<sigh> Digital to Analogue

[northwest]

This post should serve as a warning to anyone who joins this forum!
Since joining, I have become acutely aware that I am lacking, seriously lacking some pieces of important kit - well, make that WAS lacking!
I am now the proud owner of a Beresford Caiman DAC, I have reformatted my Samsung Netbook and formatted a couple of 200 gig notebook hard drives. I have all of my 'digital' files on a couple of terrabyte HDD's (full disclosure - I have been busy emptying the Internet since 1994, they were the good old days usenet was populated with some good people back then. Then Napster, remember that? Although some of the files are pretty poor a good number are irreplaceable so I can play them through something other than the iPod).
So now I am about to embark on the Digital Journey. Prepare yourselves for some really dumb ass questions
First up - what do you think I should use for software on the Netbook? I have NEVER used Windoze Media player and Winamp was my player of choice, it is still around but I was wondering what you are all using?
I am not proud, I'll take all the help I can get!

[Welder]

Next post down

[John]

Not that John will agree with me but also consider Jplay for a eaiser life and great sounds

[northwest]

Next post down

Wow! Bloody clairvoyant! You don't happen to have six numbers for Saturday?

[northwest]

All joking aside, which other software were you going to suggest John? Jplayer is not cheap at 99Euros and TBH I can as swift install linux on the netbook and I would be certain that there would be something decent about for that.
Any more suggestions guys?

[Welder]

Nope, sry, can't help with the numbers.

What I can do is help you get Linux up and running which, depending on the spec of the netbook you have, may be the only sensible option.

If you're stuck send me a PM and I'll get you sorted; and no it wont cost you anything.

[aBe]

You might want to have a go at :

1) Andy's Minimalist Player - no frills memory player (no GUI even) and it's free..
2) Foobar2000 - lightweight, very customisable. Freeware.
3) J River Media Centre - pay usd50 and get this to better Foobar a wee bit.

Use them with Wasapi, set to Play from Memory and you'll cuss at yourself for not getting into all this digital shite much earlier..

[bobbasrah]

Sorry for being a little puzzled Graham, but however laudible the above recommendations are, there is too little information on what your basepoint and objective are IMHO....

I have to guess from what has been said that you have you been using mp3 as your library base, which however fine for portable use, will not really show digital at it's best through the Caiman. So pardon me for asking these seemingly dumb questions...
1 What way physically are you feeding the DAC from the Netbook, usb, optical, coaxial???
2 What OS are you currently using, and does it need/share duty for browsing, office work, etc.?
3 Are you intending to feed FLAC/WAV/Hirez to the Caiman in future?
4 Do you have a load of CDs to play or convert, and if so do you have a suitable drive?
5 How are you going to listen to the Caiman's output on by way of the audio chain?

The first thing that hit me were the 2 drives of 200Gb, which are going to restrict storage. eg There is not a single storage drive in my home under 1000Gb, and my FLAC library just fits a 1Tb.
FLAC/WAV are the very least you should want in your library if you want to improve things later, as it is probable that mp3 limitations will show up somewhere down the road in this new adventure....

[Chops]

Following on from Bob, I would have thought that spreading your files over a few drives makes life that bit harder. One big disk would make things easier both in terms of organising your media and backup (I'm sure you've got this covered).
My choice was to buy a NAS with resilience (mirrored disks etc), so in itself its pretty reliable. It makes backup to other devices a breeze - I plug in a USB drive, push a button and then once complete, hand it to a friend for safe keeping (I rotate 2 drives). The NAS also supports various media streaming protocols (iTunes, Squeezebox, DLNA etc) as well as filesharing. My 'clients' (the devices that request & receive the media from the NAS) happen to be Squeezeboxes, but equally you could use your laptop. My NAS is a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo, but there are plenty of options out there.
Further benefits of the NAS approach are that they can be low power (green) with various options to reduce this further (configurable on/off times, wake-on-LAN etc) and they can be used to stream other media, such as digital photos (eg I show mine on the TV via a PS3 - all very convenient). Downside for you is that you would have to buy more kit, with disks being more expensive than usual at the moment due to the Thailand floods.
In direct answer to the OP, I use EAC to rip CDs and Foobar2000 to organise my music and occasionally play it on my PCs. I also use (and this is getting a bit techy) Putty and WinSCP to 'log in' to my NAS and Squeezeboxes so I can tinker with them (they run Linux/UNIX).

[Vincent Kars]

Nothing wrong with using WMP.
Like iTunes it is a simple interface allowing you to do the basics.
Excellent media player for a starters.
If you have FLAC, you have a problem as this popular lossless format is not supported.
If you have WAV you have another problem as WMP won’t tag WAV.

The biggest impact on sound quality in my opinion is the audio driver.
WMP uses DS (Direct Sound) only.
You can get better results using a bit transparent driver like ASIO or WASAPI.
Not only do you bypass the Win mixer (dither) but they allow for automatic sample rate switching as well.

A player like Foobar fulfills these requirements.
Personally I could never get used to the interface.
A nice alternative is MusicBee, kind of JRiver light.

I use JRiver.
It is very feature rich.
For ripping and format conversions I use dbPoweramp.
AccurateRip support, fast and rock solid.

A bit more about JRiver: http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.c...MC14_intro.htm