[Breeze]

Really?? OK, now I am confused.

So, what, if any, would be the advantage of me adding say the Cambridge NP30 and playing from the WD MyBook Live as opposed to playing directly from that with the Onkyo 609?

Or am I missing the point with the Cambridge?

Thanks.

[amcluesent]

So, what, if any, would be the advantage of me adding say the Cambridge NP30 and playing from the WD MyBook Live as opposed to playing directly from that with the Onkyo 609?

Pretty much all AV Recievers which can 'stream' are really for films. The music side of things will be very limited, e.g. no gapless playback, no search, no playlists etc; you'll just be scrollnig through directories to go 'play that file'.

The User Interface on Squeezebox and Sonos is chalk and cheese to AV Receivers. The new entrants are releasing revised software very rapidly to correct bugs etc. They are 'work in progress'.

The DAC in the dedicated music streamers ought to be top-notch with an equally good analogue section for connection to a stereo amp. I'd advise caution in hanging an expensive streamer off an AV Receiver, the amps may not discriminate from a cheap and cheerful unit.

[niall campbell]

the Onkyo will play the files as its DLNA

you will need to rip or copy the CD to FLAC or some format to see how it sounds

[niall campbell]

just buy a NAS first and see how you get on, it plays all the file types you could want

Network Capability Delivers Internet Radio and
Network Audio Streaming via Ethernet
As one of Onkyo’s new breed of receivers that can link
directly to the internet or to your home PC via a local
network, the TX-NR609 takes streaming audio and internet
radio to a whole new level. MP3, WMA, WMA Lossless,
FLAC, WAV, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, and LPCM audio files can
now be played back through your main system with
unprecedented power and fidelity. The TX-NR609 also
brings to life a huge array of internet radio channels from
Last.fm* and vTuner, plus on-demand music streaming from
Napster*. As well as being compatible with earlier
platforms, the receiver is compatible with Microsoft’s
Windows® 7 platform, which includes the DLNA
1.5-specified “Play To” media-streaming feature. The
TX-NR609’s internet connectivity has the added benefit of
making firmware updates simpler than ever

[dunkrag]

Ok - I've decided to ditch the CDs.

It's been a long time coming but I've finally decided that lossless is the way forward and I can live without the packaging.

I have an Onkyo 609.
I have just over 37,000 tracks in my iTunes library. It's going to take me quite while to convert my CD's to lossless - currently they are ripped at between 192 and 320, but that's my problem.

I currently stream my collection from my iMac through Apple TV to the 609.

I would love to be able to not have to rely on the iMac being left on.

I would like to be able to rip everything to Apple Lossless and have one box pugged into the 609 to be able to play everything back from it in lossless.

I'm starting to think maybe a Mac Mini with external hard-drive is the way to go?

I like the look of the Olive HD - but storage is going to be a problem - I'm going to need at least 2TB of storage and that will be just to cover what I have now and won't really future proof it. Also, I don't think Olive plays back Apple Lossless.

Any other suggestions?

[calligaro]

You could buy a NAS drive and hack the Apple TV2 that way you can use the always on NAS without the computer. XBMC is great for browsing albums, but the bigger the selection the harder to search, at least that's my experience over a new days of using XBMC.

Or yes buy a media centre PC or the mac mini and give it a crack, best way I've found to search massive music libraries.

Btw you mention future proofing to an extent, why box ur self in with Apple Lossless? Go FLAC.

[dunkrag]

Originally Posted by calligaro

Btw you mention future proofing to an extent, why box ur self in with Apple Lossless? Go FLAC.

Thanks for the reply.

How does AL box me in? FLAC seems like hassle - nothing will play it back natively.

I'm quite happy with iTunes - never had a problem with it on a Mac machine.
There is no way I'm ever going back to putting a Windows based machine back into my network after 7 years.

[juggler]

I've tried a lot of different approaches to integrating a NAS streamer with 2 different iTunes accounts.

I'll start off my assuming that you've got all your tagging working nicely in iTunes; that's a topic for another post.

Home Sharing is for sharing files between multiple pcs and doesn't really apply.

My NAS is a VortexBox running Logitech Media Server. All music is stored on it as FLAC.

