best way to bring digital files into your 2 channel system?

[marksdad]

hi everyone, my question is if any of you have any experience with the

SONOS system, i am considering the sonos system to handle my digital

music, also for all you computer wise folks out there, i also do not

trust my comp to handle my every growing library. i am afraid that if i

cannot use an external drive i can and will lose 100 gigs of music. i

have already lost 35 gigs once, i got a virus and had to do a

recovery. i want 1 tera of storage, and i am told the best storage

especially for secure, and restorable it to purchase an raid array? i

have been trying to get info on the raid array over regular storage

units and very little is available. also i am looking at the sonos z130

package my question is also for any of you with experience is ? the

z100? is it a good receptor / amp? i will be auditioning this soon, and

want some pre knowledge of its attributes prior to talking with the

salesman. thanks

[kkerley33]

Marksdad,

I do not have much experience with the sonos system, but I do have experience using wireless music feeds via a media extender. Lets just say I am not please with the wireless route. I went back and hard wired my house with Cat 5 and put in a 1G network hub to do the switching. I still store all of my music on my Hard Drive...but my hard drive is a 500GB external Drive.

From my perspective and a cost point, I would look at a decent used DAC, a D-Link or Linksys Media extender with Coax out and a networkable storage device with UPnP support.

If you have a video source in your listening room, then you can easily pull the music from the UPnP harddrive which is external and only plugged into the network through the media extender. If you don't have a video source in your 2 Channel room, then you can buy a 7inch LCD screen for relatively cheap and mount it near your rack (and depending on how much you want to play with the media extender you can even have the latest sports scores and stock quotes fed to that screen).

So sorry I cannot help you with the Sonos stuff and I don't know the price point, but my recommended solution can be done for under $500 if you already have a pre-amp and an a DAC.

As for a RAID array...that is simply a way that most Servers are set-up. In its simplest form, the data is saved on two drives at the same time so if one drive goes belly up, the second drive in the RAID array can be put into service. There are different ways to set-up raid, but that is a simple explanation.

[Wardsweb]

I went with my own music server that can sit with the rest of my audio gear. It is USB optical out into an external DAC. It is small but still a full blown XP machine running Meedio for the music server with a 500 gig drive. Depending on how serious I get with this, it can hold up to two terra byte drives. All music is ripped to FLAC in one easy step.

[marksdad]

thank you both so much, now i am getting somewhere, you have both supplied info i have been trying to get, keep it coming, again thanks

[anarchist]

marksdad,

Just about every decent PC on the market now offers a raid controller - typically raid 0 and raid 1. You simply buy several hard drives and plug them in. Setup is simple. I will skip the technical issues but bottom line if you get a virus that corrupts your data, it affects everything and will not save you. Raid is meant to provide performance and protect you in case of hard drive failure - not viruses. End of story.

You need a virus program that is good - not Norton, not McAfee, etc. - and a real backup solution. Whoever advised you on the raid is the last person to ask with regards to backup solutions and virus protection.

You want to reduce the chances even more you get a virus and have better performance? Install Linux. Download SimplyMepis. You can run Linux without actually installing it. It provides access to and will play your Window files.

[jbsl]

Can anyone reccomend a USB-to-digital S/PDIF Converter. I just got a tube DAC and want to try the pc as a transport. This is the first one I have looked at:

http://www.hagtech.com/hagusb.html

but I know there are others out there.

[kkerley33]

Anarchist,

I agree that Raid will not save you from a virus...but it will save you from a hard drive going to crap on you....which I am finding is happening much more the larger these drives get.

Like I said above, a networkable UPnP drive might be a good idea. I simply just use a External USB drive for my music. Of course my company uses hot-swap SCSI drives that do daily back-ups that we pull and put into to a fire-proof safe...but that is a different story. We still raid all of our servers to increase performance and have an almost immediate solution if one of the HD's goes bad.

