Wireless streaming nirvana?

[Alloroc]

Hi all,

Well now, is the the device we've all been waiting for?

http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_transporter.html

Also, here's the article I found the player on...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5212396.stm

I know I have. I've got over 200gb of my CDs(legit!) ripped in lossless on my music server and have been waiting for a proper audiophile stramer for a while now.

Can't wait to hear it!

v.

[fauzigarib]

Awesome!!

Hey there,

I haven't heard the Transporter yet, but I'm a die hard fan of the Squeezebox, which is the really sexy mother of the Transporter.

From the display to the ease of use, to the built in Pandora (another AMAZING music service!),this is just one brilliant unit.

Also, for the first time in the history of audio, Slim Devices has finally put together a source that not only sounds good, but looks good as well, and the wife also enjoys playing with it!

Personally, I think that the transporter is a little overkill, but there seems to be a huge interest in it, if the slim devices forums are anything to by.

And the company support, both by the staff and the community is just fabulous!

I strongly recommend you folks to check it out.

Regards,

Fauzi :T

[David Meek]

I'm all for new technology, but I see one potential big hole here. Having all the audiophile quality components in the world stashed in this unit won't make a bit of difference to the sound quality if the music being streamed is at 128kbps, or 96, or . . . . Thoughts? Am I missing something?

[VictorHRS]

Hello David,

I think this unit is for home use, and not for streaming over the internet. It's more of a wirelles access point with built in DAC and pre-amplifier. At least that's what I think it is, because streaming over the internet wouldn't make sense.

[Martyn]

Forgive my ignorance on this subject, but am I right in thinking that this thing doesn't even store your music? It looks like just a $2k DAC to me. So what am I mising?

A second question: how do you get your 24 bit signal off your original SACD (for example) and into your music server without the jitter and all the other shortcomings that CD players are accused of? I find this subject quite interesting but, as you can tell, I know little about it.

[Brandon B]

Forgive my ignorance on this subject, but am I right in thinking that this thing doesn't even store your music? It looks like just a $2k DAC to me. So what am I missing?

You're missing the ethernet port and it's ability to decode all the listed file storage formats. It will take a data stream over ethernet and decode it and then run it through its internal DAC (or not and out the S/PDIF ports to another DAC).

Takes the questionable possibly quality of your computer's SPDIF interface out of the equation, and eliminates the need for a computer at the location of your sound system.

My question would be, how does it stack up against the Benchmark DAC1? Not that either fit into my system budget this year. Or next.

BB

[fauzigarib]

Folks,

Trust me when I tell you that Squeezebox is the most fun that an audiophile can have with digital music that I have seen in a loooooong time.

I still have not tried the Transporter, and, frankly, as I said in my last post, am very very skeptical about it's mass market appeal. An audiophile grade DAC (apparently the one used in many high end units... don't know enough about it to comment), in a digital music stream player... I just don't know.

But the comments that I read on the Slim Devices (that's the company that made these products) forums... well, it seems to be appealing to a whole lot of people.

Martyn - I don't think its meant to play SACD encoded formats. I think its purpose is to allow you to stream your encoded and stored redbook cds... whichever format you prefer to store them in. I have a library of over 5k songs which takes just around 7gb... I have a mix of flac and aac encoded music. It does wonders with them. I have practically put my cd's away in the same cubby hole that my remotes went into when I got my Philips Pronto. :T

David - I don't consider myself a guru on digital music, and actually don't know the first thing about transfer rates, etc. But I do know the ins and outs of my system very very well. And I consider my speaker / amp combo (Klipschorn with an SS McIntosh Integrated) to be a transparent one. I have the Squeezebox plugged in on CD1 and my Rotel CD01 plugged in on CD2 inputs.

I have a/b'd the exact same music plugged into the CD player and streaming out of the Squeezebox from my server (FLAC encoded using EAC), and there is no difference. Of course, my home network, though simple, is quite robust. 801.2g based wireless, and ethernet. I have the music streaming wirelessly to my SB.

Brandon - I don't know how the SB stacks up against the Benchmark DAC... quite favorably, I would imagine, but it certainly sets no reference standards. The DAC in the Transporter (AKM 4396) apparently has a stellar performance. Again, I can't comment on it because I have no personal experience with it. But a quick search on the net finds people doing benchmark tests, pitting it against the likes of the Benchmark DAC1 and Behringers DAC. So must be something to it.

Regarding the 2k price tag, well, I for one wouldn't contemplate getting it. But then again, there's a company called Red Wine Audio that does mods on the Squeezebox, upgrading it's dac's separating out the power supply... and I wouldn't consider getting that either.

