Thanks, Mick.
Yes, lots of food for thought there. I need to sit down and do some proper research, but hearing how other people have been managing their music / audio setups is very helpful. :)
Peter.
On 17 March 2015 at 18:34, mick mbm@rlogin.net wrote:
On Tue, 17 Mar 2015 17:18:39 +0000 steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk allegedly wrote:
On 17/03/15 14:25, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 17/03/15 11:31, samwise wrote:
[Snip comment 1]
Is there any device which will provide the above and also things like internet radio functionality (maybe even DAB+?).
[ Lots of deletia ]
I'll add to what Steve has said (and share my experience). Actually I've been meaning to blog about my setup for some time now, but my blogging is woefully behind at the moment. This query may be just the nudge I need to get something done.
Server wise I have two devices. One is my dedicated Music box - a Cocktail Audio X10 which has all my CDs ripped to FLAC. I used to have that plugged into two wired bookcase speakers but after experimenenting with a Sonos Play 1 I managed to convince my wife to buy me a couple more for christmas/birthday (as Steve said, they ain't cheap). I now stream all my music over wifi to two Sonos speakers (set up as a stereo pair) in my study. I have the original Play 1 in the kitchen so that I can listen there as well. The X10 is set up as a Samba server in order to feed the Sonos speakers. I didn't have to do anything clever to get it to work, I just used the default Samba settings on the X10 and pointed the Sonos speakers to it and let it go. Of course the Sonos and X10 have to be on the same network for this to work (I actually have two, an "outer" and "inner" network so that phones and guests can use one and my own stuff is separate). The Sonos devices have no problem handling FLAC files and they sound really good. One of the nice things about the Sonos system is that the speakers can be "grouped" so that they all play the same thing (so you can wander from one room to another and hear the same stuff) or they can all play separate streams (so I can listen to what I want in the study whilst something different is playing in the kitchen (or wherever). The system can also stream the usual huge range of internet radio plus a bunch of paid for music services if that is your thing. The downside of course is that the Sonos system is proprietary (and expensive) and needs a good wifi system in place. You can use wired ethernet, but obvioulsy this is les flexible. There is also no possibility of wired audio input.
Now onto the second device which is my debian based NAS come allsorts server (it runs my DNS and a few other services). This server holds one copy of all my desktop's data (so it includes my photo and video collection as well as my personal data). I NFS export copies of my videos and photos (and MP3 files - see below) to my wife's laptop so that she has access to the collection. I also run a copy of the mediatomb DLNA server on that box so that all my DVDs (ripped to MP4) are available to my (rather too) smart telly.
Now the nice thing about having all my music on the X10 in FLAC format is that I can then re-encode to MP3 on the NAS (which I do with a home spun script) for use on USB sticks in the car or on my portable MP3 player when I'm pounding the treadmill in the gym.
None of this really answers the question about portable hiFi to events, but I hope it is of some use.
Mick
Would be interested in how you get on, esp if you manage to find info on streaming to two speakers simultaneously from one server!
See comment above about separate streams
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