NAS to use with PS3 and Sonos

Ok, but I don't waht to rip nearly 300 albums assuming its all fine!

If it is OK with Foobar, then is there any reason why it would be any different when playing back using the Sonos interface?
 
On a side note, if you are ripping 300 CD's, save yourself a huge amount of time and effort by ripping them all to wav, then batch convert to FLAC.
 
OK, a couple of questions, as I did ask this before:

1) What benefit does this give?

2) How do you do it?
 
OK, a couple of questions, as I did ask this before:

1) What benefit does this give?

Results the same, but save a lot of hassle. When you rip a CD the software creates temporary wave files (uncompressed) on your PC. Once the wave is complete, the wav file is then passed to the encoder (along with the meta data to be added to the tags) to be compressed (i.e. the FLAC encoder) and the wav file is deleted. This happens until the whole CD is done, and you cant take the CD out and start another until its finished. However, if you take the compression part you reduce the amount of time between inserting CD's massively (by hours, if not days). You will of course then have all your music in uncompressed wav files - which you then use something like Foobar or DBpowerAMP's batch conversion function to turn them all into FLAC's and delete the WAVs (although i would not do this automatically, make sure the FLAC encoder has done its job properly). Leave it running over night or when you are out - no user intervention is needed, so it will take a while but you can be doing other stuff and not still feeding in hundreds of CD's. Thats how the pro ripping firms and online music sales people do it, accept they will have ripping stations will many CD-ROM drives and possibly feeders to.

OK, a couple of questions, as I did ask this before:

2) How do you do it?

Really simple - in EAC, just hit the WAV button instead of the MP3 (which is for all compression, not just MP3). When all the CD's are on Then use Foobar or DBpowerAMP to convert the lot in batch to your chosen format.
 
Auto is right, however, bear in mind WAV's take up twice as much drive space as FLAC, so your hard drive will fill up quickly, and you may have to rip and convert in batches, depending on space.
 
So the benefit is with time as apposed to sound quality or longevity / futureproofing of the audio format.....?

If ripping to FLAC files directly though (as I have started doing and am now over half way through!), there is no real disadvantage is there i.e. I am not making a big mistake? And, if I wanted to purchase either a Sonos or SB then the way I am doing it would be fine...... wouldn't it?

On a side note, I found one of these bad boys yesterday. Anyone ever seen or used one?

http://www.mustavit.co.uk/acatalog/Ripserver_NAS_Drives.html?gclid=CKXu7fGsxpECFQswlAodPB-2zw
 
Nope; not used one, but Ripstation is my preferred ripper (it's what I used to use commercially). Those guys at Ripfactory really know their stuff, so it could be a good all in one solution. But I don't really see the point if you've already got a PC.

On to your previous problem; you must have MediaMonkey playback set to merge the tracks. Maybe you have Continuous Play ticked or something (in the Play menu)?

Anyway, if Foobar is playing the files back correctly, they must be ripped o.k, so you should have no probs with Sonos playback.
 
Been away for a while but am now back and very excited:clap:

Went to the Bristol Hi-Fi show last week and had an excellent opportunity to play with a SB Duet for about 20 mins and then had about half an hour on the Sonos stand.

Overall, my oppinion of the SB Duet was that it was not very well demonstrated and not very well marketed. The guy in the Progressive Consumer room seemed to be more fussed about showing off the Transporter, which I was slightly surprised with considering the potential of the SB Duet and the fact that lots of folk are obviously interested in it. In terms of performance, the GUI for the slimserver software looked very nice on the laptop they were using, and they had it networked using a Tranquil T7-HSA Home Server. The remote control itself looked cool (but it did feel a bit cheap and flimsey) and was easy to use (obviously with one hand rather than the two handed Sonos controller), the menu system again looked good, but the response time when queing up tracks and generally sifting through albums etc and then playing them did seem quite slow, which I thought was a bit lame considering I was standing right next to the wireless receiver. There were also lots of Sonos users in there looking with interest.

