The best mp3 jukebox?

[Cardiff Irons]

Wonder if any of you knowledgeable folk can help me. I'm looking for a storage device probably 20Gb (40Gb would be good) to store CDs, mp3 etc. I've got a couple of good sound systems in the house, so the main use would be to hook up the device to the respective amps (I occasionally do this with my Sony laptop, but it's a pain and the hard disk is filling rapidly with music files). So, main things I'd look for:

1. Most important is sound quality - the sound systems I have are good, so I need the player to be able to transfer good quality sound into the amp

2. I'd like to be able to assemble the order of tracks being played whilst the unit is playing (the way you can on Win Amp when playing music on a computer) - I believe this is known as queuing (I don't need playlists)

3. I have a ton of vinyl - if there is an easy way of converting these onto the player that would be a real bonus

4. Using the player away from home is likely to be relatively rare, so battery life etc. not too important

5. The use of the device to store data (PC files) would be useful

6. Ability to display photos and video would be useful but not essential (probably worth an extra £30 to me)

I'd appreciate any advice. Cheers.

[hornydragon]

if its for at hoime use Roku sound bridge is the thing to look at speak to Messiah (he's not a million miles away) as he has these running. as for vynil have a search i asked this not too long ago......

[Cardiff Irons]

Thanks HD. These do look cool, however it seems I'd need one in each of the rooms where I've got a sound system (in fact, I've just realised I've got three reasonable sound systems in the house), which would work out a tad expensive (it wouldn't be the first time you've tempted me to go over budget though!).

I'm leaning towards the iriver (320 or 340) at the moment. Does anyone know if that's a good choice bearing in mind my requirements? I'm particulayly interested in the ability to queue tracks.

Cheers

[hornydragon]

the thing is you will carry juke box around the rooms, linksys do a wifi media adapter that may woprk out cheaper anbd there may be media only Roku type unit PM messiah as he knows more about these things.....

[Cardiff Irons]

Thanks mate.

[Cardiff Irons]

Blimey HD, these media adaptors (link below) look pretty good value - only £35 plus P&P. I've already got wireless network, so it could be a good way of connecting up the new kit in the Lounge (wouldn't be so effective for other rooms, because the display is via TV).

http://www.dsl-warehouse.co.uk/product.asp?pr=WMA11B

I'll get in touch with Messiah to get his thoughts. Cheers.

[hornydragon]

for £35 seems worth a punt mate even if if just to decide you need to spend a lot more......PS you have PM

[hinesle]

I have a number of Roku Soundbridges in the house and I can fully recommend them.

I use a hacked Linksys NSLU2 (about £50) running mt-daapd (in essence an itunes server) with a 250GB Maxtor one touch II usb HDD hung off the back and it’s a winning combo as well as very quiet !!

If you’re not technically astute then a PC/MAC will equally do the trick as a music server running Itunes (my recommendation) or windows media connect. But remember you will have to keep it running 24/7 to access your music. (that’s what swayed me toward the NSLU2.).

I also looked into purchasing a linksys devices you have mentioned (because of the price) but decided against because :
• No digital output so would have to use the onboard DAC. While I cant comment on quality I would be surprised if it was outstanding given its price.
• The media server software IMO was not a good as free alternatives i.e itunes or windows media player.
• I believe (although you will need to check to confirm) there is no WAV or lossless format support which should be a high priority if sound quality is important.
• A TV is required to browse songs as there is no onboard display.


All I can say is a centralised music collection (with an open format) is the way forward

Lea

[Cardiff Irons]

Thanks Lea

When you say you have a number of Roku Soundbridges in the house, does that mean you shell out £200 or so for each one? For me that would mean about £600.

I'm not saying I won't go there, but it's quite a leap from my original idea of a £200 mp3 player (so says the bloke who had a budget of £1500 for plasma and ended up spending over twice that on plasma, av kit etc. etc.).

Cheers.

[hinesle]

Cardiff
Yes you are correct, I have spent a number of my hard earned on three devices but I have totally bought into the centralised music concept and as a long time advocate of digitally stored music this year is really quite exciting. There has been an explosion of streaming capable devices in the market place coupled with the big boys (such as Sony and Philips) announcing their presence as well.

The thing is you can build up devices over time as required (if you follow some guidelines -see below) and once you have the main infrastructure in place i.e. a wireless/wired network, and a music server (whether that be a PC/MAC or an NSLU2 which I have) it is relatively inexpensive to grow your hardware and music storage backend e.g. a 250GB internal drive is about £70 or £150 for an external USB one.

You have said sound quality is paramount therefore a device that can only play MP3’s is probably not the best route for you. Whilst MP3’s are fantastic for the car/gym/personal stereo they fall short due compression for a real music enthusiast with high-end range being most evident.

Any way back to the roku subject…..

