Playing MP3's with computer on 1056?

[jhschlak]

Hello,
I purchased a rotel 1056 a few months ago. I would like to hook up my computer to the 1056 in order to play mp3's. Does anyone now how this is done? ie. what cabling is needed, any special programs needed for my computer, etc.

Thanks in advance.

[TTA89]

All you really need is a Sound Card with a SPDIF out (Coax Audio) and just plug it into the input on the 1056 and create an MP3 input or something and assign that input to it and then play from the computer.

OR

You can go to radio shack and get a mini headphone jack to RCA connector and plug it into the analog L and R channels on the 1056.

Option 1 will probably sound better, I used option 2 for awhile to stream Sirius Radio from laptop to my reciever and it sounded like garbage. Probably due to the fact I'm using a laptop built in sound card. Heh...

[ajpoe]

There are several ways it can be done, but it depends on your computer. If you have an optical output, you can run that into the back of your 1056 and it will use the 1056 DACs (digital to analog converters). If you just have analog output via the 3.5 mm jacks then you will need a 3.5 mm jack to dual RCAs to run from the soundcard on your computer to the analog inputs on the back of the 1056. This will use the DACs in the computer soundcard. Unless you already have a good soundcard, you'll probably want to spend a few dollars to get a soundcard with optical output so you can use the DACs in the 1056. I got this one for around $55, but I have heard this one has very nice DACs in it for double the price. As far as software, you can use anything that will play your music files... I prefer winamp.

AJ

P.S. The optical outputs on these soundcards will let you pass through a DD or DTS signal to your 1056 if you ever wanted to watch DVDs in your computer as well.

[ajpoe]

LOL, TTA89, you beat me to the punch!

[phillipk]

You should really checkout the squeezebox from slimdevices.com. It's the only thing I use to play music on my 1056. I have losses copies of all my CDs in FLAC format--plus a few 256Kbps MP3s. I plug the squeezebox into the digitial in on the 1056 and it sounds great. Arguably, as good as any CD transport--but I won't start that argument here. The DAC in the squeezebox isn't very good though. I use it in wired mode because the wireless just isn't enough to keep up with the uncompressed WAVs (FLACs being decompressed on my computer). But, you don't have to buy a sound card or anything... just have a network set up and the wired version is $200.

It really has changed the way I listen to music.

[VGuarino]

I am in the process of doing something similar with left over computer's etc. My question is, how far can you run an optical digital cable? Is it similar specs to data fiber?

Thanks,
Vin

[glangston@socal]

Cable

Lengths of 15 meters for sale at one site. Doubt that's the limit.

[Crimson]

I use it in wired mode because the wireless just isn't enough to keep up with the uncompressed WAVs

Actually, this is not so unless you have non-stop high bitrate traffic usually found in a corporate intranet. Even the theoretical bandwidth available in an 802.11b wifi net (11 Mbps) is sufficient to stream standard redbook at 1411 kbps (1.4 Mbps).

At home, I have a 4 XP boxes networked using 802.11b. I have about 350 ceedees ripped and stored as wav files on an external HD that I stream to two systems in my house using Apple's Airport Express units (two of them, one per system). In both instances, I use the digital out connected to outboard dacs which feed an input on my preamps. The quality of the sound is 'as good' as playing a CD into these dacs.