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Wireless for the Keyboard, Not the Computer?


I use a wireless router to access the internet on my Sony VAIO laptop which I can then move around the house. This Sony laptop usually lives on my desktop, where it is hooked up to an external video monitor, and has USB out to connect it to a desktop audio system which consists of Behringer amps, an EQ and ATC monitors.

My desk is also in my listening room with my main 2 channel system.

I spend a lot of time sitting at my desk - where I can work, surf the web, watch the news etc - AND listen to the ATCs which sound very good.

But sometimes I am really tempted to DISconnect the laptop, move across the room to the sofa, and connect the USB output directly to my main rig through an Audio Research DAC, in order to listen through the main speakers. In theory, this is easy to do, but in practice, it is a bit of a pain, and I miss the larger video monitor when working directly from the laptop.

This dilemma has me thinking.....

* What if all of my audio files were ripped and stored not to my Sony laptop, but to a larger desktop computer?
* Where the larger, desktop computer could be a) optimized for audio and b) hard wired to both the desktop and the main system's DACs at all times?
* This way, to move across the room and sit on the sofa while listening to my big rig, I could use a wireless KEYBOARD?
* And a VGA splitter box to hard wire a second, full size video monitor?


This way, it seems I could get rid of the laptop, but still move around the room by simply picking up the wireless keyboard? Use a bigger video monitor...and also improve the audio quality?

A smaller point, but I would also like to ditch the laptops as they are always breaking.

Advice on this or any other PC configurations greatly appreciated and thank you.

But please please please, dont say: "just get a Mac"?!



cwlondon
rdc2000
27 posts
 
I should have looked at your system before commenting. Point taken.

Blind tests aside, having a desktop PC in a listening room (with all the challenges that come with them - not the least of which is fan noise) doesn't seem like the most elegant solution these days, even for those of us who like to torture ourselves!

You may want to at least check out Slim Devices Transporter (review up on sonicflare.com now) or Olive or the McIntosh MS750 thing the NY Times wrote about a week or two ago. (Put Another File in the Jukebox, Baby. Feb. 20 issue) For $6,000 I thought the author was seriously demented for choosing the MS750, but to each his own...

Network drives stored in another room can be be connected via ethernet to most of these servers and then physically connected to the dac. The sound from the best ones out there should, imho, rival anything coming from a pc and probably be a lot more user friendly.

And as you've probably been around here a while, you know that there have been plenty of threads "proving" other lossless formats (apple/flac) will sound as good WAV.

Either way, good hunting. That's a hell of a nice setup you've got there...
rdc2000
27 posts
 
edit-
I just looked at the NYT article again. He recommended the Olive over the McIntosh. Not that the article will be of much help, he barely discusses sound. Ease of ripping seems to be the biggest factor for the author..
cwlondon OP
1,210 posts
 
Rdc2000

Thank you for the compliment and glad you enjoyed my system link - I have put a lot of time and thought into the room, but of course, there always remains a long way to go....

Network drives in another room - now you are speaking my language!

I am increasingly realizing that most of the PC work I do involves email or other sites. More and more I am therefore thinking that all of my files and work should be outsourced to a more robust system than my usual laptops. Perhaps a home network that is otherwise hard wired to external DACs is the ticket...

Obviously, ease of ripping and/or my ability to fit 17,000 songs on an iPod nano is not my highest priority....
cytocycle
1,043 posts
 
I'll throw another mix on how I use my Squeezebox 3 in my system. I have a 3.5TB Thecus N5200pro NAS with my music ripped in loseless FLAC and my media center pc by my video system is running slimserver (Squeezebox Client software) because I'm too lazy to load slimserver on my NAS right now. I have the squeezebox modified by Bolder with the Bolder Ultimate Powersupply connected to wi-fi and I use my remote, or my palm, or my TabletPC, or my projector to allow me to choose my music. The new Squeezebox remote is totally cool also.

I used a Sonos system which requires way less work to setup and the remote is awesome except once your collection gets to big it takes too long to scroll through all the artists.

If you did direct connect you can use VNC or Remote Console in XP professional to connect to a hardwired system to you audio system. or you can get an RF wireless keyboard and mouse (which I use on my HTPC) to control your system, or a firefly remote with Girder or something also.. There are too many options..
rdc2000
27 posts
 
I use a laptop as well. (fujitsu S series. carried it all over the world since 2003 without a problem.) And like you, it's used primarily for email and web sites. When I started loading my music files on, it filled up the drive pretty quickly and overburdened the OS quite a bit. (itunes on PC is a memory hog)

Anyway, moving the music to an external drive was the best thing I ever did. I use the laptop for ripping to the network drive (attached via ethernet for speed and accuracy) and to control the playlists (wirelessly to Sonos ZP80). Without the burden of playing music while simultaneously doing a host of other things, a bunch of problems were eliminated. It doesn't take a very stout computer to handle emails and web surfing.(outside of being able to take physical punishment)

Though Sonos may not have the quality of sound you are looking for (without mods anyway), Transporter or Olive might.
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