Music storage thread

[wdfifteen]

Per Spidermike's suggestion,( "If you want to get into details, pm me with what stereo equipment you have and what your listening habits are (or start anew thread). ")

I have a MacBook Pro and external CD drive.

I listen mostly from my iPad to a wireless speaker.



Next most common use is from my iPad through my car speakers

I have an AV system that I use with my TV that I can Airplay content from my MacBook to, though I seldom bother.

What I would like to do is store and organize my music and play it back on demand without subjecting myself to the tyranny of iTunes.

[SpyderMike]

No problem.. I would suggest downloading Exact Audio Copy and ripping a disk in FLAC. Get the process down. How many CDs do you have?

Is your Macbook an Air model without integral CD Drive (is that the reason for external CD drive)?

Do you use an appleTV?

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by SpyderMike

Is your Macbook an Air model without integral CD Drive (is that the reason for external CD drive)?

It's not an Air, but it doesn't have a CD drive.

Originally Posted by SpyderMike

Do you use an appleTV?

Yes, a second generation ATV.

[djmcmath]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

What I would like to do is store and organize my music and play it back on demand without subjecting myself to the tyranny of iTunes.

+1. I use iTunes because it has a convenient and reliable interface for (a) controller my music playback remotely and (b) playing music to wireless remote speakers. I have AirPlay Express units in the garage, on the porch / fire pit, and in the living room wired through 20W car audio amplifiers with various low cost speakers.

I've tried a couple of other setups, but nothing I've tried has the convenience and consistency of iTunes. Unfortunately, that ties me in to iTunes for all of my music, which kind of sucks. I can't, say, play Pandora on the central machine and have it broadcast out to everything.

[SpyderMike]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

It's not an Air, but it doesn't have a CD drive.



Yes, a second generation ATV.

What brand/model of wireless router?

[SpyderMike]

Sorry - thinking PC...EAC doesn't support MAC. Apple has their own lossless compression. If you are just wanting to get out of iTunes, then disregard the conversion. Sorry. So all of your music is already in iTunes and all your CDs are in iTunes?

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by SpyderMike

Sorry - thinking PC...EAC doesn't support MAC. Apple has their own lossless compression. If you are just wanting to get out of iTunes, then disregard the conversion. Sorry. So all of your music is already in iTunes and all your CDs are in iTunes?

All of my music that is not still on CDs is in iTunes. As far as I know if you have Apple equipment (computer, iPhone, iPad) there is no alternative. An alternative is what I really need.

[scottmandue]

I gotta ask... with the talk of "loss less" burning how much fidelity do you lose by streaming over WIFI or Bluetooth?

[SpyderMike]

Okay, I am not an Apple guy - my wife is Apple and I am Linux and PC, but I have to tech support it, so bear with me. I just copied a song from my wife's iTunes on her MacBook Pro using Finder by going into her iTunes Music folder and just copying and pasting it. It was .mp3. I copied it over to my network external harddrive in a general folder - copied it though my network. I am streaming it now. I just went to the harddrive which is shared over my network and played it from my two different PCs in my house. No iTunes on either devices. I also located the file using finder on my wife's MacBook Pro and played it using here iTunes. Hers is set up to no suck any music it finds/plays into iTunes.

Essentially, once you get the music out of iTunes and onto a shared/public harddrive on your network you can access them and play them on any device or use a music server on that drive or network. AppleTv should be able to find it and play it too - without iTunes I would imagine as the AppleTV is design to stream most formats of audio/video and sources other than iTunes. I have a Roku and I can find this song and play it now.

There are several software music servers - I use Logitech Media Server (LMS), but there is Twonky, Plex and others (to name just a few). Most of them are free. Then you need an app - other than iTunes to be a player. For example, I have an old iPad 1 that was a gift that I use as a music controller. I have an app called Squeezepad that works with LMS and controls it or bluetooths music to a Fugoo wireless bluetooth speaker.

[SpyderMike]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

I gotta ask... with the talk of "loss less" burning how much fidelity do you lose by streaming over WIFI or Bluetooth?

To my understanding, WIFI and Bluetooth are data stream transmission pipelines - they don't know what is going through them, nor do they affect the end result. They are just pipelines for accurate data transmission. What is critical to fidelity is the encoding to digital on the front end and the decoder chip/circuit in the receiving device that changes it back from Digital to Analog - the DAC. Then, of course, there are the amp and speakers...

There has been a move toward greater digital sampling for higher fidelity in digitizing and streaming - HD Tracks, Tidal, the PONO player, etc.

So basically, my collection of 57,000 flac songs sounds as good as if I were playing CDs through an expensive CD player. It is just more easy and more convenient to make playlists, find songs, play albums, etc..

[SpyderMike]

At my BIL's house (he recently retired from the Hi Fi industry) he has a Linn setup. We took a music loaded external harddrive and attached it to his router (Asus). We put Twonky Server software on the harddrive. Now his wife (Apple MacBook and Iphone), his Ipad's (3 of them), the iPhones (a few of them) and his Hi Fi system (Linn using Kinsky an an iPad as controller) and his PCs (2 of them) access the music and everyone gets to hear what they want when they want. We set this up a few years ago and he listens just about daily with no issues.

[SpyderMike]

okay...a little bit more then I will back off and let others chime in. There are apps for Apple that allow you to find and stream music files on a network storage device without iTunes. You just have to search the app store.

As an aside, although I am not intimately familiar with Plex, it is a very powerful one. A few years ago I had a family friend demonstrate this by streaming 1080 video with 5.1 audio via wifi to his appletv at a friend's house. He controlled it with his iphone. The content being played was streaming from a server in his home about 800 miles away. At the time, that was voodoo magic.

