Do you serve your music on a music server?

To Serve or not to serve

Bernard said:

I am almost embarrassed to say that I do not own a music server of any kind. All of my music listening is done via vinyl or CD's. I do, however, have one song on my iPhone that I downloaded. Does that count ?

I find that I no longer sit and listen critically to music; I'm more into just enjoying the music. My perspective on life has changed after doing battle with a recent serious illness.

Click to expand...

Hi Bernard, As I am writing this, I am in the long process of cleaning my several thousand vinyl records on an Audio Desk System cleaner. So you can see where my heart really is. However, I also have about 5000 CDs which only duplicate about 1/3 of my LP collection. I was a server hold-out until about 4 years ago when I got my first Squeezebox. It escalated from there and now I have a Squeezebox Touch, Meridian Sooloos, and most recently a Bryston BDP-1 digital player. What I discovered was that when I had gotten all of my CDs downloaded to a server, I was actually listening to music that I would have never gotten around to hearing with the usual hunt and peck search of my shelves, even though everything was arranged alphabetically. The other consideration was getting access to much higher resolution music files through downloads. These are game changers and blow away standard CDs for the most part. Fortunately you can get into the server game relatively inexpensively. To my ear, there are no sonic shortcomings of FLAC stored files and you can construct playlists ad infinitum. Just a thought
Lawrence

Hi JonFo,

I, for one, really like my stupid SACD's.

I guess I'm old fashioned or ignorant or both.

GG

I am waiting for a newer version of the Touch or Duet with a better
hand held controller. I've thought about buying the Touch and
using an Ipod or Ipad as a controller, but not sure if that'll work.
I'd rather wait for version 3 before buying an Ipad. Right now,
most of my listening is with a Rotel HD tuner. These days,
seems like it's in use way more than my CD player. They have a
couple of good HD stations in Denver with no commercials.
Aside from my speakers, i'd have to say that's been my best
purchase for musical enjoyment.

I will be buying a streamer in the future, but will probably
wait until Itunes offers uncompressed hi resolution downloads.
I hear Apple is presently in talks about adding that feature.
Right now, given a choice between HD radio quality or internet
radio, i'll stick with HD.

I use squeeze box, squeeze touch, and duet in my home. the job of ripping to flac several years ago (EAC) for my then 1000cd collection has been well worth the effort. Since then all CDs that we buy are ripped.

Much easier to find music and resample memories. Quality is very high.

babydoc said:

What I discovered was that when I had gotten all of my CDs downloaded to a server, I was actually listening to music that I would have never gotten around to hearing with the usual hunt and peck search of my shelves, even though everything was arranged alphabetically.

Click to expand...

Lawrence, I do realize that it would be the same for me, but my finances do not permit it at this time.

I keeping coming across CD's I had forgotten I had, even though they are neatly (and alphabetically in most cases) arranged all in one place.

babydoc said:

The other consideration was getting access to much higher resolution music files through downloads. These are game changers and blow away standard CDs for the most part. Fortunately you can get into the server game relatively inexpensively. To my ear, there are no sonic shortcomings of FLAC stored files and you can construct playlists ad infinitum. Just a thought
Lawrence

Click to expand...

Much higher resolution music files is great so long as you can get the music you want. Way back when, when I visited my sister I used to ask her to play me a certain piece of music she had on cassette, and I enjoyed it despite the low resolutioin.

win xp running media monkey feeding and external dac..does that count?

IPeng on an itouch works fine to control a touch

The remote from my duet also works well.

JonFo said:

My music server / player is as follows:

- Win7 QuadCore PC with several TB of storage
- > 1,300 CD's ripped to FLAC
- > 50 DVD-A's ripped to mch FLAC
- Purchased mch FLAC's downloads from AIX and others
- FooBar2000 player

-using WASAPI interface
-fooTouchRemote so I can remote control via iPhone/iPad and Apple Remote app
- VST plug-in host + several VST effects (tube emulators and the such) for fun, rarely used.
-Cool visualization modules (MilkDrop) since this in my HT​

- Multichannel HDMI feed to my Denon AVP-A1 preamp

The ability to play 24/96 multichannel ripped form DVD-A or purchased is the winner here. Great sound quality and extreme convenience.

I still feel the Denon universal player using DenonLink (clock synch with pre-amp) still wins on raw audio-quality, but the delta is super small. And of course, I still need that player for the stupid SACD's which I still can't rip.

I use the server about 98% of the time when listening to music.

Click to expand...

I like where you went with this. Not sure why I did not think of using foobar since it has been my exclusive player on my PCs for years and years. I have been playing with the iPod Touch remote app and it works great!

Now I wonder if I can use the UPNP/DLNA component for Foobar to stream to a Denon or Integra AVR with the ability to be used as a renderer. Or if someone can come up with a Airplay component for Foobar....hmmmm. Might be worth shot. Not sure how it would handle hi-res though. Fun project anyway.

I can always build a PC just for the tunes....time for an upgrade anyway.

System 1 a good spec Win 7 laptop running Media Player with all CDs ripped lossless to an async USB to coax converter to DAC.

System 2 Vista PC to ASUS Xonar Essence Souncard to amp. Same rip scenario.

Both run Spotify on demand service which is 320kbps Ogg Vorbis.