The VortexBox automatically mirrors the music to create mp3 and/or ALAC format files based on it. It also implements an iTunes (DAAP) server, aka a 'shared library'. Many NAS products will do similar.

Option 1
Connect each iTunes account to the DAAP shared library. This is cumbersome, as you don't see the album view in shared libraries and lots of other bits of functionality are missing. Plus, you would have to manually move things from the local library to the shared one.

Option 2
Mount the mp3/alac share as a network drive and tell iTunes that that is where it stores its music. This can get really messy with more than one user, but has the advantage that iTunes rips to and organises the shared drive. It doesn't play well with the VortexBox's FLAC mirror, though.

Option 3
Mount the mp3/alac share as a network drive as above but keep iTunes using the default local folders on the PC. In iTunes disable both 'Keep library organised' and 'Copy files to the local library'.

Then in iTunes do 'Add Folder' - and select the root folder on the NAS where the mp3s are. Wait for iTunes to do its thing.

How you add new music to iTunes depends on how you do your ripping.
For me, I rip directly on the VB and use iTunes Folder Watch to monitor the mirrored mp3 drive. Whenever it detects new music it prompts me to add them to iTunes - without making a local copy too. There are alternatives to iTunes folder watch which do the same thing. iTunes Library Updater is another; I use the latter for a simple 'add everything' operation or the former when I wish to exclude artists or albums.

If I ripped or downloaded using iTunes then I'd probably manually convert the files to FLAC, move them to the VB, kick off the mirror and then let iTunes folder watch do its thing. That would be cumbersome, but probably the simplest way to point two iTunes accounts at the same library.

If you don't need FLAC then just rip/download in iTunes and move to the NAS, then let iTunes Folder Watch work.

Option 4
If you want to work the other way up and have the PC based iTunes library be the master then Logitech Media Server can automatically connect to an iTunes library and expose that to your streamers, however this approach only really works with one iTunes account. The Multi Library plugin may help - each iTunes account would have its own music but both libraries would be available to the streamer.

Option 5
MediaRover: Bring Your Family's iTunes Libraries Together

If anyone knows of any other way of doing this then please let me know and I'll add it to this list.

[mightymax]

Hi,
I hope someone can help me.
I have got a Nas Duo which has all my music on it. I use this to play my music on my Sonos system.
I want to be able to select the music stored on my Nas Duo in iTunes so that I can upload them onto my iPhone so I can listen to my music while I'm out and about.
Can someone please advise how I can do this? I have probably overlooked something pretty simple.

Thanking you in advance.

[amcluesent]

You likely want 'Option 3' from post #38

[AudioVideophile]

So I have a LaCie NAS to which I am ripping 1000's of AIFF music CDs.

To play the music, I use a laptop running iTunes which is pointing to the library of music on the NAS. Then, the laptop iTunes is streamed to my stereo which has an Apple TV Gen 1 connected to it.

It all works great in that from the ATV I can select various tracks or albums from the laptop iTunes.

However, what doesn't seem to work is the iPhone remote app. Yes, it shows me the current track that is playing, but it does not allow me to control the music from the laptop. When I try to, it will try and play it on the laptop, rather than have it stream to the ATV.

Any advice would be appreciated!

[juggler]

Originally Posted by AudioVideophile

However, what doesn't seem to work is the iPhone remote app. Yes, it shows me the current track that is playing, but it does not allow me to control the music from the laptop. When I try to, it will try and play it on the laptop, rather than have it stream to the ATV.

Any advice would be appreciated!

I can't run the iTunes remote app at the moment, but I seem to remember that it had a button - like a rectangle with an arrow out of the top - you could use to select where the music appears. (Note - I may be confusing it with another app...)

[smarty]

In the near future I'm going to rip my CD collection so that my wife can put music on her Samsung Galaxy S3 for her train journies to work and I'm thinking of getting a Sonos system at some point too.
I've done a lot of reading and playing and have settled on using dbPoweramp to rip the CDs into FLACs. I'll do this to my laptop which automatically gets backed up immediately to my GoFlex Home NAS. The back up files can then be read by the Sonos.
I also want to be able to convert the FLACs to MP3 format for mobile devices. I was thinking of having one folder under the \Music folder called \FLAC and one called \MP3 with all new FLAC rips going into the FLAC folder and then setting dbPoweramp to convert these and put the MP3 in the MP3 folder. Not sure if I can exclude the MP3 folder from the automatic back up but if I can I probably will as there's no need to keep a back up of the MP3 versions (unless someone thinks otherwise?).

