Best media tank for over a 1000 Cds in Flac format

[admin_exported]

Hi I'm looking for a media tank (media player with a hard disc inside) to hook up to my Revox RSP1098 preamp

I've been using a popcorn c200 but this is extremely poor for music and the new 300 is no better, they have no means of playing shuffle modes unless you choose a folder at a time

I'm looking for a player where I can just choose the main music folder, with about a 1000 subfolders, (one folder per CD) and let it play in shuffle mode, this is when I don't want to listen to a particulier album

Altough this seems simple, like any MP3 player can do, its rather hard to find on media centers, as I stated popcorn is unable to do this, and there are no MP3 player that can stock about 650gigs at a time

Thanks

 

[The_Lhc]

Sonos can do it but it doesn't have a hard drive built in, you'd need a separate NAS, personally speaking I'd say that was preferable anyway as you can swap out the storage without having to change the player at the same time. You'd be nowhere near Sonos' track limit with 1000 CDs either.

 

[cheeseboy]

best bet would probably be a small atom based pc, like the acer revo or lenovo idea center and then slap on XBMC or Plex. Easy as pie and would do everything you need. Cost would only be that of the pc as all the software is free and you get remote apps for android and ios

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks

Maybe I should add that I have all the files on my PC, Win 7 64, but this is of course in another room (but always on), so should I change direction and go for somthing like a Squeezbox Touch and just let it 'read' from my PC, this is rather a grey area for me not having looked into it yet.

 

[bigboss]

Both Sonos & Squeezebox Touch can read off your PC & play music, which would also mean that your PC needs to be switched on. The advantage of a NAS is that you don't have to switch your PC on to play music & it consumes a lot less electricity. Something to think about as a long term investment...

 

[Overdose]

A NAS uses less power than a Pc, but then you need a streamer/media player to be on. A small form factor Pc might be a more cost effective approach, although not the definitive answer.

As a guide, I have probably over 1100 albums now, some multi disc sets, taking the count of individual discs well over that. The amount of storage used so far, is around 500GB, all music stored lossless in either FLAC or ALAC, though mostly FLAC.

I have used a mini ATX Pc in the past and it worked very well with Linux runnning XBMC, both with the remote control hand set and via the iPad remote. It was also contollable via remote access with my laptop. I now use a Mac mini, in a very similar setup.

You might like to consider that a Pc will also play high resolution discs and act as a DVD/Blu-Ray player, with a suitable optical drive fitted.

Hope this helps.

 

[amcluesent]

>I'm looking for a player where I can just choose the main music folder, with about a 1000 subfolders, <

Music players don't care (much) about folders, they read the meta-data tags in the files to build their own database of the music library. The 1st time you do this, you'll realise your tagging is a shambles and it'll take many hours to sort. Everyone goes through this pain, but the result is far more better than just navigating folders.

Your PC should be capable of being configured for Wake-On-LAN (WOL), so Squeezebox can wake it from sleeping (drawing < 10W) when needed. If you have a server machine already a NAS is not needed once you have WOL.

 

[nads]

A 1Gb NAS. Should do you for now for your files. I run a 2 Gb readynas NAS in raid giving me 1Gb of expandable storage. It runs the squeeze software (Logitec media server now) playback via a classic squeezebox a squeezebox touch and a squeezebox radio. I can also controll it via my iPad or iPhone and also use those two as vertical squeeze players. Eg I want at headphone moment I can use the iPhone and be mobile around tha apartment and controll the tunes from it or the iPad. And the all can be synced to play the same tunes or different.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys, it looks like I'm down to 3 choices

Either the WD TV live hub that apprently with the latest firmware can read any music file from any folder or level, berfore it could only read from one folder level, this is interesting as it could replace my popcorn C200 which I use for films or TV series (I could then sell the popcorn and get a little money back )

Or

Either a Sonos or Squeezebox, as I've already said my PC is always on 24/24 as its in my office,

Both these choices seem to be about the same cost so difficult to decide which is best

For info my music is already tagged, with correct titles, images etc

 

[bigboss]

Both Squeezebox & Sonos are brilliant products. I chose Sonos because it does not use your network's wifi which has a higher tendency to get audio dropouts & relies on its own mesh network. Squeezebox supports sampling rates upto 24 bit / 96KHz which Sonos doesn't support. Check the subtle differences between the two & decide which is best for you.

 

[Andrew Everard]

A 1Gb NAS. Should do you for now for your files. I run a 2 Gb readynas NAS in raid giving me 1Gb of expandable storage.

Just to clarify for the OP, I think you mean TB, not GB – ie tera not giga, and bytes not bits.

So he should be looking for a one terabyte or 2 terabyte unit – I'd go for at least 2TB as a kick-off, as IME these things fill up very quickly.

 

[Anonymous]

This great, keep all the ideas coming please

I can add that I have the network already 'plumbed' by cable in where my hifi is and wifi if needed about 4 meters aways as hava send routeur next to the hifi and TV

 

[The_Lhc]

as hava send routeur next to the hifi and TV

Pardon?

 

[cheeseboy]

Either the WD TV live hub that apprently with the latest firmware can read any music file from any folder or level, berfore it could only read from one folder level, this is interesting as it could replace my popcorn C200 which I use for films or TV series (I could then sell the popcorn and get a little money back )

Or

Either a Sonos or Squeezebox, as I've already said my PC is always on 24/24 as its in my office,

I guess it just boils down to how you want to control it, and if you want an extra box alongside the popcorhour, or a replacement.

If it's a replacement then you're going to have to go with something like the WD.

 

[Anonymous]

whoops,

"as hava send routeur next to the hifi and TV"

meant : I have the routeur sitting next to the Hifi and TV (forget my Englsih as have been living abroad for over 30 years)

 

[bigboss]

This might interest you.

 

[The_Lhc]

I don't think Brennan support FLAC.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks, the Brennan is to expensive and not exactly what I had in mind

I'm looking closely at the WD TV live hub as this means that I can sell the popcorn c200, so in all costing me less

The critics seem to be good and the FW seems to be updated quite often