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First let me start by offering my;Greetings and Happy Holidays to all,
This is a question I was going to post on digital but after doing a detailed search felt perhaps it best to pose it here and as this technology is rapidly changing felt it best to ask today rather than do a search again.
Well the question is pretty basic as I alluded to in my header the want to replace my Sony 400 jukeboxes with a hard drive based storage with large capacity to send into my Kora DAC, thereby eliminating the cumbersome boxes. Toslink outs as well as coaxial desired, my budget is around the two thousand dollar mark.
Thanks sincerely, for any advice - as this has been a particularly hard find. Some I'm aware of are Olive series, the Escient Fireball, and cambridge.
Thanks again,
Follow Ups:
Glad to be of help.Suit yourself of course, but there is really nothing to custom make. The power of this movement is that it is based on globally accepted standards and stock components. The fussy bits are in the software not the hardware.
if you are a Wintel person, and want to build a PC specifically for this purpose, you might be well served to spend some time to look into building a so called "silent" PC to minimize its presence in your listening space. Lot of discussion about that here in this Forum
A few years ago we moved into a new house. The SO wanted a CD changer. I looked hard at the market then, and realized that all of the hardware based solutions were a dead-end. Among the software developers, support was inconsistent model to model. None of the hardware manufacturers (principally Sony) were in any way committed. And solutions like eScient went against the grain - too expensive and why buy into a closed end system when the future was open.My recommendation is that you build a hard drived based system. I can guarantee you that you will be very pleased and that it will almost certainly outperform your changers.
On the software side, the easiest way to do it is to use iTunes and rip (digitize your CDs) to their proprietary Apple Lossless Compression format. This one piece of software allows you to manage the ripping (digitization) of your CDs to the hard drive, then select songs and albums by various criteria, and build playlists. You can use the same library for your iPod, and share it on your network. iTunes runs on both PCs and Macs. It is free. It offers a wireless option through Airport Express (hardware cost involved). It is also compatible with the Slim Devices Squeezebox.
There are a million variants from there - different ripping software (EAC), different compression schemes (FLAC), different library systems - all focused on the Wintel PC user.
The principal issue here is how you get the music data out of the PC/Mac and to the DAC. Sound cards are not the way to go. The goal is to get out of the very nasty electronic environment that is a PC before converting the data.
Basically there are three approaches:
1) A network device. Both the Slim Devices Squeezebox and Transporter are ethernet/802.11g devices. The Squeezebox can be cost effectively modded by Bolder Cable and may replace your DAC as well. Both offer SPDIF and analog out, the Transporter provides balanced outputs. Apple also makes Airport Express which gives you a way to get the data from your PC to a small device with a miniToslink you can run to your DAC.
It is a slight oversimplification but for all intents and purposes, the Olive is a network device which combines a CD, DAC and computer into a dedicated box using proprietary software that is controlled by a PC or PDA.
2) A USB device. The Waveterminal U24 takes USB from your PC and will then provide both a SPDIF and a Toslink output you can take to your DAC. There are a number of USB DACs including those by Hagerman and Scott Nixon. Moving up the food chain take a look at the OffRamp from Empirical Audio. Or consider replacing your DAC as well with a Wavelength Audio Brick. All of these choices come in under $2K. An Opticis fibre optic USB connection will enable you to go beyond the 15' limit of a standard USB cable.
The big decision between the approaches comes down to lifestyle. If you have your computer in the same room you will do your listening in, both solutions are equally workable. If you want to have your computer in another room, you need a way to control it from a distance. This is where the Squeezebox shines, as it does if you want to provide access to your music library from multiple locations in the house.
Regardless of how you decide to implement your system; I recommend you buy a pair of 400Gb drives for about $400 for both. One for the library, one for back-up. If you can, I recommend you use SATA not USB2 or Firewire because it is more robust and costs no more. For simplicity, rip everything to one drive.
First up xmasparty@mac.com ; My Appreciation and kind Thank You,For taking the time out to answer whats been a very tough area of system development for myself. Your suggestion sounds like a very good one both in terms of economics as well as future compatibility.
While I somewhat understand your ideas Ive printed your suggestions and have called Dell as well as Gateway to see if I cant get something custom made. It seems like Gateway may be who I go with.
Thanks again and Happy Holidays and Best Wishes to You and Yours.
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