Thaddeus Smith

that case will allow me to cram 16 drives inside (but my current motherboard/controller capacity is limited to 11) and has space for 6 fans (3 included), with all sorts of sound deadening material. should be pretty wicked. and it doesn't have all that game-dragon flames-LED everywhere-with a giant plexiglass port hole to the inside crap. i'm planning on the 5.12 beta. It seems pretty rock solid in spite of the "beta" classification and locks in a bunch of modern features and functionality - upgrading to an eventual 5.x stable build should be pretty simple and not result in any data loss or extra work. Rudy, next time - just pick up one of these and plug it into an available port of your existing router. It would save you the cost and hassle of dealing with your ISP for just a feature upgrade. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156251

no wadded panties in my pants, sir. Add and contribute as you see fit - this isn't a dedicated build thread, so much as a discussion topic not often seen here on this forum, so I wanted to call it out and provide my own examples. My updates are: I now have two free computers to put to use. So server one is a basic Gigabyte (brand) AMD motherboard with gig-E network, 4 on board sata controllers, and a pci-e 16 slot to add an additional Sata controller that will support 8 more drives. It has 2GB of memory and a 1.8Ghz AMD processor. This is more than enough to run the basic function of unRAID. It is, however, slightly underpowered for all of the additional media related functions I wish to have. So I'll be adding this case and power supply to make a nice stable disk array and nothing else. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352017 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139020 Server two is the 1U Dell server - 2 physical processors, 8GB of memory, gig-E network, and a solid computing architecture - but severely limited in it's internal disk capacity. So this work horse will be the media front end server which accesses the unRAID box over a gigabit connection and serves it out to my various set top and portable devices. I had hoped to cram it all into a single piece of hardware, but this will allow me to have even more flexibility, a little bit more future-proofing, and to fully utilize the items I already have. My cost will then only be the items linked above, the unRAID license, and incremental drive upgrades.

Ha! I'm already worried I'll run into some dad in the future that will already hate me because my little 6 year old has been telling him how small his subwoofer is.

To be fair, Netflix is a victim of their own success. It's not their idea of new releases.. it's what the studios allow them to have, with heavy input from the cable and premium content providers guiding the way. No one expected them to succeed and so they were able to lock in some pretty good deals when they started up. Over the years they have become very successful, and when it was time to re-nogotiate contracts the content providers were not so helpful. I still say that I would GLADLY spend $10-$20 to rent a bluray release of a movie that comes out at the same time as a theater debut. Spare me the obnoxious teenagers, the overpriced tickets/snacks, comparably poor audio, and effort of going to the theater.

Gotcha, my 1u server will serve a similar function as your htpc, it just won't be connected to the tv. Instead it will be the gateway between the data on the NAS and all off my various devices. S the server will run DLNA software which will allow the oppo to have native access to the files, th en transmit over hdmi to my receiver for output to the tv and speakers. Simple enough, eh?

Sounds like you've got a good plan, and I think unraid will be much better suited to your home needs over freenas. Glad I could help. I've actually changed my plan a little bit. I've decided to separate the media streaming/access function from the storage piece. I have a second AMD desktop just being unused, so I'm going to throw that hardware into a high density drive case and set it up for NAS. The dual proc, 8gb ram 1u server will have all of my various streamers, downloaders, media converters, etc. These too will be talking over gig-e Ethernet. My avr is from 2007 and the only integrated media support it has is for rhapsody, which is slow and crappy at best. So everything will be presented through my oppo, due to its wide media support and the fact that I can do blu-ray, music, Netflix, and digital movies all in a single device.

seems reasonable in that scenario. we're a laptop/iOS house, so not as feasible.

here's the current list, if you're curious. http://www.dolby.com/us/en/consumer/content/movie/release/dolby-surround-7-1-movies.html

My brother in law runs a radio based ISP out here in the boonies and I host one of his relay towers on my property. so my internet is free. we don't get much more than 10mbps down and it's always been more than enough for streaming netflix, movie downloads, etc. Are you sure you haven't been flagged as a heavy traffic user and therefore throttled? I do recall experiencing that several times as a TWC/Roadrunner customer. [6]

::begin nerd:: Network Attached Storage, buddy. So i can have my Music and Movies on a dedicated device, with all sorts of disk duplications. Keeps my data protected, while also making it possible to access my media on: Oppo/TV, iPad, laptops, etc. - both at home and while I'm out and about. The problem with many commercial options is that they are typically quite expensive, and often times you don't have the flexibility to expand your storage capacity as you add more media. So I'm going the DIY route to both future proof my expansion capabilities and give myself the flexibility in which software I use to connect all of my devices. ::end nerd::

damn those prissy speaker terminals and their demanding methods of wire attachment.

in today's market, i'd think that setup could easily fetch $200,000.

your logic is sound - but that sure is a lot to keep up with.

