Well I've finally done enough research to be happy with the way I want to go with my music. The final solution will be to rip all my CDs to the FLAC format (free lossless audio codec) and pass them to my amplifier via a slimdevices squeezebox 3 wirelessly:
The squeezebox is fed by the slimdevices free opensource music server software "slimserver" which is constantly being updated and plugins created - I have been trialling this for a while now and using my wireless laptop to pretend it's the squeezebox - there is a software version of the squeezebox which although doesn't perform as well as the real thing, it gives a good idea of the potential.
The squeezebox can access internet radio while the music server is disabled (PC off or server app turned off), so music choices are still available at all times. It can also do RSS feeds and display them on as a screensaver if you choose. The latest plugin I've tried is AlienBBC which allows you to stream the BBC "listen again" and BBC podcasts via the squeezebox. It's got a high quality DAC (digital to analogue convertor) but supports optical and coax digital output too, so I'll be trying out both (I don't think the DAC in my amp is that great so I'm pleased it has a decent DAC built in). It's got a JVC-spec remote so should work fine just using amp remote. All very impressive. There's even a sideways version of Tetris on it And finally, you can set up the music server stream so you can connect to it from anywhere on the Internet, so any of your music, wherever you are, recoding the stream to your pipe size if necessary (a bit like I used to use orb.com for).
However, since most of my tunes are still in mp3 format, they don't currently take up much space, but once I've finished reripping them as FLAC, I'm going to have space issues e.g. mp3 at 192bitrate for an example album takes up 47MB, whereas the FLAC version takes up 190MB, so since my current 192bitrate mp3 collection is 30GB, I'm going to need 4X space = 120GB, just for my current set of music and my PC HD is only 160GB capacity
So after the price of hard discs comes down in price in 6 months time (fingers crossed), I'm going to buy one of these:
It's a "Qnap" NAS which allows you to store your music, videos, images and other files and the built-in web server, FTP server, photo station and print server sort you out so you don't even need to have the PC turned on at all. You plug a USB2 HD into it and it allows installation of the slimserver (if you buy it from here slimserver comes ready installed!)
It will email you if the disc nears certain % and can also be used as a backup device. I will of course have to get a 2nd HD of similar size to backup all the music on to occassionally - don't want to go through the FLAC rip process more than once ever
In the not too distant future, when you can get 300GB of hosting space cheaply, I'll keep all the music elsewhere, but this seems like a good solution for now.
I'll keep you updated on how it goes. The slimserver app is already in use on my PC and the squeezebox has just been ordered from that same place as the qnap link above, with free DHL delivery so should be here soon. I went for the black version (it's the colour of the back, not the front) to match the rest of my hifi kit and to avoid looking too ipody. I'm like an excited kid at Christmas now!
The squeezebox is fed by the slimdevices free opensource music server software "slimserver" which is constantly being updated and plugins created - I have been trialling this for a while now and using my wireless laptop to pretend it's the squeezebox - there is a software version of the squeezebox which although doesn't perform as well as the real thing, it gives a good idea of the potential.
The squeezebox can access internet radio while the music server is disabled (PC off or server app turned off), so music choices are still available at all times. It can also do RSS feeds and display them on as a screensaver if you choose. The latest plugin I've tried is AlienBBC which allows you to stream the BBC "listen again" and BBC podcasts via the squeezebox. It's got a high quality DAC (digital to analogue convertor) but supports optical and coax digital output too, so I'll be trying out both (I don't think the DAC in my amp is that great so I'm pleased it has a decent DAC built in). It's got a JVC-spec remote so should work fine just using amp remote. All very impressive. There's even a sideways version of Tetris on it And finally, you can set up the music server stream so you can connect to it from anywhere on the Internet, so any of your music, wherever you are, recoding the stream to your pipe size if necessary (a bit like I used to use orb.com for).
However, since most of my tunes are still in mp3 format, they don't currently take up much space, but once I've finished reripping them as FLAC, I'm going to have space issues e.g. mp3 at 192bitrate for an example album takes up 47MB, whereas the FLAC version takes up 190MB, so since my current 192bitrate mp3 collection is 30GB, I'm going to need 4X space = 120GB, just for my current set of music and my PC HD is only 160GB capacity
So after the price of hard discs comes down in price in 6 months time (fingers crossed), I'm going to buy one of these:
It's a "Qnap" NAS which allows you to store your music, videos, images and other files and the built-in web server, FTP server, photo station and print server sort you out so you don't even need to have the PC turned on at all. You plug a USB2 HD into it and it allows installation of the slimserver (if you buy it from here slimserver comes ready installed!)
It will email you if the disc nears certain % and can also be used as a backup device. I will of course have to get a 2nd HD of similar size to backup all the music on to occassionally - don't want to go through the FLAC rip process more than once ever
In the not too distant future, when you can get 300GB of hosting space cheaply, I'll keep all the music elsewhere, but this seems like a good solution for now.
I'll keep you updated on how it goes. The slimserver app is already in use on my PC and the squeezebox has just been ordered from that same place as the qnap link above, with free DHL delivery so should be here soon. I went for the black version (it's the colour of the back, not the front) to match the rest of my hifi kit and to avoid looking too ipody. I'm like an excited kid at Christmas now!
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