New to Digital Hi-fi

[iggy888]

Newbie alert!

I'm fairly happy with my current audio / video set up, however, I want to look at ripping all my CDs / DVDs onto the NAS that I'm building.

I've had some conflicting advice from Richer Sounds and Superfi and compared with what I've read I'm even more confused: (you need a dac, no you don't you need a new AV amp, no you don't you need a streamer etc. etc?)

Basically, I want to listen to lossless audio and watch films making the best use of my existing equipment or a small investment, with some advice for future upgrade / expansion. The audio is much more important to me at this stage.

My intention is to rip via dbpoweramp to my NAS and then connect a networked Apple TV via HDMI to my AV amp for the time being and control via iTunes from my iPad, with a view to upgrading a bit later to make better use of the Cyrus 8 and Dynaudios.

Am I missing something obvious or is there a better way to go? I'd grateful for any help as I feel like I'm in the "Not the Nine O'Clock News" sketch trying to buy a gramophone :doh:

 

[cheeseboy]

the set up you have described above should work fine. Once you have that up and running you can see how you get on and then maybe look at getting a dedicated dac for the apple tv as AV amps tend not to be the greatest at just stereo sound. But that's for down the road. You've got pretty much everything you need to get yourself up and running as is.

 

[iggy888]

Phew thanks. I've been considering a Pioneer N50 to port analogue into my Cyrus 8, but I'm in no hurry if this setup will work.

Thanks for your help cheeseboy (I can avoid getting a bag on my head)!

 

[Craig M.]

If you plan on using the ATV to read from your NAS you'll need an ATV2 and to jailbreak it. As far as I know the ATV3 can't be jailbroken. I tried ripping my DVDs to my Mac and then using Airplay to send them to the ATV but the picture quality was garbage, so now they are on the NAS and the jailbroken ATV reads them (using XBMC) straight from there. My music is played from the NAS too, but in that case it is using the Audio Station software that comes with my NAS and streamed over ethernet to the ATV, a phone app controls music playback direct from the NAS - the ATV just outputs it via optical for me.

 

[Overdose]

If you plan on using the ATV to read from your NAS you'll need an ATV2 and to jailbreak it.

There is an app that enables streaming direct from a NAS to an ATV without any faffing. I forget its name, but it apparently works fine.

 

[Craig M.]

Is that via Airplay? That's the only way I can see it working, an Airplay app for the NAS. My experience of streaming video with Airplay hasn't been that good, could've been me clocking something up though...

 

[amcluesent]

>connect a networked Apple TV<

Apple TV resamples everything to 48Khz. Seems a shame to carefully rip CDs to lossless, then have the cheap player do a fugly 44.1 to 48 resample.

Plus the Apple TV will need iTunes 11 running somewhere on the network. Synology do a work around of an iOS app that pulls music off their NAS, then pushes to an Airplay streamer from iPhone/iPad.

IMHO, dbPowerAmp ripping to lossless FLAC/NAS/Sonos CONNECT/Sonos app for iOS/Andriod is a much better proposition and opens up the options of PLAY:3 and PLAY:5 for kitchen, bedroom etc.

Video duties can be handled by Apple TV of you want or a Popcorn Hour or Ryan PlayOn dedicated video unit

 

[iggy888]

Thanks everybody for all the help and advice.

I've managed to pick up a Pioneer N50 at £379, so will dedicate that to music and use the ATV for video and then see where I go to from there.

 

[Overdose]

Good stuff. Glad you got sorted.