However, my son wants an iPod for Christmas. I've looked at all the MP3 players to see if a non-Apple product would be a better/cheaper alternative but I think I'm resigned to getting him the new iPod Nano (the one with the larger screen). We already have an iPad but I hate iTunes software and since IOS6 I really don't like the iPad much either. It's mostly just used for quick surfing or by my kids to watch films/TV programmes that we've downloaded from the iTunes store or ripped from DVD.

My problem is, how do I organise the files and iTunes library so that iTunes has all the music bought via iTunes as well as the MP3 versions of my ripped CDs? Am I right in thinking I can point iTunes at the MP3 folder and import all these tracks into the library but not physically import the tracks (I think there's an option to copy the tracks or not?)?
If I were to do this how do I keep iTunes up to date wnever I rip and convert a new CD? Can I just do the import again periodically and it will ignore duplicates or would I have to specifically tell it what the new tracks were?
When I import the MP3s will it keep all the album art and Metadata etc and correctly show them on the iPod?
Can you buy track from iTunes in MP3 format or only AAC?
Presumably I can buy tracks from Amazon etc in MP3 format and add them to the iTunes library?

Still can't get round the whole iTunes software syncing thing (doesn't do what I expect it to do!) but that's a whole other issue.

Thanks

[amcluesent]

My problem is, how do I organise the files and iTunes library so that iTunes has all the music bought via iTunes as well as the MP3 versions of my ripped CDs?...how do I keep iTunes up to date wnever I rip and convert a new CD?

I hope some of the config ideas in earlier posts shows how iTunes can be made to interoperate with other s/w used for ripping CDs and can be set as 'read only' on the library.

IIRC there's some iTunes add-ins which will 'watch' a directory and automatically index newly ripped files in iTunes. Try Google searches

[smarty]

Thanks Amcluesent.

Think it's going to take a bit of playing to get what I want. I'll do that on my PC before I start ripping my CDs for real. Nothing's ever simple is it?

[Hunter79]

WD My Book Live with DLNA media server works great for me. I can get music and video in very convenient way, there are a lot on DLNA/UPnP clients. I can browse it's content from iPhone, select content, and send it to DLNA renderer in few taps.

[kwack]

I have a similar problem in that I have a WD My book live with a public folder set up with my music on.

Before I pull the plug on a Sonos Connect I want to ensure that this will see my Folders in the NAS drive. I don't use ITunes and admit I don't like the software to be honest.

Will the Sonos connect up via powerline plugs and see the WD Mybook live is my question.

If so that is great

Cheers
Kwack

[Hunter79]

WD MBL has both DLNA and iTunes servers. As far as I know Sonos connect doesn't support DLNA, so it should access iTunes server or shared folders via samba.

[kwack]

thanks.why arent these things simpler.

all i want to do is access these nas music folders without messing around with adding or hacking stuff

[Hunter79]

iTunes server and iTunes client should work flawless, at least DLNA approach works simple for me - plug devices and use them.

Please share your experience once you build it )

[RohanM]

All of my music is still on CDs - or even LPs/12"! - with handful of CDs ripped via iTunes on a MacBook Pro, with a Time Machine for back-up/wi-fi. 2x iPhones and an iPod Touch (1st gen - the beginning of all iEvil in the household... ) used by the family.

Would like one music library shared on a NAS, and to be able to stream to (as yet also still to be bought) wireless devices around the house, e.g. Squeezebox, Airplay or DLNA kit.

Have looked at a Cocktail X10, but for whatever reason am suspicious of the quality of the kit.

Current thinking is of a Vortexbox Appliance to rip all music to both FLAC and MP3, or maybe rip via the MacBook and then use an Apple TV to share around the house. The appeal of the latter is obvious, but so is the appeal of the former - as much as i like Apple kit, don't want to be completely on my knees to them forever! Also allows me to have lossless/DLNA compliance around the house, plus compatibility with the iDevices for when out and about.

So, maybe this is Option 3 above - but Option 5 looks intriguing in the limited research i've done so far on that one. How would that work in what i describe above? pretty please...

Any thoughts?...