socialxray
Well-known member
I can atest that a Squeezebox2 or 3 is the way to go. The Slimserver software as easy as iTunes to setup and is a lot more flexible. Not to mention is sounds good too. There are some bugs that advanced users may run into but for the vast majority of people the software is solid. It is also open source so if you have the skill you can customize it too. Just remember it is not a music manager (like iTunes).
For managing my music I use Media Monkey because it is free and I don't get pop-ups bugging me to upgrade to the paided version. It does a really great job of managing my music as well. I also use it as a tag editor which has many different options. One really useful one is to add tags to your music based on information from Amazon.com. This is useful if you download a lot of music with incomplete tags. Honestly it has a lot of great features for free. The only thing I have ever had needed that was only accessible in the paid version was a FLAC to MP3 transcoder.
I ripped everything to FLAC using REACT and EAC. REACT allows me to rip to different formats without having to reconfigure EAC. It allows me to change formats on the fly, apply replay gain so that all of my music plays at the same level, moves the files to locations on my hard drive depending on the format, and create tags for my MP3s and FLAC files. REACT is not exactly user friendly so it will require some experimentation to get it working the way you want it to work.
For MP3s that I have downloaded I use MP3Gain to apply replay-gain. With MP3Gain you can change the playing level of the file or simply store the playing level in the tag. I use the tag method and my Squeezebox3 is able to read this tag and make the adjustments.
For FLAC files I have downloaded I use the actual FLAC application to decode them and then encode them with replay-gain set. Again the replay-gain setting are held in the tag information and interpretted by my Squeezebox3 on the fly. The FLAC application does include a GUI and is very straight forward.
Since my family does have a few MP3 plays (Apple, Phillips) I use GX::Transcoder to transcode my FLAC files to create lossy MP3s for portable use. This also has a tag editor and a player as well but I do not use it for that since it is easier to use Media Monkey. This software is pretty straight forward to use as well but since the programmers are German it will take a bit of experimentation to get it up and running. The website does contain English instructions/help but you will have to search a bit for it.
Lastly all of this software is free and it is also free of the influences of their bigger corporate competitors such as Microsoft and Microsoft's Mini-Me (that would be Apple). Nobody is trying to force you into being dependant on their software. Just remember that when you buy downloaded music that comes with DRM you are perpetuating a fledgingly monoply. Sure, DRM is usually of minor annoyance but you are limited just the same. And the real music pirates are not hampered at all by DRM.
For managing my music I use Media Monkey because it is free and I don't get pop-ups bugging me to upgrade to the paided version. It does a really great job of managing my music as well. I also use it as a tag editor which has many different options. One really useful one is to add tags to your music based on information from Amazon.com. This is useful if you download a lot of music with incomplete tags. Honestly it has a lot of great features for free. The only thing I have ever had needed that was only accessible in the paid version was a FLAC to MP3 transcoder.
I ripped everything to FLAC using REACT and EAC. REACT allows me to rip to different formats without having to reconfigure EAC. It allows me to change formats on the fly, apply replay gain so that all of my music plays at the same level, moves the files to locations on my hard drive depending on the format, and create tags for my MP3s and FLAC files. REACT is not exactly user friendly so it will require some experimentation to get it working the way you want it to work.
For MP3s that I have downloaded I use MP3Gain to apply replay-gain. With MP3Gain you can change the playing level of the file or simply store the playing level in the tag. I use the tag method and my Squeezebox3 is able to read this tag and make the adjustments.
For FLAC files I have downloaded I use the actual FLAC application to decode them and then encode them with replay-gain set. Again the replay-gain setting are held in the tag information and interpretted by my Squeezebox3 on the fly. The FLAC application does include a GUI and is very straight forward.
Since my family does have a few MP3 plays (Apple, Phillips) I use GX::Transcoder to transcode my FLAC files to create lossy MP3s for portable use. This also has a tag editor and a player as well but I do not use it for that since it is easier to use Media Monkey. This software is pretty straight forward to use as well but since the programmers are German it will take a bit of experimentation to get it up and running. The website does contain English instructions/help but you will have to search a bit for it.
Lastly all of this software is free and it is also free of the influences of their bigger corporate competitors such as Microsoft and Microsoft's Mini-Me (that would be Apple). Nobody is trying to force you into being dependant on their software. Just remember that when you buy downloaded music that comes with DRM you are perpetuating a fledgingly monoply. Sure, DRM is usually of minor annoyance but you are limited just the same. And the real music pirates are not hampered at all by DRM.