I'm currently in the parts collecting phase, but figured I would start a thread to catalogue my budget build of an expandable NAS system for the storage of movies and music, which I stream to my oppo. I currently have a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ (traded a Nook color for it), which works well but is limited to: 4 drives total, max 2TB each. Older SPARC architecture which doesn't support many of the popular and useful add-ons which make owning a NAS worthwhile. So I started looking into DIY NAS options and unRaid came up as both the most user AND home theater/media friendly. I can expand up to 21 drives, with no limitations on drive size or combination. I can install all sorts of media related add-ons such as Plex server, tools for automated content downloads and organization, content streaming (both locally and externally, to HT devices and my computers, iOS devices). http://lime-technology.com/ And of course, I'm on a budget. So i managed to score a free Dell Poweredge SC1435. It's a 1U rackmount server with dual AMD processors and 8gb of RAM. It holds two hard drives and has one pci express slot. Not ideal, but not impossible to work with either. I can install two 2TB drives internally (which, I just so happen to be trading a guy my Netgear ReadyNAS for two 2TB drives) and throw in a pci-e card with two eSata ports for external drive enclosure. Enter this item, and my only real expense aside from the unRaid license to support this many drives: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132016. It holds 8 drives, has great reviews, and even includes a pci-e eSATA card. wicked. I just so happen to have eight 500GB drives I got from an IT buddy here at work. I'm pretty sure I can craigslist a couple of items to cover the cost of the above enclosure.Bonus. So once I get everything put together I will have about 5.5TB of storage and complete flexibility in future expansion, with very little - if not any - out of pocket expense. Awesome. Pics and updates to follow in the coming days/weeks.

you should be able to get a nice pair of RF-5's for that price.They aren't as prevalent on the used mareket as the newer reference models, but if you're patient you should be able to find a pair nearby. I can confidently say you won't be disappointed.

id go with the 1st or 3rd option, and then narrow down based on your footprint constraints - which sounds like the pc12-nsd. Is your upgrade urgent? If not, check craigslist daily and monitor forums like klipsch, AVS forum, audiogon, etc for used deals. Eventually someone will be selling and typically the used items on those sites are of good "future proof" quality.

being similar in specs doesn't mean they are anywhere close in overall sound. The RF-5's are a very unique beast. My buddy has RF-3 II's, which appear to have the exact same components, and yet they sound nothing like my RF-5's.

they released the RF-5 classic a couple of years back. my guess is that the response was luke warm and so they ended further building/marketing efforts on that model.

thanks for your input, obviously-disgruntled-customer-or-former-employee.

Don't biamp +1 are you really getting that significant of an improvement to make this worth your effort to troubleshoot?

i still need to re-install the cabinet sides, but don't plan on putting the front/rear doors back on. I'll also be painting everything black at some point. It's a big cabinet in a small room, so getting easy full pictures wasn't really possible - this should give you an idea though.

Yeah, they do kind of grow on you after a while. The lack of an owners manual and overall cost of ownership sometimes makes you wonder. There's normally a good return on your investment though. [Y][H]

i had this issue with my RT-10d that I owned for a short period of time. I cut a triangle piece of yoga mat and placed it evenly underneath all three feet - no more walking along the wood floor. my new sub weighs upwards of 200+ lbs and sits on 4 heavy duty rubber feet, so walking is not any issue.

thanks guys. me thinks i'm going to keep her.

OK, so have you tried a test tone CD..........say, from 10 Hz. to 100 Hz? BTW, this is a FULL 3 1/2 octaves below LaScala so-called bass. He's not going to get much if anything at 10 Hz. That's half an octave below the tuning frequency of the box. I also think he has a high pass filter set at 20Hz on his amp. that's correct; the box is tuned to 20hz and the driver itself isnt meant to go below aroynd 18hz and so i have it high passed at 20 hz. I know there's plenty of content below 20hz, but i cant say i'm missing much from an overall movie watching experience. no one that has indulged me with an audition has felt the need to chime in and comment on the lack of 10hz content in my setup.