Maintaining a Digital Music Collection

Sonos or AirPlay. I use both. Sonos is incredible and I'd recommend it to anyone.

I have no problems with my airport express - 1/8" plug to RCA plugs into the back of my receiver. I can send iTunes, my iphone, or the audio from my macbook to it so spotify or the occasional YouTube video goes through my main speakers. You can find them for like $75 on ebay, no idea how any of this works with windows or android though.

audiophile types claim the audio output from typical mac products is not that good. I don't know if the airport or airplay are better.

Audiophile types can eat shit. I want convenience and flexibility. I don't have 20K to spend on speakers.

i do

(not)

Although I'm obviously a touch jealous of the disposable income that allows a person to become an audiophile.

I have the basic old Squeezebox and it's great. The newer ones may be more feature overkill w/ touchscreens and whatnot, but when I got mine, it was way cheaper than Sonos. It was actually pre-Logitech and had a vibrant open source community. In any case I have two. One sits on my stereo, has a little 2 line readout and a remote control and I can stream anything on my computer or internet radio. The other one is the radio one with the little speaker and that's in my kitchen. I actually have them sync'd so they're playing the same thing, which sounds pretty fancy.

Logitech killed the Squeezebox line in 2012, which is a shame because they were fantastic.

yeah i have always just used the cable at radio shack with 1/8 inch on one side (for computer) and rca on the other (for stereo). Works fine.

oh n'/m you said you need wireless. i don't know anything about that. audiophile-wise, i would imagine most wireless stuff is not up to snuff.

You don't need to spend thousands to be an audiophile.

I ended up doing both... AirPlay is surprisingly reliable in an "it just works" way and it's what I use if I'm in the kitchen, in front, etc. I have wired speaker systems for my office area and back studio.

For Audiophile levels of spending, Linn,Arcam & Naim are all good.

However it can be done on the cheap with a WD TV live into a cheapish DAC and into the stereo.

there is also a WD TV Play which has analog out, but you're better letting a DAC do all the audio stuff.

the WD TV live just needs to be able to see your laptop, any other media servers and output digitally.

if you can use the app, you shouldn't need a screen for it, (bar the initial set-up)

I use an old xbox1 running XBMC, a £50 DAC and a remote XBMC android app. it works for me, and what I saved on the set up, allowed me to put the money into a Linn amp & Speakers

I guess what I mainly need is a good DAC? I would be willing to spend like, idk, a couple hundred bucks.

My new receiver unexpectedly had AirPlay and it works great.

Audioengine makes a reasonably priced yet high quality alternative for streaming from your laptop/desktop:
Audioengine W3
Audiooengine supposedly makes outstanding DACs as well.

I was looking for more of a whole home alternative, and my four Sonos Play 5's (set of two for two different rooms, with stereo separation) were worth every penny. It took me forever to bite the bullet and buy the first set, but I was blown away once I did. Worth every penny.

hmmmmm.

See the thing is I have this vintage McIntosh amp and receiver that I inherited, and I've been thinking about setting them up and getting some kind of DAC to go into the receiver, but I also need new speakers. I'm wondering if I shouldn't instead just sell the McIntosh components and spring for a high-end system that's designed for digital.

I kind of don't get why so many of these systems are so SMALL (in terms of their speakers) -- don't speakers kind of need to be big to get a full dynamic range, or have there been technology advances that really obviated that need?

people who care more about high fidelity are likely to buy a streaming source they can plug into their component stereo with giant speakers, like a squeezebox (RIP) or a sonos connect... most folks are fine with a clock radio-sized device or similar with built-in speakers. those small devices can sound pretty good, but if you want good-sounding bass and mid frequencies, stereo separation, etc... sooner or later you'll need larger speakers.

The DragonFly USB DAC has been getting good reviews. $249

I'd get an old Squeezebox of ebay for little money. I have the 2nd gen, what later was called "classic" and it works fine. I'd just look into the server software, will it go back to open source? Will it continue to be updated?

Signed up for iTunes Match the other day. Can't upload my library, keeps failing. Shoulda bought an external HD instead.