Plus, you guys are missing out on Pandora. Give it a shot... if you have a pc with speakers attached to it, stop by www.pandora.com. It's a wonderful internet based music service, which asks you to enter the name of a song or artist you like. And based on that, creates a playlist of "similar" songs for you and streams that out to you. "Similar" is not limited to similarities such as genres only... It includes the song's tonal structure, lyrics, etc... Of course, I have gotten Britney Spears on my Led Zeppelin station, but you simply give it the thumbs down (it allows you to tell it whether you like or dislike this selection, for future reference), and it just won't play it again.

Plus, now Slim Devices has tied up with Rhapsody so you can stream any of its millions of songs directly down to your SB.

All of this from a $300 machine that actually sounds good?!?! I don't think there's a better deal out there today.

Fauzi

[Martyn]

Interesting that you should mention Pandora - I happened to be listening to it while reading your post. It's very useful for checking out recordings that are mentioned by the members of this forum, particularly since it always starts a new "station" with the artist you want, and then allows you to sample all the tracks from the CD.

I guess my fundamental question above concerned the quality of the signal that ends up in your chosen format on your server - to what extent does it depend on the quality of your CD player? You wouldn't want to do all this encoding more than once!

[fauzigarib]

Pandora Rules!!!

Martyn,

First of all... I LOVE Pandora... I think this is the first time in my life I've actually gotten a trial service that I actually paid for to continue... With the Squeezebox, you get a 90 day free trial of Pandora... well mine just expired!

Anyways, to address your question, I assume you mean the quality of your cd player in your pc, right? I think, more than the quality of the player, most ripping errors occur due to the quality of the CD itself. I have used EAC for some rips and I find that the error checking, though excellent, takes just WAAAY too long. Especially if the cd is really old or slightly damaged. I find myself getting lazier and lazier and drifting to ITunes and Foobar...

But the only problem that I have had as far as the quality of the rips are concerned are sometimes, there are just HUGE write errors.. As in, only the first 10 seconds of the song got recorded. I have yet to find SIGNIFICANT differences in quality between song rips from ITunes at a high bit rate, and the cd itself.

Martyn, I tell you... I'm not one for snake oil and I think ten times before I spend even a 100 bucks on my system for a power condtioner. Cautious ol' me tells you... it'll be the best 300 bucks your system will get!

Good luck... lemme know if I'm pushing too hard!!! :B

Fauzi

[Martyn]

Anyways, to address your question, I assume you mean the quality of your cd player in your pc, right? Fauzi

Not really. This is, after all, Audio Hideout. I suspect that many of the folks here haven't merged their audio and computer systems. I obviously haven't, and won't if it could mean a loss in sound quality. I'd rather listen to a hundred good recordings in one room than five thousand mediocre ones all over my house.

Some of the folk here go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that they produce an accurate signal from their source material. If I am going to "copy" the contents of my CDs to a music server, how do I do that with maximum fidelity? Is a $50 CD ROM drive equivalent to $2000 of audio CD transport and external DAC? Sorry, but I'm going to be sceptical that music downloads aimed at the MP3 smarket are going to be of maximum fidelity.

[Brandon B]

No matter your position on jitter and other stuff, there is a segment of the chain where, given no read errors, bits are just bits. If you have gotten the correct bits off the CD and onto an HDD correctly, whatever is taking that file and sending the bitstream to the DAC is the pertinent factor. Whether they were pulled off by a $50 CD ROM or not. I am assuming we are talking about losslessly stored files here obviously.

Transports matter when the PCM bitstream is being used to derive the clock. So in this case, if you are playing the files stored on your computer's hard disk, and streaming them to Slim Devices' Transporter, it is then decoding the lossless compressed file, at that point it becomes the equivalent of the "transport" which you would compare to your high end CD player. And I would assume they have taken some care in designing this aspect of it.

Now for MP3 and the other lossy formats, pbbbbbbbth, who cares. Quality is already out the window.

BB

[Martyn]

OK, but the key is still getting the bits off the CD and onto the hard drive correctly. My question is still: "how do I do that?"

[Brandon B]

There is software out there written to do that with error correction that will do a good job. Don't recall the program names at the moment, but wil look them up later if no one else chimes in.

BB

[fauzigarib]

Bits are bits!

Martyn,

What Brandon said is exactly right. Bits are just bits... What we associate with playback quality of a cd player... well, the transport and the dac are the two most essential portions of that. However, if you could "hear" bits and bytes, you'd hear EXACTLY what's on the cd, as there would be no need to convert to analog.

Therefore, unless there is something that is malfunctioning physically with your cd-rom drive, there are programs like EAC (Exact Audio Copy - freely downloaded) that use lossless encoding methods to make identical image copies of the cd onto the HDD, in formats that players like the SB can recognize. Digital read to digital write. Simply that. And you can also then check your hard disk image with the actual cd that was copied.

