Wireless music

[harveymt]

Im a total novice at all this mp3 malarky and I've got some questions you can hopefully answer.

1.) Firstly, I have a fair proportion of my music saved on my iPod. If I want to play that through my hi-fi (Cambridge Audio 540V2 amp and CD) how do I go about doing that wirelessly? Am I right in thinking that something like airport express would be the way to go? Do I plug this in beside my hi-fi and connect it up to the amp? Do I need any cables for the computer?

2.) Having read more about bit rates etc, I have found that my iTunes has a default setting of ripping everything at 128kps. Bearing that in mind is there any point in streaming from computer as it is saved at the same low quality as on the iPod. Am i just as well connecting the iPod to the amp?

3.) If I change the default to a higher quality, eg Lossless, for future CD rips and perhaps went about re-ripping CDs I've already done can I still put them on my iPod at a lower bitrate to save space? How would this be done? If I did replace everything with Lossless then would it then be worth my while going down the Airport Express route as the music stored on my computer will be far higher quality than iPod?

4.) The DACmagic that is getting good press at the mo, I take it that it would go between the Airport Express and amp? Does it 'upscale' the music? If i decided to do away with the wireless aspect, could I get a cheap laptop with a large hard drive with the sole purpose of supplying music thorugh the amp?

5.) Can anyone supply somewhere that explains FLAC AAC etc, as I see these mentioned alot but Im not too hot on what they all mean.

A ton of questions, but hopefully that'll get me up to speed!

Many thanks.

 

[Ant8519]

Hi there

1 - Don't know if you can stream wirelessly from an ipod via airport express but you can from a pc or mac.

2. 128 kbps will sound poor compared with your cd player regardless of wireless from pc or wired from ipod.

3. Re-rip all new cd's at lossless as an archive copy on your pc and either save a second mirror library for your ipod at 128kbps for portable listening OR when syncing to your ipod have itunes transcode to 128kbps (I think this is possible in itunes - it certainly is in mediamonkey...) This saves having two libraries but increases syncing time.

Probably worth re-ripping all your current cd's too. Having lossless copies means having the best possible quality and allowing transcoding to mp3 or aac anytime you want for portable listening.

4. Don't know about the dac magic but all reviews seem good. Yes it would slot between airport express and amp if you go apple wireless. Using a dacmagic on 128kbps files would seem somewhat pointless, but it will certainly improve lossless sound from pc or mac.

5. flac is free lossless audio codec. Alac is apple lossless audio codec (also referred to as aac sometimes which is confusing as aac is apples own lossy codec, like mp3). Basically they save a copy of your cd as it is but redue the file size compared to wav files. As a rule think cd = 500mb as wav, 300mb as flac or alac and about 50mb as 128kbps mpc/or aac. Falc and wav sound the same as cd, aac/mp3 don't (especially at 128kbps)

Much depends on how big you are on sound quality and how much you are into macs. If you run pc's then a squeezebox duet is a really good alternative solution (in many ways far better than using a laptop or an ipod as a music server) Actually that is true even if you have a mac to be honest. Do a search for squeezebox here or check out slimdevices forum on google.

Obviously more depends on how much you want to spend and how much you can be bothered tinkering with your pc and ripping cd's. I did it primarily because the cd's had taken over my living room and it looked a bit silly. I went down the SB Duet route running from a nas drive. It took some setting up and ripping 1000+ dc's took months but I love the system and having a handheld device that can scroll through all my music is priceless really. What is more surprising is the excellent sound quality, easily as good as my cd player, a rotel rcd-04 (not ridiculously high end but a good quality player)

I did consider the mac route but the extra cost was offputting and after trying them out the SB Duet was for me a better interface than itunes on an itouch or macbook.

Any further q.s just ask

 

[harveymt]

When you say you use a Nas drive, does that mean that you rip your CDs and save them to an external hard drive to which you connect the squeezebox which is connected to your amp? Or is the hard drive connected to your computer which then wirelessly tranmits to the SQBox?

I take it your computer has to on to access these files?

I take it if I got a SQBox I could add a DACMagic if required?

The real seller could be Internet radio as I was thinking of getting a Pure Evoke Flow. How does the Internet radio measure up on the SQBox? What stations can you get?

Cheers!

 

[harveymt]

Another quick question. I may need a laptop for work purposes. Could I get one and connect it directly to amp with an optical connection? I take it i would set the laptop to output whatever it is over optical and the amp would play it?

 

[Ant8519]

Yes I rip on my laptop which wirelessly sends the data to my nas. The nas runs squeezebox software and is connected wirelessly to the squeezebox duet via my router. The squeezebox receiver is connected wired to my amp, the squeezebox controller is a wireless handset. The knee bone is connected to the thighbone........ Geddit?!

Yes you can route the squeezebox via a dac to the amp,but it's own dac is very good. Depends on present system quality and your expectations...

Yes you can attach a laptop to your amp but it wont sound very good and wont offer you a very user friendly interface. Even going via an external dac can be problematic on a pc due to windows and soundcards (not sure of the exact technical reasons but essentially windows monkeys with the sound output to a degree). However macs do not have this problem and can stream wirelessly to an amp with airport express and can be used with an external dac. However user interface still poor compared with squeezecenter (in my opinion)

Also consider sonos....

ps - internet radio sound is relatively poor due to low bandwidth streaming but that is true of all internet radio players and will improve as bandwidth improves. That said some stations sound quite good. There are loads of stations pre-loaded and I believe you can add more as you find them but I have never needed to....

 

[Anonymous]

I personally would only re-rip my favorite CD's into lossless. As on some tracks it can be quite hard to tell the difference.ÿ

Going forward I rip all my new CD's as lossless.ÿ

I only have a 30 gig ipod so what I do to save space is make smart lists of my favorite artists/ albums. that still gives me a few thousand songs to listen to when i'm in the car etc.

ÿThe other thing I would HIGHLY reccommend is the Apple TV! it is absolutely stunning! you can have your itunes library in your living room either sync'd or streamed. and you can also rent HD TV and Movies.ÿ