Streaming music. PC? Sonos? Squeezebox?

[psg]

Hi all,

It's been a long term goal of mine to eventually rip all my music to FLAC and stream it to my sound systems. I have the main basement system for critical listenning and another on the main floor for ambiance. But there are so many ways to do this:

• I was thinking of settinp up a headless PC close to my main system, a firewire card and Behringer F-CONTROL AUDIO FCA202, and control the music using through a media center server (xmbc?) and itouch and android remotes. Many of the servers seem oriented to movies rather than music though. I don't want to have to turn on the TV to select music.
  • Downside: can't connect to both systems easily.

Then I investigated the squeezebox and sonos. They seem to do what I want.

• The Squeezebox Touch is C$330 and would do what I want on one system, considering that I could store my music on a Linux PC that runs all the time in my office. But if I needed two (basement and main floor), could I easily control either with the itouch and android remotes? EDIT: Yes I could! Thanks Stephen!
• The Sonos ZonePlayer 90 is C$400 (each). I would need two of them (ouch) and they too could grab music from my Linux PC (as an SMB server).

• Downside: Have to use a touch or phone to control it. Might be nice to have a local interface like the Squeezebox instead.
• EDIT: Downside: Android remote doesn't have the feature to fast-forward through a track! Ouch!

The best solution for me might be to install a PC on the main system (I'll be the only user here anyway and can deal with the phone-only interface) and a SqueezeBox Touch on the second system that gets its content from the PC server. That way my wife and kids could use the Squeezebox interface to select music on the main floor.

What do you guys think?

[StephenM]

But if I needed two (basement and main floor), could I easily control either with the itouch and android remotes?

I can't speak from personal experience, but judging by the material on Logitech's website, that does seem to be the case.

On the Squeezebox Touch's page under features, expandable:

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/speakers-audio/wireless-music-systems/devices/5745

Add a Squeezebox Controller and you’ve got control
of all your Squeezebox players in the palm of your hand. You can turn
any of them on or off, browse and play music, and adjust the volume. And
it uses your wireless network—so you don’t need to be in the same room
as the player you’re controlling.

On the Squeezebox controller app features page:

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/speakers-audio/wireless-music-systems/devices/7979

From one Logitech Squeezebox Radio to a house full of Squeezebox Duet,
Squeezebox Touch and Squeezebox Boom—you’ve got control at your
fingertips.

[psg]

Hey, thanks Stephen! Now why didn't I see that? [:$]

[StephenM]

It never hurts to have a second (or third) pair of eyes!

One other option for you:

http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/features/airplay.html

I think all you would need is two Airport Expresses ($100 USD apiece), add them as clients to your existing wireless network, and you'd be good to go. You could stream music from any computer with iTunes in the house, and an iPhone or iPod touch could be used as a remote.

[Cut-Throat]

I've got 3 Squeezebox Touch units. They are just fantastic. One of neatest gadgets I have bought in the last 10 years. I bought it also to stream my music, but end up listening to internet radio and Pandora about 90% of the time.

I 've got one plugged into my main system with an Eastern Electric Minimax Dac and this combo was every bit as good as my Jolida JD100 Tube CD Player. I have sold all my CD Players and have moved on from the CD Format Forever.

I have been seeing them on Audiogon for $225 plus shipping. That's where I got my last one for my Basement Workshop.

Just absolutely Love the Squeezebox!

[oldmako]

Log on to Logitech's website and register to receive emails. You may find yourself the happy recipient of a 50% off coupon from them one day. I got my Touch for 150 bucks with free shipping. It doesn't get much better than that!

I took the easy way out and simply converted most of my music (200Gig+) to AppleLossless. Once the tunes are on iTunes the upgrade is simple and free. Probably not nearly as good as FLAC (from what I read) but EASY and right now. I can get jiggy with another format later if I choose. I am using it right out of the box with no additional DAC and my sonic turd. When I do an A/B comparison with the CD source material I can't hear the difference other than the Touch seems a bit brighter. For my money and ears, it's great.

I have been very happy with it so far.

[psg]

Airplay is an interesting option. I wanted to stay out of the itunes box, but...

The $225 units on AGon are for US shipping only, but thanks to both SB endorsements!

