£1000 question (well recommendations request really)

[admin_exported]

Budget up to £1000 to recommend a good iTunes based storage and playback solution. Initially I'm only really interested in music (probably Apple Lossless
from CD), live internet radio a bonus, but the ability to stream BBC
iPlayer radio content is pretty important too. Preference would be to not require my Mac to be on for iTunes playback, but I think this may be unrealistic?

The direction my research is heading so far is some form of NAS + Airport Express + DAC + reasonable Micro Hifi. The AX & DAC I guess will be £200-250, so I guess what I'm also asking is what is the best area to invest a little extra in the DAC or Hifi (or even forget DAC for now and go with the AX built in to start with as I've seen suggested on other responses)?

Obviously, I realise I'm not going to get perfection on this budget, but we have to start somewhere, so future upgradability would be good. Option to also input optical outs from TV/DVD would be great, but not a priority at the moment.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[John Duncan]

The airport express sounds fine on its own, but a DAC puts it into proper hifi territory. The issue you have is iPlayer radio content - iTunes won't stream it natively, you need to add Airfoil, which kind of requires you to have your Mac on....

Further, any NAS solution is less than perfect, as far as I can see, as they don't act like 'real' iTunes, just as attached libraries (though I haven't tried a real NAS running an iTunes server). Ergo, I have my music stored on twin network drives, but use my Mac as the server for an Airport Express/DACMagic, have Airfoil for non-iTunes content, and iPod Touch as remote, and it's nigh-on perfect.

 

[Anonymous]

This is a more left-field suggestion but it might just work for you:
Just get whatever NAS suits you (or use the inbuilt hard disk--I'll get to that in a sec). Really, any NAS will do fine. Then choose a fromat you like (e.g. Apple Lossless or FLAC or hell even WAV). Then get the cheapest Netbook you can find (I'm sure you've heard the term by now--they're the new craze ultra-cheap, ultra-portable laptops); I know of one that sells here for AU$349 (so what 170-ish GBP). Then get the DACMagic and hook it up to it--either by some weird 3.5mm to Optical or just by USB (some claim it introduces more jitter, others claim that it eliminates noise due to the fact of grounding (or lack of) or something like that). Now you have a micro-PC (like 7" screen) that you can use for more than just Audio--it's a PC after all. You can either hook this PC up wireless or via a wired ethernet network (CAT6a is da bomb!--being an audio person I don't expect you to know what that means

I'm a PC nut as well). So basically whatever audio is supposed to be output from the PC will be output to your Hi-Fi. So that means movies, ANY audio format (you are not bound by any hardware limitations anymore) BBC iPlater, WMPlayer, anything. Then you just need a Micro Hi-Fi or integrated amp. The Denon reviewed by WHF (also appears in the 2008 Awards issue if I'm not mistaken) would be a great start. Finally your music can be stored on your Netbooks hard drive for convenience or for being cost effective. Later, you can buy a NAS for more storage or so any device in your house can use the music

The beauty of this system is you can start small and cheap and expand. For example:
Netbook -> Micro Hi-Fi
Netbook -> DAC -> Micro Hi-Fi
NAS -> Netbook -> Micro-Hi-Fi
NAS -> Netbook -> DAC -> Micro-Hi-Fi

The combinations are great, the flexibilty enormous, and the inital invetment minute. It's a great system. But, remember, it was to work for YOU. It would work great for me (I'm going to be doing something very similar just with more expensive components), but it must be suitable for you, your needs and your lifestyle.

Hope I could help. Cheers.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks both for your time and suggestions. Certainly something to think about. I did think that not needing a computer on in the middle was a little optimistic - I guess in time...

So, I guess once I've got the NAS/AX/DAC I just need to get the best hifi I can afford.

 

[BlackSpy]

Another option would be to get a Squeezebox. I have one, and I'm about to buy another. http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_squeezebox.html

You don't need to have your PC on for it to do internet stuff, like radio or any files you have uploaded to services like MP3 locker. It does just about every file type going so no proprietary nonsense to worry about and it'll read your iTunes library and search within it etc. It does BBC stuff, including podcasts and what have you (needs a free plugin, but that's not a big deal). The DAC is great and it does fun stuff like act as an RSS reader.

Get a Squeezebox, hook it up to your network wirelessly or wired and then output it straight to your amp.

 

[Anonymous]

Blow the whole budget on active speakers.

 

[BlackSpy]

Get £870 worth of active speakers and squeezebox!