I noticed it’s been almost 2 months since my last post. Though I doubt any of my fellow Outlaws have been looking for me on the back of a milk carton, I thought I would share a couple of things going on in my own personal corner of the HT / stereo world that may be of interest to you. Before I begin, let it be known I have no affiliation with any of the products or retailers described below.

Building a Music Server: I’m not sure how many of you have heard about or use a product called a “Squeezebox,” but I’ve got to tell you, this is one of the slickest devices I’ve ever owned and I think is going to really revolutionize my system. Basically, this little device (about the size of a table top digital alarm clock) wirelessly streams Internet radio and/or music you’ve ripped to your PC right to your sound system. What’s great about the SB for us audio nuts, is that you can use a lossless compression format (I’m using FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec)) and stream pure CD quality music over your WiFi. You can go with MP3 too, if you like; but the FLAC format sounds amazing and the software is open source, so it won’t cost you a penny. Right now, I’m beginning the long, arduous process of ripping my CDs to the PC. At this point, I’m already seeing the need for some sort of outboard, high speed CD/DVD drive and an external USB hard drive for storage. When it’s all said and done, I’ll have a music server that I can stream to my main system, or if I add other SB’s, to other systems in the house. I’m obviously a neophyte at this, so if there’s anyone out there who has built a music sever that can share their own personal experiences that may spare me some pain and suffering (and $), please chime in.

Outboard DAC: I think I mentioned in a previous post that there is a burgeoning market of bang-for-the-buck Chinese audiophile DACs. Wel,l after some lengthy research on the web, I finally decided upon the Musiland MD-10 and subsequently ordered one from Pacific Valve & Electric. It’s only been in my system less than a week, so I’m still evaluating it, but so far I am pretty darned impressed. It’s definitely an improvement over my Cambridge Audio Azur 640C. And with 4 digital inputs (Toslink, USB, RCA and BNC), I can run both the digital out of the Squeezebox and the Cambridge to it, so I can stack two digital sources on the CD input of my 970. One further thing that’s really slick about this DAC is that it has selectable bit depth: 16, 20 and 24 bit. Sixteen bit is great for strident recordings or when you want a more vinyl-like sound; 24 bit really ekes out every bit (pun intended) of detail and renders tremendous pinpoint imaging from good recordings.

I’m not sure the Musiland DAC would be of much interest to many Outlaws, especially those who own the 990 or have a really great CD player. But seeing as how the unit is tied to the Squeezebox in my system, I threw it out there for public consumption. That aside, I definitely think most of you would really, really dig the Squeezebox.

(Cross posted in 970 forum)

Videodrome:

I've also set up a music server function on my PC and wirelessly stream the audio to my 990 for playback. I use a Linksys MusicBridge versus the Squeezebox. I've also ripped all my music to FLAC format and play it back using the dbPowerAmp suite of software. This software also acts as the library for all my ripped music. I don't have a huge library of music but I've filled up about half of a 250gb hard drive. The FLAC format sounds just terrific via my PC to the 990. The other benefit of having everything in FLAC format is I burn CDs of equal quality as the original for my car and leave the orginals at home. It looks like you are discovering all the benefits of the FLAC lossless format.

The DAC you describe sounds interesting but I have to admit I'm very pleased with the 990s ability to play music. The Upsample mode is my favorite stereo mode.

Enjoy the process of building your FLAC library; its worth the effort.

Thanks for the response. Glad to see there's someone else out there who's experimented with this stuff. Just out of curiousity, what ripping software are you using?

I'm using software from dbPowerAmp http://www.dbpoweramp.com/ to rip, write and play my music. It took a while to get used to how the software works but its pretty nice software. One thing it does not do that I appreciate is it does not automatically set up directories/folders/files for ripped CDs. I prefer to do that task manually. What software are you using to rip in FLAC?

Based on the combo' used by a lot of Sqeezebox users, I'm using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) with AccurateRip. EAC was a pain to set up, but things are running pretty smoothly right now, so I'll likely stick with it.

My only complaint is that the CDs take a while to rip. It's either that I have FLAC set to a very high level of compression, and/or that the CD/DVD drive in my computer is just too darned slow. Anyway, I've been eyeing some external drives. Lastly, like you, I'm thinking about a 250GB hard drive for the CD library... When you say you're half through yours, how many albums/songs does that translate to? (I heard 100GB holds about 100 CD albums in FLAC format.)

100 is about right for 125gb without actually counting them. A significant portion of my CDs are live recordings and they tend to use most of the 80 minutes available versus a studio CD that will be between 40 and 50 minutes. I'd say the average time to rip a studio CD to FLAC is about three to four minutes. Maybe I have a slow drive too!

Just a clarification: dbPowerAmp will create files for each song with all the appropriate attributes and it allows the user to choose which database to use to retrieve those attributes via the web. The user needs to establish folders and subfolders. My library is set up by artist and CD album.

That's quick comapred to mine... it often takes 15 minutes or more!