Music Servers

[jacksonbart]

It’s amazing how much can change in about 2 years. Since 2010 then I have had to return the two

O2M (remote) players to Olive for software and hardware issues. The one was returned twice, so three returns. Since that last software update which I got

early September, with the release notes coming out on September 09/21, the main

O4 server started taking a long time to reboot.

Well I turned it off to unplug (recommended in the manual) it while I was traveling for work to only

find it would not reboot right away, the screen just froze at ‘starting up –

please wait’. I let it go for about 12

hours the first time. It came up and ran

for about a week and I had to go out of town again I sent Olive an email to ask

if the back-ups saved playlists and if this was normal with the new September software

update. It was yes to the first question

and silence to the second one. Anyway

when I got back the O4 would not boot after 24 hours, so I shut it off and went

through a few start up procedures.

Finally it rebooted and worked. I

attempted to back it up, since my last back up was about a year ago. It froze mid back up. I gave it 5 days, the first back took 30

hours, after the 6^th day nothing happened. I powered it down and

checked the HD drive I was backing up to by plugging it into my PC and nothing

was there, unlike the first one, yet it was in working order and new (and yes

the proper format). When I finally got

the server to reboot, none of my tracks appeared, networking, USB and the disk

drive were off line. Essentially it was

an almost complete failure. Olive at

this time still has one of my O2 players for service. So this past week I spent time looking at

WINAMP, XBMC, MediaMonkey and the rest to see if a PC based music server is my

future. I liked the light operating

system of Olive, but hated the backups which are done in proprietary software

so were I can return to 1 year ago if I pay for them to repair it, but I can’t

take that back up and use it for my PC. I

just brought a 2 Terabyte HD for 179.00.

Olive cheapest server 2 terabyte option is $2500. Their new system top of the line system runs $5000.00. That would cost me over 4 years (life of the

last one) $1250 aside from the cost of my music. I have a nice external DAC and have a receiver

which has TI (formerly Brown Burr) DACs.

I don’t pirate music, I have enjoyed

my experience, but I also won’t walk this plank again. It sounded good, but I am going with a Dell,

yes it has a Microsoft 7 operating system, but Media Monkey (Gold @ $20.00) does

a lot more than my O4 Olive Operating system did at this point. Most of my management of the O4 required a PC

anyway. Right now looking at the

Creative Sound XFi sound card to use digital out. I think I will just record my music collection

in WAV as opposed to FLAC. I will eventually look at buying a few Sonos

Zone Player 90s to provide the streaming Audio around the house. Just wondering what other people are up

too. Cheers.

[tromprof]

It doesn't cost a lot to get good sound out of a computer. My main system is hooked up to an 8 year old Dell sluggard and sounds great! All of my music files (now over 13,000 files) are on a networked hard drive so any computer in the house has access. I used Media Monkey for a couple of years but recently switched to J. River Media Center and find the sound better. It allows you to easily use ASIO (Audio Stream Input/Output ) which allows you to bypass Windows interference, a big upgrade if using a good sound card or in my case and external DAC.

[gnatnoop]

i'm not utilizing my sound card, rather streaming to a Logitech Duet from router. From the Logitech receiver to a DacMagic. Using WinAmp, its also $20 for the full version (non crippled, fast rip times).

using an external HD via USB port, no problems. second external HD is for backup of the 1st one. many ways to do this as you know..bummer about the olive.

[Mallette]

JB, one thing you can try with no cost is Linux Mint 11. Any old PC will fly with it. Unless you like to tinker, just forget about it if it doesn't install properly first try. I've had 100% luck with old PCs and the total install time is maybe 15 minutes.

It comes with Banshee, a very good music player. VLC can be used as well it will plays more file types than anything else I've ever seen.

Linux has quite a bit of multimedia/HT programs and, of course, they are pretty much all free.

Web response of Firefox on LM11 is several times faster than Windows.