I then went to the Sonos stand and had a good play, which is really the first proper opportunity I've had. In summary, I felt the Sonos was better; more responsive and easier to use. The negative about Sonos is the design, and I prefer the SB Duet aesthetically, but in terms of usability the Sonos was better - and I prefer the bigger LCD screen. Needless to say I bought one and am now setting it up. I think the SB Duet may well have a lot of potential and possibly more scope for development, but if you want something now that does exactly what you need it to, then Sonos is the boy.

I have now managed to get Media Monkey working - so the FLAC files playback OK, so now just have to tag all the albums. Marvellous. I am never going through the pain of ripping my CD collection again!
 
Been away for a while but am now back and very excited:clap:

Went to the Bristol Hi-Fi show last week and had an excellent opportunity to play with a SB Duet for about 20 mins and then had about half an hour on the Sonos stand.

Overall, my oppinion of the SB Duet was that it was not very well demonstrated and not very well marketed. The guy in the Progressive Consumer room seemed to be more fussed about showing off the Transporter, which I was slightly surprised with considering the potential of the SB Duet and the fact that lots of folk are obviously interested in it. In terms of performance, the GUI for the slimserver software looked very nice on the laptop they were using, and they had it networked using a Tranquil T7-HSA Home Server. The remote control itself looked cool (but it did feel a bit cheap and flimsey) and was easy to use (obviously with one hand rather than the two handed Sonos controller), the menu system again looked good, but the response time when queing up tracks and generally sifting through albums etc and then playing them did seem quite slow, which I thought was a bit lame considering I was standing right next to the wireless receiver. There were also lots of Sonos users in there looking with interest.

I then went to the Sonos stand and had a good play, which is really the first proper opportunity I've had. In summary, I felt the Sonos was better; more responsive and easier to use. The negative about Sonos is the design, and I prefer the SB Duet aesthetically, but in terms of usability the Sonos was better - and I prefer the bigger LCD screen. Needless to say I bought one and am now setting it up. I think the SB Duet may well have a lot of potential and possibly more scope for development, but if you want something now that does exactly what you need it to, then Sonos is the boy.

I have now managed to get Media Monkey working - so the FLAC files playback OK, so now just have to tag all the albums. Marvellous. I am never going through the pain of ripping my CD collection again!

Have you had a chance to set up your Sonos at home yet?

I love them and I'm sure you'll have many hours of happy use from it.
 
Hi Lazymatt,

Here is the progress so far:

1) The homeplug doesnt work via the extension block, so I've had to plug into a normal wall socket, tapped in the security code and it now works. Only thing is its now visible which I dont like and will have to get some trunking.

2) Configured the sonos - very easy. Now have 2 zones set up: (1) Lounge - using homeplug; and (2) Dining room - wireless

3) Have a problem with the buffalo drive and need some help! Found some instructions on ripcaster.co.uk which say to simply create a folder in the NAS drive and call it Sonos. Then drop all the FLAC files into it. However, the Buffalo user guide has 2 variations, one to setup on the PC and one to setup as a network. I installed the software and tried the network option but can't seem to get the Sonos library to recognise any files. What am I doing wrong?
 
Managed to sort it out now and have Sonos working in the lounge:clap:

I have to say though that the user guides provided by Sonos and Buffalo are not great. The Sonos PDF manual is out of date in comparison to the latest Buffalo set-up menus, and the Buffalo manual doesn't really cut the mustard either. If you combine the info provided on the Ripcaster website with snippets of the other two then you get there in the end. A little surpising given how easy a lot of people claim this process is, but neverthless, once the network sharing side of things is sorted, getting sonos to work is very easy. I mistakingly installed the buffalo software 'For use with a PC' whereas I should have installed the 'For use with a network'. I assumed you would have to do both, but ended up having to uninstall everything and start from scratch again using just the 'Network' software section. So far so good. My only slight glitch has been getting the Sonos controller to recognise my dining room Zoneplayer 100, which I have working wirelessly at the mo. I think I might buy another homeplug to see if that makes a difference, as it takes a long time to process the set-up when linking it to the controller. The manual also explains about interfernce from other wirless devices like cordless phones etc, so it may be that.