[StephenM]

A worthwhile read on the Airport Express. There are some limitations to note which may or may not be dealbreakers for you.

http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/505apple

[njcanuck]

I am very happy with the Squeezebox system. I run two Touch units on my home Lan and use their Squeezeserver software to stream the files. I built a very small headless server computer on one of the mini Intel motherboards. All of my music has been converted to flac files and now resides on the server. The system has proven to be very reliable and (to my ears) sounds very good. I have been quite impressed with the DACs that are built in to the Touch units. I use both the included remotes and my iPhone to control them.

The server cost me about $125 in parts to build (mobo, memory, psu, disk). The Squeezebox Touch units were $239 each direct from Logitech through their recycle / trade-in program. I picked up a Logitech mouse for $2 at the local thrift and sent it as the trade-in (they even send you a prepaid shipping label for it). Note: you don't care if they give you any value at all on your trade-in - it's just the vehicle to get the instant 20% coupon that they immediately email you. Use that to buy your Touch for $239!

Happy shopping.

[formica]

Many of the servers seem oriented to movies rather than music though. I don't want to have to turn on the TV to select music.

Same here... I've already got alot of music on my home NAS (haven't FLAC'ed my CDs yet though)... And was wondering about using a computer monitor hooked up to a secondary HDMI out, and streaming via a bluray player? I'm looking at a new HT processor and wondering how much weight I should put in these secondary HDMI outs... Or simply look at a Squeeze box instead?

Im currently using an old PC and monitor in my HT rack to stream music at the moment...

ROb

[psg]

Quick update...

The first step was to start ripping music. I use abcde on Linux using a configuration file for FLAC obtained here:

http://www.andrews-corner.org/abcde.html

The file name structure chosen is like Artist-Album/NN.Title.flac with spaces and no underscores, e.g.:

Jack Johnson-In Between Dreams/01.Better Together.flac

I think the next version of abcde will download artwork, but for every album I simply do a google search and grab the nicest 500x500 image I can find and save it as cover.jpg in the album directory.

Main floor setup:

I realised that my main-floor sound system receiver is in my office, next to my main Linux box. So I decided to try simply running a media player on this PC to feed the sound system using a second sound card (cheapest solution); currently banshee. The ALSA sound driver didn't cooperate with two sounds cards, but I installed pulseaudio and its pavucontrol mixer. pavucontrol allows me to control to which device each audio stream goes to, and it seems to remember them across reboots. So banshee plays in the living room and/or kitchen through a USB sound card (Beringher UCA202) while I work on the PC with local sounds coming out from the desktop speakers. The Linux box will be able to serve the FLAC files to whatever I install downstairs.

Again, the cheapest solution to try might be yet another USB or firewire sound card with coax out. I could run a 50-foot cable downstairs to the receiver. The sound card would get input from a media center software such as xmbc or plex, and I could control it remotely from my Android phone. This might come together for next to no money at all, to start!

[Tim Currie]

Just wanted to add one more vote for the iTunes/Airplay option. It just works great and is so simple. I have everything ripped to Apple Lossless on my mac laptop, iTunes sends it wirelessly to the airport express, and it sends it via optical to the receiver. It sounds fantastic! And......I can even use the my iphone as a remote.

[jhoak]

I went with the PC option mostly because of Pandora. I’m a paid subscriber which gets me a higher bitrate feed. As I understand it only by way of PC delivery (with their app) can you listen to the better quality feed.

I have pretty much all of my CDs ripped to that PC. Most in 320K VBR MP3s but I’m gradually re-ripping everything to FLAC. I also have a couple of dozen 24/96 albums purchased from hdtracks.com. The HTPC has an Asus sound card (I forget the model Audax or something like that) that outputs by optical to my Emotiva XDA-1 DAC.

I’m using J River Media as the front end for music selection. I don’t mind firing up the TV to make music selections. It’s a pretty streamlined process for me. Usually just selecting an album or artist and click on play then sit back and listen. From start to finish the TV is usually on for less than a minute.

All of that said I still listen to CDs a LOT. They may call FLAC rips “lossless” but I swear the original CD sounds better to me playing on my Cary CD player than being fed from the HTPC.

