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In Reply to: Will this adaptor work? posted by farmdoc on March 1, 2007 at 21:31:48:
Thanks for the education thus far. No, xmas, I do not have an optical cable; I was just trying to figure out how to connect to the van Alstine Ultra dac that only has coax in.
I've been reading but have still not understood where the Squeezebox, Transporter, etc. fit into the scheme of things. Is there a basic book, article, etc dealing with Macs, airports, back up hard drives and the digital hard drive source?
Follow Ups:
xmas,
Thanks a plenty for the primer. It is getting me on the way to hard drive music-land. Still, I have to adapt this and the other bits of info so my ancient binary brain can make sense of it, not purchase unwisely, and hopefully, leave the arena of expensive cd players in the near future. Gracias again. farmdoc
you are very welcome -and rereading your original post which I misread completely, no mini-coax to SPDIF is not likely to be a very happy thing...
Hi -my duh - coax is much easier - lots more from the same crowd and many others
no basic book though I am thinking about writing one LOL
So basically in the land of Mac there are two ways to get your data off of the hard drive and out of the computer: USB and Ethernet. (ergo concept one is that whatever you do will always go through the computer in some form unless its a network server or coming off of the Internet)
USB is basically a one way system meaning that there is no USB DAC that allows you to control/access the library. So if the computer is in the same place you are doing your listening all is good - if its not it gets awkward, I mean do you really want to have to get off the couch and go to another room to pick a track? Hint - NO
The Squeezebox and its revved up sibling The Transporter, are network devices. Meaning that they hang on your Ethernet or WiFi network like another computer, a router, a printer etc. And because Ethernet is two way, using the supplied remote and the LED display on the unit you can access the library over the network. Meaning that the hard drive can be at one end of the house and you can access it from any room you have put on the network without leaving your seat. You can also drive it from a computer if you like - all free software with the unit.
In addition, you can create a NAS - network server - basically a stack of drives in some out of the way place in your house where the noise is not bothersome. And you can bypass your computer completely and by connecting the SB to the Internet stream radio - some great stuff out there.
It's more powerful the Airport Express because its two way
The Squeezebox (SB) has a built in DAC. So you can either output SPDIF (pre DAC obviously) to your own DAC, or output an analog pair to your preamp (post DAC) If you get into this and buy into the mods from Bolder Cable or some of the emerging modders, you will probably use the analog out. Which means you can feed a very high quality source straight into a pre, an integrated or a receiver anywhere in the house without a DAC, SPDIF cable, fancy power cord etc...
Now the ultra nice thing IMHO is that you can mix and match USB and SB devices and access the same iTunes library. So for instance - I have a USB Brick in my office, a SB in the bedroom, a heavily modded SB in the home theater room and another SB in the guest room. And of course I also feed my iPod from that drive. Very powerful and flexible.
As far as hard drives, its the easy part - I prefer to keep all of my library on one hard drive - I have 1,300+ CDs on one 400Gb drive with some room left. Because ripping that many CDs is a PITA I have an identical drive on which I backup the drive.
So most likely you will end up with a pair of Firewire drives though if there is any way to do SATA off your laptop I much prefer it and highly recommend it.
There are some good articles, here is a selection
http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/harddrive/harddrive.html
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/4564.html
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue22/nugent.htm
http://musicserver.blogspot.com/
Hope this is more encouraging then discouraging. Think of it this way, you bought a Mac it's all easy from there...
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