What has impressed me most is the difference in sound quality between FLAC and MP3@320kbs. I first ripped my songs about 9 years ago @128kbs and then reripped about 2 years ago to 320kbs, as that was the highest my I-River could support, but as soon as I played a FLAC file this afternoon even the missus commented on how much better it sounded. :smashin: The pain of reripping is hopefully worthwhile afterall!

Am now in the process of transferring all of the FLAC files over to the NAS from my HDD, which is proving a very slow process for my ageing PC:boring: I don't have enough space to have all my FLAC files on a single HDD, so want to put them all on the NAS and edit them if necessary there.
 
Sorry I didn't see your post earlier - I could have saved you some time.

There's no need to use any software to install the NAS - you just need to map the drive within XP and that's it. You can pretty much drag and drop your files after that.

Still, you've got it working now. The Sonos wireless signal is normally pretty good, so try changing channels before you go and invest in another home plug. And no, they don't work very well on extension blocks - best to plug them directly into the wall socket.
 
Have just finished copying all my FLAC files onto the NAS drive and then imported into Media Monkey - all 100Gb of them. I took the plunge and purchased the gold edition just to save me the agro of constantly having to manually update the library with changes, as I suspect there will be lots of ammendments required to get all the final tagging issues resolved. Anyway, I have just imported into the Sonos library and am now sat on my sofa listening to songs I haven't heard in years! :thumbsup: I am thoroughly impressed with its functionality. Absolutely superb piece of kit. This is the best piece of my home cinema in terms of value for money. The TV is good with blue-ray via the PS3 but this is the boy. :smashin:
 
Glad you're liking it. I've used mine daily since I had it. It totally changes your listening habits.
 
The remote control itself looked cool (but it did feel a bit cheap and flimsey) and was easy to use (obviously with one hand rather than the two handed Sonos controller), the menu system again looked good, but the response time when queing up tracks and generally sifting through albums etc and then playing them did seem quite slow, which I thought was a bit lame considering I was standing right next to the wireless receiver. There were also lots of Sonos users in there looking with interest.

Thats odd - signal strength would really make any difference, it does not work like that, i can only assume any problems were due to a slow server and the fact that Slim Server and the Controller are still in beta - mine is nice and snappy.

But it raises a very valid point about Squeezecenter and the fact that it needs more horse power to run than previous versions - could be issues there for people.
 
Sorry I didn't see your post earlier - I could have saved you some time.

There's no need to use any software to install the NAS - you just need to map the drive within XP and that's it. You can pretty much drag and drop your files after that.

Hi Lazy Matt,

How exactly should I have set up the networking side of things - as I was quite confused?

The reason I ask is because I am now trying to get my PS3 working via the Sonos to Buffalo network. When I look in the PS3 menu, it recognises 3 media servers. Is this normal, or have I buggered things up? Two of the servers show IP addresses (and the fact that they are linked to Sonos), whilst the third shows the serial name of the Buffalo drive i.e. the default share drive. When I copy and paste pictures into the default drive, it shows thumbnails of some of the images but then says the file is corrupt when I try to load it properly on screen.
 
The PS3 will 'see' any Sonos zone players on your network. you will be able to browse the music, artists etc. but you will not be able to play them.
To stream info to the PS3 you will need to set up the PC-Cast options on the linkstation. Log in to the linkstation setup page, select PC-Cast, enable media servers and set the media folder to the folder you have set up to store pictures, movies etc.
You may need to shut down and restart the linkstation for this to function properly. Once it does all the subfolders of your media folder will also be available to the PS3.
 
Thanks Warpaint. Got the PS3 side of things working now and have full access to all my pictures in the lounge. The wife will be pleased.....