Yes, I realize that this is the Audio Hideout forum... and that is the point that I'm trying to get across. In my experience, having been highly skeptical about the playback quality of the SB3, my opinion has since changed about this.

Don't take my word for it... I'm still a newbie to digital music. For other audiophile opinions on this product and related issues, check out their forums: forums.slimdevices.com. They have an audiophile section. I think you'd be amazed how many people's expectations have been shattered.

Good luck,

Fauzi

[Taito]

G'day everyone! I'm another happy squeezebox owner.

For those of you concerned about accuracy, I'll attempt to take us through how it all works. Sorry about the long post.

1) The Rip
Exact Audio Copy is a free program designed to do bit-perfect rips from CDs. The advantage here is that the CD drive in your computer can read and re-read as necessary until the final file (uncompressed) is at least as accurate as any high end transport could achieve.

2) Storage / Compression
Once ripped, it's your choice of how to store them. My file type of chioce is FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec). FLAC is like a type of winzip that is optimised for audio.

The PCM data rate straight from CD is about 1.411Mbit/s. Flac will get you down to about half that. Once uncompressed, you have your original PCM file back - no loss. A VERY simplistic way of looking at how this works is to take the bitstream:

1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1.

Uncompressed, this is 24 bits.

If we decide to compress this based on the rule that we will use 4 bits to describe up to eight in a row, with the first 3 showing how many in a row are the same and the 4th telling what value they are, we would have (for example):

1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1.

Here, by changing the way that we describe a set of data, we have reduced the amout that we have to say about the data. In the above system, the 24 bit stream is now represented as 8 1's, 4 1's, 6 0's, 6 1's, which we can then re-write as:

1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1.

We have the same as our original bit stream, but have been able to store (and transport) 24 bits of data as 16 bits with no loss.

This is a very simplistic view (and I may not have described is perfectly), but I hope it clears up how this sort of compression works (as opposed to lossy compression - mp3 etc - that actually throw data away).

3) Transfer
The majority of home and commercial networks are Ethernet-based. These networks operate by packetising data and sending these packets to correct locations. If the squeezebox has not received a packet (or has received a packet that contains errors), it can simply request that the packet be re-sent. As the speed of wireless networks is now in excess of 50Mbits/s, there is ample time for packets to be re-sent if required. This type of transfer does not rely on synchronising data (think the SP/DIF).

4) Decoding
The Squeezebox is able to decode FLAC in hardware, as opposed to software (which, incidentally, is the reason that FLAC is my file type of choice for this application). This means that the recovered data from this section of the hardware looks just like the original data from the CD. It is clocked here, according the the crystal oscillator in the squeezebox and is sent to the squeezeboxes internal DAC, as well as the optical and coaxial digital outputs.

From here, you know the rest.

In comparisons between my Squeezebox and Rotel RCD-1072 CD player, I have found a very sutble edge goes to the Rotel (Remember that there are a bunch of analog electronics after the DAC folks). In an ideal world, I guess I'd have something like a Benchmark DAC-1 to plug both into, but...

As an aside, the way I run my system is to have all of my music stored on an external HDD which I plug into my laptop when I want to use the system. I can either control it from the Squeezebox's IR remote, or (my preferred option) use my PDA to connect to the server software on my laptop, allowing a nice touch-screen interface that works as long as I and my PDA are within network range and makes a very cool (if geeky) remote control. This is a fantastic system that is amazing for the price. It really can add another dimension to the way you listen to music.

Hope this wan't too long or boring. Infact I hope it is helpful!
Cheers, Ben.

[fauzigarib]

What Taito said!!!

Taito,

Ditto!!! ;x( ;x(

Well said, and highly informative.

In fact, I've recently started trying to get my Ipaq to work with this, using SlimRemote... It's such a cool interface using the LAN as your "IR frequency" to be able to control the player!

Another thing to note is that the infrastructure of the SB / SlimServer Hardware / Software interface is made in such an open manner, that it allows for users to be able to create plug ins to improve the interface in numerous ways and share it with the community. For example, the LAN remote we're discussing... It's a plug in written by an earlier generate SB owner that allows for the player to be controlled using your wifi compatible PDA. Someone else has developed a more intuitive "skin" for this remote, building further upon work that someone else has started.

Good luck,

Fauzi

[Martyn]

OK, now I understand. A plain-Jane CD drive can do the job simply because it has the luxury of trying again and again until it gets it right.

Some folk (like me) don't really want to merge their audio and computer systems. I have several home computers networked together, but they're desk-tops with noisy fans and I don't want to have to boot up a computer every time I want to listen to music. Some fairly expensive audio equivalents have started to appear, but they seem to me to be too expensive for a re-packaged computer! The Cambrige Audio 640H might be an exception, although I don't know where it is priced yet and it's not clear to me whether its formats are lossless:

http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/summary.php?PID=39&Title=Azur%20640H%20Music%20Server%20-%20with%20AudioFile%20technology

I guess the advantage of a computer is that it's cheap and easy to replace the parts when they fail.

