Confusing Sooloos!

[Hydie]

Does anybody understand the Sooloos range? I have been reading up on this for ages and still don't know how many of the pretty Meridian boxes I need.

Originally I wanted the touch screen Control 10 but now I like the idea of hiding the boxes away and using an ipad to control.

What do I need to buy to have 1T capacity (2000 plus cd's), I have about 1000 CD's at the moment, and how the hell do I rip the discs. The Control 10/15 have a slot the other silver boxes have nothing.

My computer is no where near my stereo although it is networked.

This will be run ito a standard pre-amp.

Is a computer CD/DVD drive good enough to rip "HiFi"?

How can HiFi be so complicated? :steam:

[Stratmangler]

Why Meridian?
Having a look at the Sooloos range seems to add complication where there need not be :scratch:

[Hydie]

Why Meridian?
Having a look at the Sooloos range seems to add complication where there need not be :scratch:

That makes it a lot clearer. :eyebrows:

[Stratmangler]

That makes it a lot clearer. :eyebrows:

My question still stands - why Meridian?
Give me your reason for wanting to use Meridian equipment.

[Hydie]

I originally liked the look and idea of the Control 10 and Meridian have a certain reputation in the digital market.

[Stratmangler]

As you've already mentioned a desire to use your iPad as a controller then you have a fair number of options available to you.

I'd suggest the following...
1) Squeezebox Touch (http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/logitech-squeezebox-touch-wifi-music-player-black-03368678-pdt.html) with LDA Linear PSU (http://www.mains-cables-r-us.co.uk/power-supplies/346-mains-cables-r-us-dc-power-supply.html)
2) Zyxel NSA310 2TB NAS (http://www.dabs.com/products/zyxel-2tb--1-x-2tb--nsa310-powernas-1-2ghz-1-bay-network-attached-storage-7TLR.html)
3) M2Tech Young DAC (http://puriteaudio.co.uk/YoungDac.html)
4) dBPoweramp (http://www.dbpoweramp.com/) for ripping your CD collection
5) an app for your iPad to control the whole shebang

[krugdoktor]

Another option would be the Sonos range. After numerous problems with a Squeezebox (WLAN dependent) I switched to the Sonos system. It's the only one which uses its one network and each player in each room is not only a receiver but also a bridge (repeater) which means it's working flawlessly in my whole flat. Also (with a good DAC) it sounds wonderful in my main system.
I've looked at the Sooloos offerings and was horrified by the prices. The Sonos range isn't cheap but nowhere as expensive.
Anyway good luck with your search, digital streaming is fun!

[Hydie]

Michael, thanks for your input, I will look into this as well as Chris's suggestions. I'm amazed how much gear is needed as well as my PC just to stream music. My computer is upstairs and I don't want to run up and turn it on everytime I want to listen to some music downstairs. What sort of quality will you get rippping and using the wifi to load it onto the hard drive?

I think I am too old to work this out.:rfl:

[krugdoktor]

Most of my music is uncompressed AIFF, the rest is mp4 (=Apple lossless) (as you can see I'm an Apple user)!
I listen a lot to my iPod and found the AIFF to sound much better than any compressed format (MP3 is really awful, MP4 is better but still behind uncompressed) so I think anybody should rip music in uncompressed form (WAV or AIFF) since terabytes are cheap these days. If you have a PC buy two external drives with 1 or 2 terabytes (1 for storage, 1 for backup) rip your CDs with whatever program you choose (ask the Microsoft users about suitable programs) and stream your music around the house with Sonos. Enjoy!

[Hydie]

Thanks for that. :)

[AlfaGTV]

Agree on the Sonos recommendation. As it happens i am also a Mac user (mainly, anyways) and store my AIFF music collection on a QNAP NAS in a closet.
Sonos advantages:
No need for a powerful server, it reads from your shared folder on the NAS
Unbeatable iPod/iPad/iPhone remote control!!! (incl Spotify etc)
Great sound per pound, upgradeable by external DAC

Sonos disadvantages:
Only 16bit/44Khz support
Audio not really up there with the very best, such as Naim HDX, Bladelius Embla and possibly Meridian.

Another option is the Marantz NA7004 Network Audio Player, not really expensive. Store your files on a NAS with UPnP/DLNA capabilities in say, FLAC format... This really kicks butt with all Sonos/Squeeze implementation i've ever heard. You get a pretty extensive machine, with the option of sending AirPlay sounds from your iThingy to it with great results also!
Downside is the relatively small display, even if its really good for its size. And please don't even mention Marantz own iThingy app, its totally useless.
What you can do however, is use J River Media Center as your DLNA server and then control that with for example My River iPad-app! Now were talking!

