone into a wifi hotspot and then connecting my laptop. Being anle to stop/start/select music without actually having to use the laptop would be pretty much ideal for my "mobile" purposes
« Last Edit: January 16, 2014, 05:59:28 PM by Stapsy »
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DaveBSC

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Re: Dedicated Audio PC and Music Server Chat
« Reply #18 on: January 16, 2014, 06:01:37 PM »

Ok explain this to me l

ike I am an Apple user, do you use the NAS as a backup system or to feed directly to the server.

You can do either. The Auraliti I don't think will stream from a NAS, I think it has to be from a USB connected hdd. VortexBox requires internal storage. PCs or Macs running software like JRiver can sync to a NAS and stream directly from it, as can the many music streamers on the market. One of the most interesting of this latter category is Auralic's Lightning Aeris, which can stream from a NAS via either wireless AC or ethernet, and can then act as a host controller with an asynchronous output to a USB DAC. It will also have conventional digital outputs. The price is said to be $999, which is very reasonable for this sort of thing.

Everything will depend on the software, which they are developing from scratch. If it turns out to be garbage like PS Audio's eLyric then it's not worth paying that much attention to, but if they can actually get it working reasonably well, it could turn computer audio on its head, and potentially end the Mac/Win/Linux is better debate.
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Stapsy

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Re: Dedicated Audio PC and Music Server Chat
« Reply #19 on: January 17, 2014, 12:22:20 AM »

From the Auraliti site it looks like it will work with a NAS.  The linux/dac compatibility issue is still bugging me since I am not confident that I have the exact DAC I want to end up with and am going to wait for my EC amp before I make any more DAC plans.

I was looking around trying to find out more about CAPS and Vortexbox.  Found this site http://shop.smallgreencomputer.com/main.sc which sells pre-made versions.  Not sure if that would be worth it since I could probably figure out how to do it myself, though I haven't gone through the cost of all the parts.  With an internal HDD I might also be able to avoid the need for a NAS (and associated costs) as long as I could transfer from the HDD to my laptop.  Do both of these options run a music playback software internally like the Auraliti/Raspyfi or would this setup be more involved?

At this point I am thinking an NAS and Raspyfi setup might suit all of my convenience needs and allow me to get my feet wet without sinking too much money into it.  The Auraliti hits the right price point for me but I am not totally confident that it will be compatible for the foreseeable future.
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