tromprof Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 I just thought I would share my experiece making a computer based music server. I have toyed around with the idea for some time but last week I finally did it. I started with the family's recently retired Dell desktop, a Pentium 4 machine that had increasingly had both hardware issues and software issues as it aged. The USB ports had shorted out and the hard drive was on its last legs and in fact died as I began reinstalling Windows XP after wiping it clean. My goal was to have a computer based system that would sound as good as my CD players. Last year I purchased a Cambridge Audio DacMagic that I have been running my Sony CD playes through. The Dacmagic also has a USB input. I relaced the USB ports with a new card, and replaced the old hard drive with a new 500gb drive and added a second 500gb drive as well as it was my intention to not compress the music files, or use minimum compression using Fla. The program I chose to run the whole thing was Media Monkey. Well after loading in about a hundred or so CDs I sat back to listen and the sound sucked. After spending some hours on the internet I finally fixed the sound by changing the output plugin. I am now plases to report that the sound is actually better than my CD players. I did have to upgrade the memory to 2gb as well after noticing occasional sound dropout. At this point I have over 200Cds loaded with the capacity many hundreds more. My CD players will continue to be used for classical stuff, but all my jazz and rock are on the hard drive! My computer skills are limited as well as my elecrical skills but I have alsways been willing to open the top of stuff and poke around. If I can do it (with a little help from Google) almost anyone else can too. [8-|] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 Good on you! It's definitely easier these days, and the selection of DAC's for PC is to the point where the Intel and Via on board audio is better than most CD players and adequate for all but the most persnickity audiophile. I run one of my servers to an FM transmitter I built and so can listen all over the house and yard (neighbors, too). It sounds as good as or better than the best FM broadcast stations and ALWAYS plays my favorite music. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brac Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 Tromprof, nice job, I have thought about doing that too, never seem to figure out what DAC to buy. Mallette, Should the FCC be reading how many watts do you transmit? Sounds like a great way to distribute audio! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seti Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 Good on you! It's definitely easier these days, and the selection of DAC's for PC is to the point where the Intel and Via on board audio is better than most CD players and adequate for all but the most persnickity audiophile. I run one of my servers to an FM transmitter I built and so can listen all over the house and yard (neighbors, too). It sounds as good as or better than the best FM broadcast stations and ALWAYS plays my favorite music. Dave I tried to buy a AMOS 3000 but they aren't ready for the masses yet. They are going to developers first. Bummer... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich_Guy Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Congrats, enjoy the new music server. I made a music server a while back from an old Pentium 4 computer, I used an OrigenAe H7 case like pictured below (I have the black) these are beautiful and excellent quality. The sound quality is excellent, better than my CD player and I can play non stop music without repeating the same song 24/7 for about a week. [] Also with a great looking control system and great visualizations (G-Force visualizations) on my 50 inch plasma. I use a quality sound card from Auzentech connected to my receiver with toslink optical digital cable, I use AC3Filter and Spdifer (SPDIF pass through to receiver) with Windows Media Player 11 as my preferred player, Vista Home Premium OS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tromprof Posted June 17, 2009 Author Share Posted June 17, 2009 The only small complaint I might have is the lack of remote control. I do have a wirless keyboard but that is really not the same. Any good ideas about how to add one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich_Guy Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 The case I use, the OrigenAe H7 above adds remote capabilities (it also included a Media Center remote) it also adds ON/OFF by remote capability. I use my URC remotes with my music server as well as my Kensington SlimBlade Media mouse and Logitech de Nova Edge keyboard. Many of the HTPC cases will add remote capability, also a built in IR sensor and remote ON/OFF capability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Well after loading in about a hundred or so CDs I sat back to listen and the sound sucked. After spending some hours on the internet I finally fixed the sound by changing the output plugin. Could you identify the plugins that you used/use now (i.e., old-new)?Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 The only small complaint I might have is the lack of remote control. I do have a wirless keyboard but that is really not the same. Any good ideas about how to add one? CHEEP REMOTE These have a variety of media player plugins and the cost makes it pretty painless to try... Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich_Guy Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 The only small complaint I might have is the lack of remote control. I do have a wirless keyboard but that is really not the same. Any good ideas about how to add one? CHEEP REMOTE These have a variety of media player plugins and the cost makes it pretty painless to try... Dave There are a varitity of Media Center remotes that can be found to add a remote and IR sensor usually these mostly control Windows Media Center, however these usually won't be able to turn a computer ON/OFF by remote. Here is a link to OrigenAe's IR Trans page for one of the very nice ways to add remote capability. http://www.origenae.co.kr/en/accessory_vf210.htm '> http://www.origenae.co.kr/en/accessory_vf210.