Its really The Swiss Army knife of digital audio though (and FM radio if your into that kind of stuff! ;))

Regards
Mike

[Hydie]

Thanks for that Mike. :)

[Mr Perceptive]

Sooloos does have massive advantages on metadata storage and searching, it is to my knowledge the only off the shelf system to handle classical music correctly, as you can store work, venue, label, composer, conductor, orchestra, etc, etc, it's searching is very fast, so you could search by label, or conductor very quickly.

Having had a demo at Meridian HQ, the search speed is very very fast, and there are in depth records of metadata stored for each album. If you like a Led Zeppelin album playing, you can say give me all the albums in the system with Jimmy Page on Guitar, and bang in an instant, they are displayed on the screen, so for classical music, you can say give me all the Beethoven works, then all those with a certain conductor and orchestra and in an instant they will be there.

This search is album based though.

Another cool feature, not available to most of us mortals, is that if you rip a track in London, it is instantly copied to your Sooloos system in Florida and to the one in your yacht in the mediterranean

Cool product, but expensive

[daytona600]

I always wondered what all these hiend servers will be worth in a decade and will you be able to get spares at the pace pc & digital is going , compared to something like a tube amp
as things like 300bs can be picked up for under £50 quid and have been in production for 80years and still going strong

[Hydie]

Sooloos does have massive advantages on metadata storage and searching, it is to my knowledge the only off the shelf system to handle classical music correctly, as you can store work, venue, label, composer, conductor, orchestra, etc, etc, it's searching is very fast, so you could search by label, or conductor very quickly.

Having had a demo at Meridian HQ, the search speed is very very fast, and there are in depth records of metadata stored for each album. If you like a Led Zeppelin album playing, you can say give me all the albums in the system with Jimmy Page on Guitar, and bang in an instant, they are displayed on the screen, so for classical music, you can say give me all the Beethoven works, then all those with a certain conductor and orchestra and in an instant they will be there.

This search is album based though.

Another cool feature, not available to most of us mortals, is that if you rip a track in London, it is instantly copied to your Sooloos system in Florida and to the one in your yacht in the mediterranean

Cool product, but expensive

Hi David, I do like the library/filing aspect of the Sooloos, I still find it a little surprising that £4750 only buys 500gb of storage and then more money is needed to expand on this. I think the sort of person that spends this kind of money has more than 1000 discs..... and what's more it still needs a DAC. :doh:

[Patrick Dixon]

If you save in a lossless format reckon on 3 cds/GB. So 1TB = 3000 CDs.

Apart from the space saving, the other advantage of lossless compression over uncompressed is that you get much better tagging - and since that's how you'll find, browse and play your music, it's quite important.

I can't really buy into the uncompressed sounds better than lossless thing, since you uncompress the lossless to exactly the same thing you started with, and although it's just about possible that the process loads a common PSU or something just enough to screw the sound up .... I think it's probably imagination, or you have something else wrong somewhere. But, as ever, YMMV.

[Mr Perceptive]

Meridian bought Sooloos to provide a streaming front end to their existing products, many proud owners already own 861s and 808s, so the cost of the system is fairly irrelevant!!

Sometimes these people don't own much music, but a big Meridian System, is just a lifestyle purchase like an Aston Martin or Ferrari. Obviously a few will be into music and they just buy extra storage.

Sooloos does lossless compress -FLAC

Having heard and seen their £200K plus home theatre system, it is really very impressive, spending another 15K on Sooloos is a drop in the ocean, especially when many customers will have spent the same again on the room!

There are a lot of Sooloos users on the Meridian Unplugged forum, you may find useful user information over there.

[Hydie]

I shall have a look. :stalks:

[Stratmangler]

Only £4750!:eek:
For that I'd expect the bloody thing to make breakfast in the morning and give me a blow job for good measure :eyebrows:

[Mr Perceptive]

I suspect most people on this forum don't fall into the Sooloos target market! Just like we don't own Ferrari's!

[Stratmangler]

I suspect most people on this forum don't fall into the Sooloos target market! Just like we don't own Ferrari's!

Your username is quite appropriate :)

[Hydie]

I suspect most people on this forum don't fall into the Sooloos target market! Just like we don't own Ferrari's!

You might be right there, I'm not convinced I'm "target market" as I am having problems getting my head round it all, but I couldn't find anything else that sort of fits the bill.

Too be honest I would look out secondhand anyway. :eyebrows:

[Mr Perceptive]

I think that it depends how you play your music and what genre it is.

I play mainly pop/rock and tend to listen to whole albums (I hardly ever make use of search facilities) and so a SB Touch + iPeng on an iPad is fine, but if you were into classical and liked to dive around (or swim using a Sooloos term!) then Sooloos would be an option to be considered.

Even s/h Sooloos is going to be a big step up in £££££ from an SB/Sonus/ATV type solution.

[Hydie]

My limited knowledge is HiFi based, I have no awareness of the computer based systems, this is why I'm looking at Meridian or even the Musical Fidelity Clic or similar. :)