I just bought another 3 TB external yesterday, time to do another backup and send the previous externals out of the house to some lucky friend. I had partial off-site backup before, but this is much more complete.

^living the dream

I don't know about the current status of development (if any), but it looks like the Squeezebox server software has always been open source.

I'm happy with my old Squeezeboxes but am starting to research how I might replace them. The Audioengine stuff looks interesting -- is anyone here using it?

BTW if you have Squeezeboxes and an iPhone, iPeng is a useful remote control app.

oppo seems to keep building all this stuff into their universal disc players -- dac, usb connections, wireless, etc.

the only problem with the squeezebox classics (I have one) is that as the plastic (or whatever it is) casing ages, it becomes viscous and sticky. I mean, you don't need to touch them that often but it is gross!

I feel so much in uncharted waters with all of this stuff -- will it be usable in five years? Ten?

Well, it's solid state electronics, and they are known to last for quite a while if they're built well. I use FLACs because they're not proprietary, and Iike having a stereo/amp so that even if a particular streaming music component breaks, it's likely that *something* will exist that I can plug into my stereo using RCA cables that will stream those FLACs. Hell, I can even run RCA cables directly from my computer's sound card to the stereo if no component exists.

Keep the McIntosh....older stereo amps etc. are worth holding on to.

I'm a bit wary of spending too much money on squeezebox stuff as although the hardware may last for years, if you aren't happy updating NASs with squeezebox server software, you might end up stuck.

if you go with something that uses UPnP, then that is a generic streaming technology and likely to be much more future proof.

I've been keeping an eye on http://www.myoliveone.com/ which looks really nice, but not yet avaiable...

importing to UK would add 20% & shipping to the $500 price but of they can get a uK distributor, I'd take the risk.

Squeezeboxes on ebay can be like 70-150$

Can somebody recommend a good external hard drive brand/model for music?

I've gone the NAS route. It's the new thing. All the kids are into it. I use Synology.

i got a little hard drive for the music I only have as downloads but I hardly ever look at it or touch it, it's like I forget that music exists

I've been doing fine with Western Digital

sometimes when i listen to mp3s i haven't listened to for a few years i'll hear little digital glitches that i don't think were there before. is this a ~thing~ or have i gone mental / did i used to be a worse listener than i am now / do i just have a bad memory?

you haven't gone mental. that's what MP3s sound like.

all external hard drives are basically the same, especially if you're just using them to store/play music on. go by length of warranty and price.

digital files don't degrade, but they can be poorly ripped in the first place and have glitches or just use bad settings/codecs and sound terrible.

In other digital music collection news, I bought a Raspberry Pi that I am going to attempt to use as a music server... will save about $80-90/year in electricity if it works, since I won't have to leave my PC on 24/7.

buy a disk twice as big as you need. then buy another as a backup.

Buy two at the same time and then find a program that will automatically mirror the backup every week or two (or more often if you want). These have served me well so far. http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Porsche-Design-Desktop-302002/dp/B0055Q2VS8

I don't know about the current status of development (if any), but it looks like the Squeezebox server software has always been open source.

Since I posted this, there's been a new release, Logitech Media Server 7.7.3, available at http://www.mysqueezebox.com/download ... it's working great for me.

I'll co-sign the suggestions to buy two disks and keep them mirrored.

Yeah, happy squeeze server or whatever they want to call it is finally 64 bit and works with OSX's settings without having to revert, and has been working fine since I updated.

yeah, backups can't be stressed enough. I have a backup copy at home and another I keep here at work. three total, including the actual server.

Or just go nuts and get a RAID. Then set it so that the second drive mirrors the first.

not much use if your house burns down. offsite backups!

buy two raid arrays, keep one off-site...

If I cared enough about my digital collection to throw some money at it, I'd build a RAID-5 NAS, then have something like Crashplan constantly doing block level backups.

Raid-5 NAS is what I use. Can't recommend it enough. And instead of Crashplan I make a backup copy on a hard drive that I give to a friend.

Still don't care for Drobo's proprietary RAID partitioning, but the new Drobo 5D looks interesting:
http://www.tuaw.com/2013/10/29/drobo-5d-speedy-expandable-thunderbolt-storage-for-professiona/