Marksdad, if you have any more questions, shoot me an email. There are probably 1000 different directions you can go with this. There is even an Integra NVS for sale right now on ebay that I bet will go for only a couple of hundred dollars. You could easily replace the HD in that to a much larger (maybe 500GB) drive and put external USB drives or a network drive for back-up. If you are into building things, you could probably build something close to what was posted earlier. You will have about $150 in "rack" size HTPC case with quiet fans and if your only use is music you could go with a pretty inexpensive Motherboard and slower processor. That would probably run you about $200. Your only other needs would be a good sound card with Coaxial Digital Output and your hard drives. I recommend going with SATA drives and as Anarchist said, running a good Anti-Virus program.

That said, here is the link the Integra Solution that is on ebay right now... I was looking at this model for my den awhile back, but I bought a PS3 instead.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=180161164517&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=008

KAK

[kkerley33]

JBSL.

I have been looking for a Tube DAC as an alternative to going with a Pre-Amp. What did you end up getting? I have looked at the Musical Fidelity X-DAC v8....which has a USB input, but it is fixed output and I need something that is variable.

KAK

[jbsl]

I bought a TADAC from Tube Audio Design, TAD. I bought my Cayin TA 30 from Paul at TAD about 3 years ago and was thinking about a new cd player when I saw he had a new DAC, the TADAC, on sale for $699 plus some upgrades. Paul is great to work with and has excellent customer service.

http://www.angelfire.com/biz/bizzyb/TADAC.html

I have had mine for about 3 weeks now and really like it. I got the tube knob but did not have the money for the gain volume control. Friday I am mailing it back so he can add the gain volume control. With the tube knob and gain volume control it will have cost me $920.

I know the tube knob sounds gimicky but it works great for adjusting the depth of the harmonics. By that I mean turn it all the way down to 7:00 and it sounds great but does not have as much of tube sound, for the tube sound I turn the knob to 11:00-1:00, to me that means a more 3D sound and vocals are better the instraments have fuller sound that is more live sounding to me. Sorry I am not good at describing what I hear.

The gain volume control is a must for me cause with my 104 DB La Scalas the gain is set too high. On speakers around 87-95 DB the gain is probably set just fine.

This is the review I did for another forum.

So I only had an extra $100 so I had to choose between the tube knob or the gain volume control
I went with the tube knob but will be sending it back to get the gain volume knob.

The volume knob is a plus cause it lets you adjust the gain from the TADAC to match your system.

My speakers are 104 DB and the gain that is set on the TADAC is too high for my speakers. I get some distortion once I turn up the volume to levels that normally use on cd player. So with the gain volume control it will help in my case.

For speakers 87-95(guessing here) the gain is probably fine.

trying a pic



The tube knob is really cool and fun to play with. Think of it as a knob that lets you adjust the amount of harmonics to the sound.

I usually have it set about 11:00, 7:00-4:00 being the range on the knob, 7:00 less of the extra 3d rich harmonics. Turn the tube knob up and you get more of the 3D rich harmonics.

Now I could be perfectly happy with the TADAC without the tube knob. When I have the tube knob all the way to 7:00 it still sounds great!

With the tube knob certain recording just sounds as close to live as i've heard! On other recordings it does add but not as much, and on some there is not much of a difference to my ears. To other people all cds may have the tube knob extra sound.

I am using the TADAC with a Denon 2900 DVD player as transport and I'm working on hooking up my computer to the TADAC.

The TADAC does play SACD CDs , if the SACD does not have a cd version it will not play, do not confuse the stereo version for the cd version. You can also use the TADAC with some DVD Audio but you may have to go into the set up and set it for 2 channel, stereo, dobly digital. I have used it with movies and does a great job with centering dialouge but not as good as a 5.1 surround set up for movies.

Last thing is the side switch. It will let you switch between two transports hooked up to the TADAC. For me I can easly reach the back and switch but if you can not reach the back then it may be helpful.

No regrets on my part and recomend it to anyone wanting a DAC that sounds great and lets you add some features if you want it.

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[jbsl]

bump

[kkerley33]

JBSL,

Thanks for that info and the link. I had been looking at a Adcom GCD-750 (as it has a SPDIF INPUT so it can act as a DAC) and either an Anthem Pre 2L or Sonic Frontiers Line 1. This is looking like a very viable alternative paired with an MSB Digital Director.