Anyway, it only takes a short time to burn a DVD from the download to give it a shot. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Windows 7 has built in burning from ISO images. Just right click on the ISO image and select open with>image burner.

The LM11 DVD boots first in virtual mode. That is, it boots the operating system without using your hard drive for anything except virtual memory. That in itself is worth downloading and burning the DVD because it give you access to your drive when Windows dies (unless the drive itself fails, which is the exception). Great lifeboat.

Most of the time network, sound, and everything will be there as well. If so, that means the install is likely to be easy. Once you select "Install," it allows you to install alongside Windows without changing anything. When you boot, you get a selector to decide which OS to boot to.

If it works for you, that will be an easy choice unless you need to run AutoCAD, Photoshop, or something specific to Windows. Once you've experience the speed and stability of LM, it's not pleasant to go back...

Just a thought. I've converted about half the PCs in my home to LM11, including my media servers. The only drawback is no Netflix as they are in bed with Microsoft Silverlight. There may be a hack out there, but I haven't really looked for it since I can boot the system to Windows when I have to.

Dave

[Invidiosulus]

I'm using an older IBM thinkcentre running ubuntu11.04 as my music server.

I've got a linux program called ABCDE(A Better CD Encoder) set to rip my tracks automatically when I place a CD in the Drive.

The Computer is hooked to my stereo and runs XBMC to manage playlists and play the files.

I can connect to the PC with my android phone using the XBMC-remote app which allows me to use my phone like a remote anywhere in the house.

http://vortexbox.org/ sells servers but they also have a free ISO you can use to install there setup which does the auto ripping and tagging/album art etc.

I went with the Ubuntu solution as I do occasionally use the computer for other things besides music.

-Josh

[BigStewMan]

I'm using an older IBM thinkcentre running ubuntu11.04 as my music server.
I've got a linux program called ABCDE(A Better CD Encoder) set to rip my tracks automatically when I place a CD in the Drive.
The Computer is hooked to my stereo and runs XBMC to manage playlists and play the files.
I can connect to the PC with my android phone using the XBMC-remote app which allows me to use my phone like a remote anywhere in the house.

i'm not very tech savvy, so don't understand much of what you describe. as long as i know where to plug in the guitar and turn on the amp--i'm happy. i'm pretty lazy these days and when i listen to music, it's just itunes on the mac; and wearing headphones to keep peace with the neighbors.

[RT FAN]

Thanks for the post JB & to those that contributed. Informative, although somewhat above my paygrade. For now I am with Stew Man I don't feel the need to download all of my cds to a server. I don't have a problem with getting my butt off the couch and picking out something new to listen to. I don't have a whole house system, nor am I an avid computer user. In my apartment my cd collection and stereo are no more than 10 feet apart and at my house I have a 5 disc carousel for when I want to load up a couple worth of hours of tunes. Call me old fashioned, which is ironic I know,when discussing digital music. []

[Mallette]

"Cool" isn't an issue to me for a music server. I have a dual Xeon Dell T5500 at work with a solid state drive and 24gb RAM. My Linux music server is twice as fast as it on web browsing and media player startup...and it's a 5 year old machine I wouldn't dare load W7 on.

Speed and response wise, Linux runs circles around either a Mac or Windows box and does it on computers otherwise destined for the scrap heap.

And, given that Linux Mint (Ubuntu is good too, but I haven't used a recent build of it) installs on most "mainstream" machines with no intervention at all in about 15 minutes, it's all seriously cheap thrills.

There are quite a few machines out there at the end of their service life with the Intel 1701 HD audio chip set and that was quite a good DAC. In fact, most of the chip sets from the past 5 or more years sound really good...especially when they are FREE!

Dave

[jacksonbart]

Thank you for the replys. Dave, I will definately check that out. Thanks again.

