Help -- need Idiot's Guide to music server system

The first thing you need to do is to calculate your storage requirements/capacity. If you compress the CDs' WAVs to FLAC format, you'll need approx. 300-400 MB per CD. If you have 1,000 CDs, this means you need approx. 300-400 GB of hard disc space. As another poster mentioned, you will need 2 drives like this - Primary and Backup. I would recommend you not skimp and simply buy 2 1 TB (TeraByte = 1,000 GigaBytes). This will provide you with a backup as well as room to grow.

I just bought a Maxtor 1 TB drive for $225. It's well-built, fast, has USB and FireWire connections, and has a 5 year warranty. Get 2 of these.

Then, you need a device that will take the music files stored on the hard discs, decode them, and pipe them out to your hi-fi system. Lots of folks use big, fancy music servers. These are very nice, but some are QUITE expensive.

I'm a bit of a skin-flint, here's my setup: $500 Acer laptop running several different pieces of software for playback: Windows Media Player, WinAmp, and FooBar. They all do about the same thing, they play back music files. They can play back WAVs, FLACs, SHNs, MP3s and several other file formats. I use FLAC because it's free, it's "lossless", and it works quite well. It compresses a WAV to about 60% of its original size with NO loss of audio quality.

Attached to this laptop is a LinkSys Wireless MusicBridge, approx. $90. This device takes the music generated by the software on the laptop and sends it to my hi-fi system. I can "stream" the music to the LinkSys wirelessly, or I can use an Ethernet cable to hard-wire the connection. I use the Ethernet cable, it's more reliable and supports higher speeds.

So, I attach the MusicBridge to my laptop using an Ethernet cable and then I attach the MusicBridge to my hi-fi by using a coax digital cable into one of my Digital Inputs on my pre-processor. This allows me to use the DACs in my pre-processor (very good ones) instead of the ones that the MusicBridge has. They're "okay", but not as good as my pre-pro's.

That's about it. I use my laptop running one of the aforementioned software programs to play back the FLAC files stored on the hard discs and the MusicBridge takes care of getting the signal to my hi-fi. BTW, it sounds pretty darn good [smile].

Total "investment" is about $1,000. That buys you a laptop PC, 2 external hard discs, and the LinkSys Wireless MusicBridge.

Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions...

-RW-

I just set mine up. Like the posts mention above, your first decision is to go wireless or hardwired. I decided to hardwire because I can (crawl space and open basement below), more stable and I suspect it's better sonically (but I don't know for sure).

Here's my hardware: Apple G3, one buffalo 500 gig nas, one buffalo 500 gig drivestation turbousb external harddrive, wavelength cosecant usb dac, Iphone as a remote control.

I hardwired the apple to a modem/router which is also hardwired into the Buffalo nas. I have a nas (an external hardrive that can be networked for multiple computers) so that I can access the music database from other computers. Go to Audio Asylum and search "nas" in the digital pc audio forum. The drivestation turbousb is strictly used for back up.

I won't go into all the details of the software but basically you point the apple at the nas so that when you rip cd's it is stored on the nas. And of course you will want to set up Itunes correctly so that you rip the cd's in lossless, etc..

This isn't the only way to do it but, personally, for me, I don't think I can do it any better. It's simple, sounds great and a whole lot of fun. Although a Mac mini would be cool.

A couple of good reads is the pc section of audio assylum (this can be a little overwhelming unless your a geak). Also go to the wavelegth usb dac site.

Thanks to all who have posted such helpful responses!

go to PS Audio website and read article in monthly magazine which tells you what to buy and how to set it up...you're rolling for about $2K plus your own hi fi.
Larry

Jhold - I have new MacMini with OSX on it and 500GB Firewire drive "Neptun" from OWC (pretty quiet) for computer backup. I'm planning (in future) to create music server using another Firewire drive. With the current capacity of CD you could probably store 1500 CDs in Apple lossless format and it's only about $100. When you need to expand you can daisy chain another Firewire Neptun. Backup of the music server comes to mind since you spend a lot of time to rip and compress disks and don't want to loose it. When it comes to that point "Neptun" will be even cheaper and you can daisychain many. Keep backup in different house (Theft, Fire etc).

Connect MacMini's optical out using Tosslink (possibly glass one) to the DAC. I use jitter rejecting Benchmark DAC1 that cost around $1k. Get newer USB version ($300 more) just in-case. Benchmark has volume control - I use only digital (CD, DVD, TV) and connect XLR outputs of the Dac to Power amp directly.