[Bluehusky]

I have been happily using my Squeezebox Touch for several years and I am extremely happy. In the early years I saved my music on my laptop,downside, laptop/computer must be On to access music. Found a terrific solution called the Vortexbox (vortexbox.com or .org) it is a self standing server, preloaded with software my config is 1TB and holds approximately 2,500 CD's and 250 Movies (nubers from memory, maybe a bit higher). It kicks on when I access music from Touch or my Squeezebox radio instantly, uses very little energy. Makes no noise, I have ripped roughly 300 CD's to date, just open draw, place CD, and a minute or two draw opens for next CD. Strongly urge you to check Vortexbox out and read their explanation. Small company from Vermont, you can purchase on Amazon or direct, comes in several sizes. I think you can buy their software seperately. FYI; my wife was doubtful, but it was my birthday request. She is amazed that it is easy, she doesn't need to touch it. And far eaiser to listen to our collection of music anywheres in our house. Feel free to ask me any questions, obviously I love it, especially as it is so people friendly to use.

Good luck, Jeff

[psg]

I remember seeing vortexbox before... For us geeks, you can download the ISO and install it (basically a Linux distro with everything you need included, it seems) on a spare PC. You can do the same with Plex. Lots of options out there!

Ripping is down to one command for me, so it's easy too. But the vortexbox look like a nice media server!

See http://vortexbox.org/about/

Thanks!

[MikeFord]

2 Ch audio is pretty easy, but not much of a step beyond you have to start looking at all the details carefully.

I wanted a full media server, minimum of 2.1 Ch and supporting 5.1 or better for most things with at least 24/96, and I wanted all my connections to be digital. So far one year into the adventure, first system worked pretty well, then I added BluRay when I updated the motherboard after the first one lost video and bleh all sorts of issues.

BTW I don't think BluRay "really" works on a Linux system at all. I'm also not sure how much support there is for firewire, aka ilink, except in the newest and most expensive Pioneer recievers.

OTOH when my system is beat back into submission again I will have support for all media.

[Invidiosulus]

They may call FLAC rips lossless but I swear the original CD sounds better to me playing on my Cary CD player than being fed from the HTPC.

Can you run a coax digital connection from your HTPC to the preamp?

Everytime I've used a DVD player with an optical connection to play CD's it sounded softer than using a regular SPDIF over a cheap RCA cable.

[Yesfan70]

I have two Squeezebox Classics. One downstairs in the HT and one upstairs in the back bedroom. I can control both units with my smartphone (an EVO) via the Logitech app. Great little app as it mimics the Controller remote in the Duet setup. I have my music fipped to Flac on an external 1TB SATA drive. I also use a second identical drive for keeping my music backed up. Best piece of gear I have bought for my system.

[psg]

Quick Update...

I'm up to 140 CDs ripped now...

To recap, I am controlling my main floor systems, whose receiver resides in my office, using a second sound card in my Linux PC that gets its input from a media center (banshee). I figured that the simplest way to handle the downtairs sound system is to run yet another media center to a third sound card.

Okay, one "aptitude install xbmc" later and I have it installed in Linux. But I can't seem to be able to run it in the background, server-style. It takes control over the window manager and I can't even switch desktops... Found it!

Within xbmc: System -> Settings -> System -> Video Output -> Display mode -> Windowed

Now I can start it in another desktop and switch back and let it run in the background. Time to try the Android remote... Didn't work at first. Somehow I had managed to install a firewall package on my Linux box. Let's see what's on my system relating to firewalls:

$ dpkg -l | grep firewall
ii firestarter 1.0.3-10 GTK program for managing and observing your firewall
ii mason 1.0.0-12.2 Interactively creates a Linux packet filtering firewall

So I used firestarter to turn off the firewall, Remote works! Used firestarter to turn it on again, but to add rules to allow HTTP traffic on the 192.168.0.0 network.

Then the remote software would only show and play actual files, but would say my library was empty. I noticed that I needed to right-click on the music folder within xbmc and select "Scan item to library". Now the phone shows all the cover art and all ways of displaying albums work. Sweet!

I already have coax running between my office and the basement utility room where my main sound system resides, so all I need now are a couple of RCA adapters and a sound card with coax SPDIF output that is compatible with Linux. Maybe the Diamond XtremeSound 7.1/24 bit Sound Card ($36) or AOpen Cobra AW PCI ($23 on ebay incl shipping) ? I'll try my local store first; you never know... Any suggestions?

This is fun! [H][Y]

[Invidiosulus]

Oh man,

I think I need to do this.

Sorry if I missed it but what app are you running on your android device?

I've got a small form factor IBM that is just begging to be turned into a media center.