[jacksonbart]

Thanks for the post JB & to those that contributed. Informative, although somewhat above my paygrade. For now I am with Stew Man I don't feel the need to download all of my cds to a server. I don't have a problem with getting my butt off the couch and picking out something new to listen to. I don't have a whole house system, nor am I an avid computer user. In my apartment my cd collection and stereo are no more than 10 feet apart and at my house I have a 5 disc carousel for when I want to load up a couple worth of hours of tunes. Call me old fashioned, which is ironic I know,when discussing digital music.

One of my favorite things to do is to create my own radio stations. I had XM radio for 5 years and found myself listening to 2 stations, Deep Tracks and Classic Vinyl. So when it was time to reup, I passed and put together my own playlists on the server, which vary between 300 to 900 songs and set up for random play. I like to have music on when working from home and usually will just let it run. A classic rock 900 song play list will go for appox 65 hours non stop, no commercials, no repeats, no annoying DJ. I also really not having to handle CDs anymore and getting the same sound quality. The ripping stinks, but the rest is worth it. .

[RT FAN]

I can see the convenience of it, a 900 song playlist bogles the mind. I agree that making your own playlists is great & I almost never listen to commercial radio. At my house I have the Dish network which gives me 100 or so all music stations inlcuding certan Sirius ones. I have always made my own "Mixed tape", although now they are mixed cds. Just pick a theme and go with it. Her is a recent example:

DO I SMELL BACON??? 1.) Red Beans—Marcia Ball2.) File Gumbo—Zachary Richard3.) Jambalaya—The Bunch4.) Apple Scruffs—George Harrison5.) Brown Sugar—Rolling Stones6.) Green Onions—Booker T & the MG’s7.) Cigarettes & Coffee—Otis Redding8.) Stealin’ Watermelons—Elvin Bishop9.) Chicken, Gravy & Biscuits—Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials10.) Digging My Potatoes—James Cotton11.) Too Much BBQ—Big Twist & The Mellow Fellows12.) Saturday Night Fish Fry—Lou Rawls & Joe Williams13.) Cookin’ In Style—Johnny Adams14.) More Bread—Al Cohn & Zoot Sims15.) Blueberry Hill—Louis Armstrong16.) Grapefruit Juicy Fruit—Jimmy Buffett

17.) Tupelo Honey—Van Morrison

[RT FAN]

Sorry, the track listing posted in a rather odd way.

[jacksonbart]

So I have completed my rip and back up of

music in FLAC, I stand just below 12,000 tracks and I have created 12 music genre

play lists of between 20 and 67 hours. (Classic Vinyl, 80s, 70s, 90s, Deep

Tracks, Jazz, Blue Jazz, Christmas, Alternative Rock, WXPN, etc) I

really like the auto volume leveling of Media Monkey and the fade option for

listening from the playlists. Media monkey

supports its own server, but since I still have two functional Olive 02

players, I have to use a free version of TVersity to stream all playlists to the

players with no issue. I am very happy

and now in control of my music more than ever before. Top Notch!!

To reproduce any of the SIRIUS stations I

just use, Dogstar Radio: http://www.dogstarradio.com/search_playlist.php

[michael hurd]

Cool, just a bit of one HDD:

[BorderCollie]

I have been using music servers since 2005... I've used apple, pc, and a western digital server... Apple was my favorite but the most expensive. I'm using my htpc as a server now and use cloud to stream content... Anyways, my contribution to this whole thing was that I personally think creative labs sound cards are extremely over rated. I would and have purchased m-audio any day of the week over creative labs. I bought creatives 200 dollar sound card about 7 years a go and I thought it was great until I switched to an apple and bought an m-audio external sound card for 80 dollars and I blew away the creative labs... I've never looked back...

[jacksonbart]

Cool, just a bit of one HDD:

Perhaps I am misunderstanding but that seems way to small for disk space for it to be HD.. for the amount of tracks..??

[Panacea Engineering]

Isn't that about Five MEGA bytes per song....give or take?