ROKU produce 3 Soundbridge devices the m500, m1000 and m2000. They all do the same job, run the same firmware and have the same outputs etc. The only real difference is the physical size of the unit and the display technology, so if size is not important go for the cheapest model.

There are also competitors to the ROKU that may be cheaper (such as the Linksys device you have mentioned) but you have to look carefully at what they require from a technical perspective e.g. proprietary server software, outputs, music format support etc before you make you purchase.

My only real recommendation is decide on your requirements first e.g.

• Music Format support and at what sample rates!!! (another gotcha on cheap streaming clients) e.g MP3, WAV, WMA, WMA lossless , Apple lossless
• Server software – Go for a client that supports either Itunes or a UPnP (Universal plug and play) server such as Windows Media Connect. This way you are not limiting yourself to a hardware manufacture.
• RIP you music in a non proprietary format. Again this is to getaway from limiting yourself to a single server supplier. This is probably the hardest choice as each format has its own advantages/disadvantages but in essence will come to a choice of the following.
o MP3 (Open format)
o WAV (Open format)
o WMA Lossless (proprietary format is not supported by Apple)
o Apple Lossless – (proprietary format is not supported by Microsoft)
• Outputs. – Coax, Toshlink, analogue etc.
• Wireless/Wireless

Hope this helps

[hornydragon]

hinesle i am very interested in you NLSU2 ESpeciallif it can access a USB storage device (all my music is in a USB "ICY BOX" as my laptop only has a 20GB drive........acessing the ICY BOX wirelessly would be a dream! please post opr PM me more info....
I asumme this is the beasty....http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=65399
so this attaches to my router, but then how do i browse the music? can is use a WMA11b? woiuld the NSUL2 work with a #creative Zen or Ipod as the disc drive? as being ablke to drop the MP3 unit etc into the Dock and play it around the place, then pick it up when i leave would incredible!!!!!! and all for £90 on top of an MP3 player...... Steve fancy having a play?

[Cardiff Irons]

Thanks Lea. I was veering strongly down the iriver 320 road, but based on your feedback I've now taken a sharp turn towards the Soundbridge.

Horny, I like the look of the network storage, however I noticed this comment one on of the reviews:

This product works AOK straight out the box. However the documentation assumes that your router has an IP address of 192.168.1.X. The routers which we used had 192.168.0.X and 192.168.2.X. You must change your routers internal IP address to a 1.X or the device will not be seen.

Both my work and home networks are 192.168.0.X and I don't fancy changing them all! Shame - looks a good option.

[hornydragon]

LOL (net gear by any chance?) my linksys runs from 192.168.1.X AH USB storage on netwotk and Wireless media for i#under £100

[hinesle]

Horny,

First let me elaborate a little the NSLU2 is basically a NAS devise or Network Attached Storage (I.e. a file server running a chopped down version of Linux). It has a Ethernet socket which plugs into your Router (providing is has some free Ethernet switch ports) and two USB sockets so that you can plug up to 2 hard disk drives into into it. If the NSLU2 is connected to a wireless router then you hey bingo you can access it wirelessly much like you would connect to another PC using the \\<PCNAME>\<SHARENAME> convention.

The NSLU2 can be used in basically 2 ways
1st As a conventional file server using out of the box firmware
2nd As a hacked device running a whole host of applications.

Running the NSLU2 as a hacked device is where the magic starts. Because the device runs Linux (an open source Operating system) The source code has to be published and thus has been hacked by the good old Linux community. A replacement firmware has been produced (see http://www.nslu2-linux.org/ for more details) which allows linux applications to run on the NSLU2 .

Anyway to cut a long story short a daapd server (in essence an itunes server) has been written for the NSLU2 (http://www.mt-daapd.org/) that allows streaming devices (e.g roku soundbridge ) to stream mp3s etc directly from it.. In other words all you music is held on the USB drive attached to the NSLU2 which then streams the music to ‘client’ device e.g the Roku.

To answer you questions I don’t believe NSLU2 would work with the creative Zen as the hard drive because drives needs to be formated with ext2/ext3 file system (an alternative to Microsoft’s FAT/NTFS) first. The Icy Box would be fine though.

As for the WMA11b again this boils down to if the device is compatible with itunes (which I don’t believe it is). That’s why my previous post throws caution to proprietary server software!.

If however the WMA11b software could use stream music stored on network shares (the important point) then this would be a different matter and yes it would work (provided you keep your pc on 24/7). Microsoft’s Windows Media connect cannot do this that’s why I recommend itunes because it can.


Bring on the quetions

[hinesle]

Cardif,

Its a simple job to change the IP address of the NSLU2 providing you have a crossover cable.

Just set your PC iP address to the 192.168.1.2, connect the crossover cable directly from th ePC to the NSLU2 and then away you go.