Also bought another homeplug for the dining room and it sorted the problem straight away, instantly recognising a second zone. Plugged in a pair of my old MA R90s to the amp and was impressed by the sound reproduction.

I feel the end of my thread has arrived, but just wanted to thank everyone who contributed for their advice. :smashin:
 
Why oh why did I speak so soon about closing the thread and not having any problems! Hopefully someone can advise me what to do cos I am now confused about what is happening. Everything was going so well too.

As I explained earlier in the thread, I have changed Broadband provider from Virgin to Sky, and I now seem to be experiencing signal drop-out i.e. the Sky Netgear router starts up OK and connection lasts for about 15 to 20 minutes but then seems to lose its network connection. It then says that my computer has limited or no network connectivity. I don't know why it is doing this, but the main problem is that it is confusing my Sonos system, as after the signal drops out, if I turn the Sonos remote controller on it displays the following message:

"Searching for Zoneplayers and Zonebridges. The network configuration for this controller has changed. For more info, go to http://faq.sonos.com/searchingH"

Needless to say the Sonos then doesnt work, which is annoying as its precisely why I wanted a Hard-wired system to avoid problems like this. :mad:

If I go in to the Buffalo NAS drive network menu (the IP address one) when the broadband connection has failed, sometimes it says it cannot find the drive and then sometimes it displays the content of the NAS as normal - adding to my confusion. It seems if I restart the router then the Sonos works OK, but it is still leaving me confused and annoyed. I don't know whether this is a set-up issue in terms of how I have created the network drive settings on the NAS, or whether it is due to the Broadband connection. If it is the latter then I am annoyed, because I thought the Sonos would work over the homeplug network independantly of the Broadband connection i.e. if Sky broadband wasn't working then Sonos should still work, as it just sends the signal via the router down the homeplugs!

Can someone please help me with this? I have gone to the Sonos faq webpage and it mentions something about the router not assigning IP addresses. Is this the likely issue? I have also got on the phone to Sky technical support, who have suggested the drop out might be due to an intermittant line connection - as they have gone through all the normal tests with me on the phone. But why should a problem with my phone line affect my Sonos system?
 
The Sonos system relies on your router to allocate an IP address. Each device in the Sonos system (or any computer network) has to have a unique IP address so that data can be sent to and from the correct place.
If your router fails to allocate IP addresses then none of the Sonos devices can 'see' any of the other devices.
result: it won't work (even if hard wired).

You would appear to have a problem with your router.

It would be possible to set up a Sonos system which is independent of your router but then it wouldn't get internet radio or firmware upgrades and you wouldn't have access to the NAS from your computer. This would be a last resort system.

Do you have to use the router that SKY provide or can you use your own one?

I would definitely consider the router to be at fault.
 
Hi Warpaint,

Thanks for your help. I have a Linksys wireless router which I could use, but the problem is the free one given with sky (Netgear DG834G) is locked and I think you have to hack into it to get the info I would need to setup the Linksys router. Or am I getting myself confused?
 
I'm not familiar with the router that SKY supply, or it's settings.
If you can find out what the various settings are then you could use your previous router.

If not then you could set up a completely different network for your Sonos and NAS drive using the Linksys router. It would supply the neccessary IP addresses to all the devices and it would all work as an independent system. However, it wouldn't be connected to the internet or your computer, so all control would be from the hand-held controller. You would also need to disconnect the NAS and then reconnect to your computer to copy music (less than ideal!)

The best option would be to get a replacement router from SKY and if that still fails then find out the correct settings so you can use your Linksys.

Maybe someone else here can tell you more about the SKY setup.

EDIT: I did a quick google search and came up with this
http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/tech...-done-flashed-router-got-my-sky-password.html
 
Hi Warpaint.

I have managed to find a website with instructions on how to hack into the sky router and obtain your username and password, so now I have this info I can use an alternative router. I am going to see if there is a fault on the line first via the Sky tech help team and then if not, change the router to use my Linksys one.

Thanks for your help. If anyone else has any experience with Sky routers, any help would be much appreciated.
 

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