<sigh> Digital to Analogue

[northwest]

Well gentlemen, thank you very much for all of your well considered replies, a great deal of food for thought.
In response to Bob's query, I will be feeding the DAC from a USB port it is all it has. The Netbook is blank, nothing on it right now, though I do have a HDD with Win7 on it I could put in.
The machine will be exclusively for this task. Although multi-tasking is a laudable objective, in this case the Netbook would be exclusively for the music.
I am not going to be converting anything right now as I actually enjoy the whole ritual of selecting a CD/Record, putting it in/on the machine and firing it up. I am going through a heavily modified Quad 34 pre and 303 Power amps into ESL 57's.
I am not unfamiliar with a command prompt in Unix
The deal is this. I started collecting a VAST number of MP3's way back when and I would like to improve their presentation. There is nothing I can do about the files now, I have what I have.
As much as I love to think I can spend time sitting down enjoying my 'wonderful collection' practicalities are otherwise. I travel a LOT so my iPod and headphone amp are my friend. I have slowed down a bit with the "away from home" thing so slowly I am getting back into my home setup. If I can find either Vinyl or CD replacements for some of the music in MP3 format, I buy it. But that is not always the case.

At the end of the day, the Squeezebox and NAS proprietory solutions are just consumer boxes for ease of use and configuration - I am not decrying them, I use them myself with good effect - but it would take me all of ten minutes to build one myself with a couple of terrabytres in a RAID 5 array. I DO NOT WANT THIS. I have a storage box already and it is not always on. It is a matter of minutes for me to drag stuff accross the network onto a notebook hard drive and plug it into the netbook. Also, i get to put a compilation together for that evening.

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).

With the deepest respect I have recovered a LOT of data during the last twenty years and I get extremely tense when everything is on one drive. Okay, I could put it all on one drive from a number of drives but then what happens is you become lazy as it is easier to just keep updating that drive. Then you wreck! Remind me to tell you sometime about the RAID array that failed and the backup drive that hadn't sometime.

What I want to do is just connect my Netbook to the Hi-Fi and play music. I realise there will be a bewildering number of options available to me - But never having tried this I am not anxious to re-invent the wheel - So Here I Am!

Thanks everyone for the suggestions so far.

[Welder]

Dominic.

I would say from reading above, you're on the path to digital audio Nirvana...bar the Dac
Multiple external drives..esssscellent Raid is aptly named, every now and then it does just that. I had it for gaming and Raid did all the playing.

For audio only with a nice readable music player and tweaking potential that isn't too fussy regarding hardware; Lubuntu/mpd/DeaDBeef. You'll have the option of streaming.

Voyage/mpd/mpc is great IF you have the right hardware and don't mind having two computers running, albeit one may only be hand held.

Nothing wrong with Win7 in Hog mode but why have an all singing all dancing OS if you're going to keep it in at night and strip it of its dresses, dancing shoes etc and keep it in the kitchen (?)
Add to that Prince Charming will have to move in to stop her wanting to go out at night and as you've found out, the Prince costs

Course,once you've got it all sorted the writing of a guide of how you did it in English is mandatory.

[Chops]

Still a big fan of RAID here . My NAS just sits in the corner and does a good job, like a faithful hound. Of course I have to feed and water it and occasionally brush its coat, but no trips to the vet yet .

[bobbasrah]

Ok John, Dominic is in another thread, and I understand your views on Windoze, but have had no such issues here with Win7. As Graham has the capability to switch drives and work through a Linux solution at leisure should he feel inclined, Win7 seems a more immediate solution might I suggest, flouncy, regal, overbloated or otherwise?

In that case, any of the suggested free players will do fine (try them all if you like Graham) and look at Vincent's site for tips on setting it up WASAPI etc. as it makes a big difference on digital. It's quite straightforward.

You seem happy enough with the CDP and your current arrangement, but it might be worth an experiment at say some point with a FLAC or WAV of one of your CDs or a Hirez file to see how a file via the Caiman can perform and compares to the DAC implementation of your CDP. It can be surprising sometimes.

All 3 of my standalone standard non-esoteric players are gathering dust, the CDs are boxed, and a 2Tb drive gives immediate access to my entire music collection of mp3, Redbook, and hirez, all backed up of course. Listening to a hirez of soul Cages as I type this..... Bliss

[Welder]

I don't wish to appear rude Bob, but WTF are you on about?

I don't have a CD player.
I've done the Windows bit, XP, Vista, Win7.
I've tried numerous Windows players, including foobar2000 and Winamp.
99% of my files are flac; see my ripping guide.
I've got a rather knackered but serviceable Mac, 2 PC's, a laptop and a purpose built music server.
Oh arr, I've got 16/44.1, 16/48, 24/96 and a few 24/192 files.


Yer pissed right ?

[bobbasrah]

I don't wish to appear rude Bob, but WTF are you on about?

I don't have a CD player.
I've done the Windows bit, XP, Vista, Win7.
I've tried numerous Windows players, including foobar2000 and Winamp.
99% of my files are flac; see my ripping guide.
I've got a rather knackered but serviceable Mac, 2 PC's, a laptop and a purpose built music server.
Oh arr, I've got 16/44.1, 16/48, 24/96 and a few 24/192 files.


Yer pissed right ?

Stone cold sober matey.....You?
I was only correcting you on calling Graham Dominic, the rest of the message was to Dominic.
If the objective is to get fired up on mp3 to the stereo via the Standac, would have thought using what is already ar hand would be simpler.
No?

[Welder]

Ooops, my bad

Take all that back then an I'll go an take my pills

[bobbasrah]

Ooops, my bad

It's them blue tablets again John, you know what they do to you... . Put em back in the toilet cistern there's a good lad...

[Welder]

Them blue tablets is jest fine mate; ask my girlfeind

[bobbasrah]

Them blue tablets is jest fine mate; ask my girlfeind

She likes camphor breath freshener obviously....