[aschen]

Originally Posted by SpyderMike

To my understanding, WIFI and Bluetooth are data stream transmission pipelines - they don't know what is going through them, nor do they affect the end result. They are just pipelines for accurate data transmission. What is critical to fidelity is the encoding to digital on the front end and the decoder chip/circuit in the receiving device that changes it back from Digital to Analog - the DAC. Then, of course, there are the amp and speakers...

There has been a move toward greater digital sampling for higher fidelity in digitizing and streaming - HD Tracks, Tidal, the PONO player, etc.

So basically, my collection of 57,000 flac songs sounds as good as if I were playing CDs through an expensive CD player. It is just more easy and more convenient to make playlists, find songs, play albums, etc..

Im not an expert on this, but my understanding is blue tooth cannot suport a high enough bit rate to send loss less files, blue tooth audio is necessarily compromised from cd quality at least

I think Wifi can support very high quality audio but you need to be sure some mass market systems probably arnt built to do this.



Should my wireless audio system use Bluetooth or WiFi? | Wren Sound Systems, LLC Wren Sound Systems, LLC



some mfgs have their own protocol for this sort of stuff. Dynaudio for example has an rf system that does better than cd quality streaming. These systems accept bluetooth as well but the quality will be reduced. I cant find a spec however:

Xeo 2 - Dynaudio Xeo 2 multi-band wireless loudspeaker

If you want a very high quality digital stereo with a low footprint, these are an interesting option. Around 1500$ though I think.

[SpyderMike]

good point - past bluetooth protocols look limited with 4 being around 320kbps...but getting better. It depends on the capability of the devices on each end. Here is an link to AptX which is supposed to allow CD like quality via BT:

http://www.aptx.com/howitworks2

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by SpyderMike

good point - past bluetooth protocols look limited with 4 being around 320kbps...but getting better. It depends on the capability of the devices on each end. Here is an link to AptX which is supposed to allow CD like quality via BT:

What is Bluetooth aptX® Technology and How Does it Work?

If you don't mind me asking you seem to be very knowledgeable about Hi tech HIFI, do you work in the industry?

I have toyed with the idea of setting up my house with WIFI audio/video but I'm a A/V snob and gotta have my HD video and 5.1 surround (yes, I know we are up to 9.1).

Every time I look into it I get overwhelmed by the cost and trying to match up all the hardware/software.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

I gotta ask... with the talk of "loss less" burning how much fidelity do you lose by streaming over WIFI or Bluetooth?

I'm not an audio expert, but I'm near-enough a network expert. WiFi shouldn't affect the quality of audio or video at all. I wouldn't expect blue tooth to affect it either. I'm not saying that it won't be affected. What would cause a reduction in quality is the application/protocol used to stream the data. You can think of it this way. Wifi and Bluetooth are just roads. How you get down the road is more dependent upon the car you're riding in than the road that you're on. Assuming a healthy environment for bluetooth or wifi (no major interference) we'll assume the roads are well paved. Bluetooth is like a small one lane, winding road with hedges on both sides. It's just too narrow to go very fast. Wifi is like the Autobahn or a large, wide multi-lane US interstate. You can cruise at top speed all day.

Originally Posted by SpyderMike

AppleTv should be able to find it and play it too - without iTunes I would imagine as the AppleTV is design to stream most formats of audio/video and sources other than iTunes.

Apple TV is heavily dependent on having a PC somewhere running iTunes. From what I understand, you can get around iTunes for music to an AppleTV, but for video, you're pretty screwed and stuff with iTunes. The best video alternative seems to be using an app to stream DLNA content to an iPad or iPhone and then using Airplay to send that to the AppleTV.

Here's an interesting bit of info that's specific to AppleTV

home sharing - A REAL iTunes server on NAS - Ask Different

[SpyderMike]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

If you don't mind me asking you seem to be very knowledgeable about Hi tech HIFI, do you work in the industry?

I am a hobby-ist tinkerer. Actually, I am an owner of an electronics design/manufacturing company making medical display circuits (e.g., cataract surgery) and airline seatback televisions (e.g., JetBlue). I have always been a music fan and my wife and I joke that I often find solutions to nonexistent problems .

[SpyderMike]

Originally Posted by masraum

The best video alternative seems to be using an app to stream DLNA content to an iPad or iPhone and then using Airplay to send that to the AppleTV.

Apparently there is Plex for Apple TV, so it can DLNA :

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200288286-What-is-Plex-

Looks like JRiver Media Center is also Mac Compatible :

http://www.jriver.com/audio.html

I am thinking a DLNA players are out there too for Apple, no? Example:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/c5-streaming-dlna-media-player/id675813323?mt=8

DLNA = digital living network alliance - a way of sharing digital media across multiple platforms. Old school tech from way back in the early 2000s. That is what Plex, Twonky, etc servers and players are setup for.

[SpyderMike]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

Every time I look into it I get overwhelmed by the cost and trying to match up all the hardware/software.

There might be a low cost solution out there based on what you already have. If you have a wifi network and a harddrive for media your server solution is almost there. A few apps on some devices complete the process. Alot of this is low cost or free.

Some of it can get a little techie to set up, but once setup, it can work very reliably.

What equipment do you have already (audio and video and network)?

[aschen]

I think alot of this networked and new world AV is very cheap compared to just a few years ago.

It certainly is a bit more confusing than it used to be as well. Clitchyness seems to be a new world problem for me as well. I used to put a dvd/cd in and press play. Now occasionally I get menu freeze ups or I have to reenter a password, or update firmware or something.

My dvd player would not play netflix streaming for one day for no apparent reason. Updated the firmware, did the one finger reboot salute a dozen times. Nothing. Somehow it self healed and worked fine the next day.

It was definately easier to trouble shoot these things in 1999