Both remotely controlled via VNC connections from an iPhone 4. I can therefore control the desktops of both systems anywhere in the house - on the toilet - in the bath etc. Cool.

I recently became a convert and sold my Ayre cd player to purchase an Ayre QB-9. This is connected via USB to a Macbook Pro running itunes in conjunction with Pure Music. I have found when all the settings have been chosen properly for the highest fidelity playback it supersedes my old cd player by quite a margin. Currently the laptop sits on a black box next to the listening chair and I operate it using a Magic Trackpad, which sits on my arm rest. I have ripped all of my cd library to the Mac and have downloaded a few hi res files as well. I plan to go this route in the future, and will continue to buy cd's only when it is either cheaper or easy to purchase. Otherwise I will download them from trusted sites as long as the full resolution is available.

Glen

I use the TMS-1 as my primary source for a couple of years now. Took months to rip my CD library but was well worth it. Primary format: FLAC. The server with the disk is in the home office, the TMS-1 client in the listening room, can be controlled from any networked device in the house, currently using a netbook or a tablet as remote controls. Works like a charm.

1. Do you usea music server in your system?
2. If so, which one(s) do you use?

Yes..Master library is a MacMini. My favourite tracks from each CD has been burned down using Apple Lossless (iTunes)
My top 500 track are on my MacBook Air.

3. Is this your primary listening source?

Yes.. primary source is the MAcBook Air via Furutech USB cable into a PSAudio DL3. Can link to the MacMini system for music not on the MBA.
Playback is generally iTunes or Decibel. Preferring Decibel these days.
With iTunes.. love the Remote app for control.

4. Do you use the server to archive CDs you already own or do you use it to store digital download files or both?

Mostly to archive CD's. Purchase pop singles through iTunes. If there is an excellent CD, I will purchase it and rip it via iTunes.
Always looking for good hi-res sources for downloads. That's one reason I'm starting to use Decibel.

5. In the future, do you see your buying habits shifting away from physical discs to downloads?

For me the future is hi-res downloads.

I was wondering if anyone (Babydoc?) has taken vinyl, sampled it (ADC) it to CD or high-res digital, stored it on a server, then done a comparison between the vinyl and the server versions.

Self constructed PC> Foobar2000> M-Audio 192 soundcard(Digital out)> Outlaw 970 Pre/Pro.

Bullet Proof

Apple Mac Mini 500Gb(using Itunes/Pure Music)--->Musical Fidelity V-Link asynchronous USB converter--->PS Audio DL III--->pre/amp.

I dont own CD player or TT...I have found my system to sound at least as good as any CD transport I have ever heard in person.

BTW, I do have some AAC music bought from Itunes awhile back but buying alot of CD's now and burning them in AICC format....havent downloaded any upsampled tracks yet....I typically only(well mostly anyway) see jazz and classical on those formats

I'm currently using a mac mini with Amarra softgware, to bypass Apple's Core Audio and enable playback of PCM up to 192kHz. My DAC is Ayre QB-9. Control is via an i-pod with the Remote app. I went with the QB-9 because it uses an apodizing filter and asynchronous usb mode for re-clocking. Sounds much better than my CD, SACD, DVD-A player, a Pioneer Elite machine. When more of the music I like is available as hi-rez downloads, I will likely jump on that bandwagon. I downloaded all of my CDs using AIFF. I mostly listen to music via the server, due to the convenience, but regularly listen to vinyl, especially for jazz. I personally get a sense of "being there" more fully with good vinyl.

Hardware: HP Dual core Business PC with push-pull fans (extra quiet). 32" Toshiba TV as PC display (soon to be upgraded to 42"). Backup provided via eSATA drive on remote notebook. HRT Music Streamer II+ USB DAC. Firefly remote.

Software: Windows Vista running Meedio music software. CDs ripped to Lossless Win Media format or FLAC. In process of trashing/segregating some MP3s...

I'm hooked on the music server and really enjoy Meedio. I've tried multiple others such as Media Monkey, J River, Foobar, etc but none have the native GUI as flexible and clean as Meedio (now MeediOS). 24/96 downloads sound fantastic and HDtracks is adding more and more albums of all genres all the time. I believe HD files and music servers are the wave of the present...

Vinyl to digital comparison

Bernard said:

I was wondering if anyone (Babydoc?) has taken vinyl, sampled it (ADC) it to CD or high-res digital, stored it on a server, then done a comparison between the vinyl and the server versions.

Click to expand...

Hi Bernard,
I have done this twice, some time ago, transferring a couple of my favorite lps to CD. I can't remember what software I used but it was freeware from the internet. I am certain things are better now but I was less than thrilled with the results and suspected that the software added some compression since the lp sounded relatively dead. Also, because it had to be done in real time so I could add track indicators. The software did not have denoiser functions but that is available now in the better programs.
Given the premise that life is short, I felt that my time was better served by focusing on other things like ripping CDs to my music servers, a far more automated process, and resulting in sound that often was better than that coming from my transport. I also must confess that I find the ritual of record cleaning, stylus cleaning, and putting on the record weight and outer ring, still very satisfying, so I will probably listen to most of my vinyl in its native format.

Bernard,

They did an example of that for us at one of the rooms at the Axpona audio show. I think it was Channel-D pure vinyl software. Here is a link: Channel D Pure Vinyl

Rich,

The link comes up but nothing seems to work on it.