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerwoodKhorns Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 The problem with using a remote, at least with a smaller screen (i.e. a computer screen across the room, not a flat screen TV) is the display. I like MediaMonkey. I also like J River, but I have not been able to find a way to make the display show just basic information in really big font to read across the room. I Tunes, at least Mac computers, will give you a display like an Ipod. Windows Media Center also has a nice big display that is easy to control across the room. I love the Media Center interface, but don't like media center for other reasons. Is there a way to have the nice display with other players like J River or MediaMonkey? The other issue is the mouse. Windows and Mac have both solved the issue where the remote does not need the mouse as submenues are easy to get to. What about the other players? Finally, if I am chanied to Windows Media Center 2005, what plug ins do I need so that I can use every format (FLAC, Apple Lossless, etc.)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tromprof Posted June 17, 2009 Author Share Posted June 17, 2009 The output I first used was the default used by Media Monkey but with MM you can use the output plugins for Winamp. I am using a Winamp plugin called ASIO Output Plug-in .67. It was a bit of a pain to install into media Monkey but the Media Monkey Forum had some step by step in stuctions. Basicly you have to install it in the media Monkey outut plugins folder, though of course Windows made that more than a single step. There is also a "wave out" plugin that comes with MM that sounded pretty good as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 Congrats, enjoy the new music server. I made a music server a while back from an old Pentium 4 computer, I used an OrigenAe H7 case like pictured below (I have the black) these are beautiful and excellent quality. I was going to do something like that myself, until I got lucky on an Elan Via!DJ music server when Tweeter went out of business. No point bothering to build my own now that I picked up that Elan Via!DJ. However, that being said, I may still do it just for S&Gs. I certainly got enough spare parts around here to build one (would need a good "audiophile quality" sound card, as well as at least 500 gig drive, though, as I don't have any of those laying around as spares). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich_Guy Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 I certainly got enough spare parts around here to build one (would need a good "audiophile quality" sound card, as well as at least 500 gig drive, though, as I don't have any of those laying around as spares). Check out Auzentech sound cards, very nice. http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/x-fi_prelude.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 Option... http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/CardBus/IndigoIO/index.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tromprof Posted June 18, 2009 Author Share Posted June 18, 2009 Just a question. Why would you want a fancy internal sound card to process the data when an external DAC can be used for the computer and other sources as well? It is also my understanding it is good to get the DAC away from the other computer componants as the are electricly noisy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 Well it's even slightly more complicated than that... because of the issue known as down sampling, you don't want a link/component in your system that samples at a lower rate and with lower resolution (bitdepth) than the highest sample rate and deepest bitdepth component. In short... if you have agreat sound processor/DAC that samples at 24 bit depth and at 192hz it does you no good that your playback machine plays at 16 bits and at 44hz and vice versa. That's why I choose to run the upscaling dvd player(onkyo sp506) instead of my PS3 for audio playback, all indications I can find about the PS3 is that audio playback is 44hz for CD... this despite having the ability to process advanced audio from the bluray fromat to the point of 1/1 resoultion or UNCOMPRESSED audio for movies. Keep in mind that all this is dependent on your source material to. CD's are a very compressed format, sacd/hdcd/dvda are less so. ---------------- you now I just realized that this was the server thread... my answer doesn't really apply Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Combat_SAMBO_Guy Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 I made my music server with an Asus motherboard, an AMD phenom (quad cire processir) and a couple of TB of storage space, my DAC is made by creative and is hanfled client side, the server can flawlessly serve movies and mucic in al rooms of this 1800 sq. ft. flat. Ok, so I used Ubuntu 8.04 server for the streamer/share box. All my clients are W7U and can read SMB broadcast shares (MSFT standard is SMB/CIFS). I love my dektop client, running W7U-64 Bit, an AMD 4800+ X2 (dual core, 64 Bit) cpu and 750 MB of storage, it also has a pvr card, sound card, DAC (Creative calls it a digiral IO module), etc. Darn do I love my Desktop, an Nvidia 8500GT w/DVI and HDMI output, two monitors, one HDCP and the other t a hi def tv. With that little 2TB bad boy a good router every room can take advantafe of cool technology. Computers are like muscle cars, you can never have too much horsepower. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theplummer Posted June 28, 2009 Share Posted June 28, 2009 The problem with using a remote, at least with a smaller screen (i.e. a computer screen across the room, not a flat screen TV) is the display. I like MediaMonkey. I also like J River, but I have not been able to find a way to make the display show just basic information in really big font to read across the room. I Tunes, at least Mac computers, will give you a display like an Ipod. Windows Media Center also has a nice big display that is easy to control across the room. I love the Media Center interface, but don't like media center for other reasons. Is there a way to have the nice display with other players like J River or MediaMonkey? The other issue is the mouse. Windows and Mac have both solved the issue where the remote does not need the mouse as submenues are easy to get to. What about the other players? Finally, if I am chanied to Windows Media Center 2005, what plug ins do I need so that I can use every format (FLAC, Apple Lossless, etc.)? I've been working toward the same resolution, my idea is to have an older pentium 4 Dell do the duties listed as above, but instead of a remote control, use a laptop on a wifi to control the desktop. You could do a split screen and control the entire operation with the laptop while sitting in your ez chair. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtnfoley Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 With that little 2TB bad boy a good router every room can take advantafe of cool technology. Computers are like muscle cars, you can never have too much horsepower. Welcome to the madness, MK. How are those Chorii treating you? Check your Yahoo! account. [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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