Digital System Question

[johnB]

Whilst I play vinyl in my music room, I still want the convenience of being able to access and listen to digital music in other parts of the house.....so I'm looking for some seasoned advice on how to set up a house wide digital system (currently files sit on a MacBook and I stream via two Squeezebox Touch and play through Beresford DACs)....the Mac is on it's last legs, what are the options? I really like the Squeezeboxes but the signal drops out frequently.

Are there any historical threads that anyone could suggest to help my (muddled) thinking.

Cheers
John

[StanleyB]

Well I found a solution that works for me.

First you need a Zyxel NSA310 network storage drive. It will be recognized by the Touch is you set it up properly with available software.
You also need three pieces of the Zyxel N300 wireless repeaters.
Wire one of the N300 into the NSA310.
Wire one each of the other N300 repeaters into each of the Touch players.

You are probably wondering why I did it that way. well I discovered that the N300 will communicate with another N300 at 5GHz and communicate at about 100MBs. The Touch wireless connection itself won't communicate at 5GHz and can't handle 100MBs. But it will handle 100MBs via its RJ45 socket.
Drop outs will now be gone, except for the occasional large 192KHz files. But on 96KHz and lower you won't hear any more breaks in transmission.

You don't need your MAC to play music in the above setup. You will just be using it to load files into the NSA310.

[AlexM]

Hi,

I'd agree that NAS solutions are a useful solution to streaming music around the house. The Zyxel NAS stan mentions can run Logitech Media Centre, although it may be a little slow scanning a large library. I use a Thecus NAS 5-bay server that is quite old now.. a 2Ghz pentium-m and 1Gb of ram is plenty to support syncronisation between four squeezeboxes on a wired Ethernet LAN. There are more modern, cheaper NAS devices that will do the same job but check the Logitech community forums to make sure that it runs LMS. Also, make sure you don't rely on a NAS - take backups!.

Wireless repeaters can be a workable solution to coverage issues, but they do reduce the throughput and capacity of the wireless network. Have you done anything to check that your wireless router is working optimally?. Sometimes changing the Wi-Fi channel is all that is needed. If you have an android phone, I recommend Farproc's Wi-Fi analyser - it will help you check signal strength in each room that you want to have music, and will show what channels are in use by neighbours. It is free, and is a suprisingly capable tool.

I went for a fully cabled solution in my house as it is too big to cover with a single router, and I am surrounded by students, so I can see up to 20 active wireless networks so the signal/noise ratio and therefore Wi-Fi performance will always be adversely affected. I use a BT HomeHub 4, and this is quite good as it dynamically switches channels based on the wireless environment. Other Wireless routers can be an improvement on cheapies too.

Regards,
Alex

[StanleyB]

If running a wireless network at a good to excellent speed is a must, then you need to use two routers. That's exactly what I have done. Each router is on a different IP address, and one router is plugged into the other, which is designated as the master. The master is connected to the outside world. The master network is purely for PC and internet access. The 2nd network is purely for printers and AV applications, which includes the TV.

[johnB]

Thanks Stan, thanks Alex.....sounds like good advice. Feels like a NAS is what is needed, I think with Ethernet rather than wireless though. I'll sit down with a big sheet of paper at the weekend and draw out a schematic.
Cheers
John

[Ashmore]

Hi John

May I suggest that if you are planning to retain the Touches and are looking at NAS solutions that you consider a vortexbox? A VB can be bought as a complete computer (typically a low power, quiet box) or you can download the free vortexbox software onto your own machine to create a VB server for yourself (noting that VB is an OS that will overwrite whatever is on the machine). It's very straightforward.

Vortexbox is a linux based OS, which in my experience means very, very stable. It can communicate with all the other machines on my home network, regardless of which flavour of windows they are running; it works with squeezecommander (Android controller); serves LMS to multiple locations; rips FLAC and MP3 from CD and apparently can rip DVDs too (though I have never done this); and can be used for traditional NAS functions (backup etc).

There are no-doubt many excellent alternatives, but this has always worked flawlessly for me.

Simon

[johnB]

Hi John

May I suggest that if you are planning to retain the Touches and are looking at NAS solutions that you consider a vortexbox? A VB can be bought as a complete computer (typically a low power, quiet box) or you can download the free vortexbox software onto your own machine to create a VB server for yourself (noting that VB is an OS that will overwrite whatever is on the machine). It's very straightforward.

Vortexbox is a linux based OS, which in my experience means very, very stable. It can communicate with all the other machines on my home network, regardless of which flavour of windows they are running; it works with squeezecommander (Android controller); serves LMS to multiple locations; rips FLAC and MP3 from CD and apparently can rip DVDs too (though I have never done this); and can be used for traditional NAS functions (backup etc).

There are no-doubt many excellent alternatives, but this has always worked flawlessly for me.

Simon

Many thanks Simon. I'll pull all my thoughts together when I get a couple of days off work!
Cheers
John

[realysm42]

Hang on, it sounds to me like your only 'problem' is the Mac failing, is that right?

If it is, wouldn't it be simplest to work out what the matter is with it and see if it can be fixed first, it might be as simple as a reformat! By far the cheapest option (probably free).

[johnB]

Thanks Martin, I'll have a look at this too, although I'm now getting problems with the MacBook recognising the external drive which has the music files stored on.