BTW JBSL, instead of going with a USB to SPDIF Converter, I would look at the following... http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1137451822026&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper&lid=2202640536B01

It is a linksys wireless music bridge (can be had at office depot for $50 on sale). It has an optical and coax digital output. I use one, but I have it hardwired. It will allow you to not have to have your PC sitting right next to your soundsystem or your DAC.

If you do want a converter thought, the SB Live 24 that Paul recommends seems like a good option at $50 as well.

KAK

[jbsl]

I'll probably just go with the external SB live 24 from Office Dep.

My stereo/ HT is in my bedroom with all the cables run thru the wall to the attic over to my living room down to my speakers. So all I have in my living room is the speakers and tv.

So the comp is only about 10-15 feet from the stereo and I'm planning on buying some balanced XLR cables to run from the TADAC to the Luxman so the cable length is not a problem.

After I get this all hooked up I HAVE to control my upgraditis (if that is possible!) and not spend anymore money on this addiction, I mean hobby.

[kkerley33]

JBSL,

You may have to do some PC configuring with the External SB 24 Live. Your PC is going to read that it has two soundcards and sometimes it does not like that. If you have a PCI soundcard, your best bet might be to just remove it. If your current soundcard is Motherboard based, you might have to play with some jumpers on the mainboard or disable it in the BIOS. It all depends on how they set-up their board layout. The easiest motherboards to work with I think are MSI as most settings can be done in bios...If you have an store bought PC, especially from Dell or HP, you might have a tougher time. They don't like people making upgrades and make it a pain to do so. Just some forewarning that this might be more than your typical plug and play solution. Good luck and let me know the results.

KAK

[jbsl]

Went into control panel, and went to sounds and audio devices properties, went to hardware and picked Soundmax intergrated digital audio properties. There is a option to "not use this device" or disable. So if I disable this and install the E SB 24 card I'm hoping the computer will allow me to set it as the default.

Won't have the TADAC back until late next week so once I get it back I'll buy the card. Once I get every thing hooked up I'll let you know.

[kkerley33]

JBSL,

In theory it should work. In the past, I have used the disable function in Hardware manager but it has still caused conflicts. It all has to do with the port connections and the interrupts. I have a degree in Information Systems Management and I still don't understand how Microsoft can continue to make simple things so difficult. Regardless, there is always another way...If that doesn't work, I am sure there is either a way to to disable it in the BIOS (meaning the OS won't even see it as installed) or reset some jumpers on the MB to take it out of the circuit. The problem that arrises with using the Hardware Device Manager is the OS has to initialize the string for the Hardware Divice before it shuts it off...if the two Soundcards share any of the same INI string...it may disable both of them...while if you leave both of them enabled...it could cause port interrupt failures. I am not saying this is going to happen, just something that might...and I don't want you to get discouraged if it does, because as I said above, there are other ways to work around it.

KAK

[shepjk01]

Save all the hassle and get a playstation 3. Not only for 500 do you get a great media center, but also the ability to play blurays,sacds,games, and unlimited storage via any usb harddrive you want to add on. For the price you will not come close to its performance as a digital music center.

[kkerley33]

Shep,

Even though I love my PS3, it doesn't meet all of Marksdads needs. He needs a terrabyte of storage and he wants to put it into raid array incase a drive craps out on him. The only way to do that is build a stand-a-lone file/media server or a new PC to handle it. Also, unless you are using an HDMI connection, the Analogue outs on the PS3 are crap...and they use a pretty low quality internal DAC according to what I have been told.

Anyways, good to see you on here again. Hope to see your new place soon.

KAK

[TommyK]

I have 2 tb of wavs. I have lost data before. After my research I setteled on Drobo and Squeeze Box. Squeeze Box is cheaper than Sonos. I have since learned that Squeeze Box does not do well with over 10,000 albums. I will be switching to Sonos.

Peace,

TommyK