That's for your patient explanations, guys.

[fauzigarib]

Cambridge!

Martyn,

It's so funny that you mention the Cambridge music server. I had actually confirmed my order on this thing, when I just by chance came across a review on the SB.

Right then and there, I cancelled my order, ordered the SB,and have been in heaven since.

I never really knew much about digital music, encoding, etc... and I'm still learning. But I never ever expected that it would actually sound as good as it actually does.

Please do let me know if you end up buying one.

and good luck.

Fauzi

[Brandon B]

Some folk (like me) don't really want to merge their audio and computer systems. I have several home computers networked together, but they're desk-tops with noisy fans and I don't want to have to boot up a computer every time I want to listen to music.

Down the road I am looking to add a mac mini as a dedicated music machine. Fully boots in under 25 seconds,and the only time the fan starts really going is when you're doing processor intensive stuff, or burning CD/DVD. (my wife has one)

My Sony SCD555 takes almost that long to come on and rotate through the platter to check for disks.

BB

[fauzigarib]

OK, now I understand. A plain-Jane CD drive can do the job simply because it has the luxury of trying again and again until it gets it right.

Some folk (like me) don't really want to merge their audio and computer systems. I have several home computers networked together, but they're desk-tops with noisy fans and I don't want to have to boot up a computer every time I want to listen to music. Some fairly expensive audio equivalents have started to appear, but they seem to me to be too expensive for a re-packaged computer! The Cambrige Audio 640H might be an exception, although I don't know where it is priced yet and it's not clear to me whether its formats are lossless:

http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/summary.php?PID=39&Title=Azur%20640H%20Music%20Server%20-%20with%20AudioFile%20technology

I guess the advantage of a computer is that it's cheap and easy to replace the parts when they fail.

That's for your patient explanations, guys.

Martyn,

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the fan noise is going to matter in this case because you're sending a bitstream down the network. So unless the pc is in the same room, the fan should not be much of an issue.

As for the pc turning on, I have always left my main file server on... so that's not much of an issue for me. However, another option is that you can suspend or hibernate the pc when you're done with it... and you can set the SB to "wake up" the computer on a LAN ping.

Later,

Fauzi

[Alloroc]

Hi,

I built an almost silent PC as my music server - it was cheap as chips. It does not require a fast processor, a lot of memory, a soundcard, a swanky video card and so on. All it needs is a large hard drive. $400 will do it.

It does not even have a DVD/CD drive. I rip accross my network.

A fully silent build will be more expensive, however the machine is upstairs in my office and I use Wake on LAN and remote shut down from my PDA... pretty much standard tech, although it's almost always on.

The point of wireless streaming is the flexibility. I can stream to anywhere I have a streaming device installed with an amp and speakers and with better quality units like the squeezebox and lossless formats, I get a quality that is most satisfactory. It's geven me a reason to use some of my older equipment. In my garage or attic for example - and I don't have to worry about mislaid CDs. Obviously it's not goint to be the same as listening to the original recoring on my main system in my listening room, but for the flexibility, I can happily live with it.

V.

[Martyn]

There was an interesting thread about using the Mac Mini a few months ago. I've always been a PC guy, but that might change now that Apple is becoming more flexible in its operating systems. I like the idea of building a DIY music server, but it's way down the priority list of projects. For now, I'm stuck with two noisy networked PCs in the same room as my audio system, so I don't see much mileage in a PC-based system as yet, plus I don't want to deflect effort and resources from the higher priority HT system.

Also, it's not yet clear whether networked music will fit into our lifestyle, although it might be an interesting alternative to the cheap radio/intercom system in our 25 year-old house.

Thanks again for your help. By the time I'm ready to buy a streamer, maybe they'll be at commodity prices!

[Taito]

Hi again.

Is anyone out there using Network Attached Storage? I know there are a few warantee voiding tricks that would allow a NAS system to run slimserver - eliminating the need to have a PC turned on to listen to music.

Since it really is about time I bought another HDD to back up my music, I'm thinking that this may be a better (although more expensive) way of doing things.

Advantages: Run slimserver within device, small, quiet, low power consumption. + Side benefits of network data backup, print server, FTP, download with PC off etc.
Disadvantage: About an extra $500 australian.

What are your thoughts?

[fauzigarib]

Nas...

Taito,

I really don't have any experience with NAS installations... save for what I've read on forums like these.

I know that they can be quite complicated, aside from being more expensive. You might want to check out the Slim Device's forums (squeezebox's manufacturer). forums.slimdevices.com.

There are numerous discussions about NAS and they pros and cons of it.

Good luck,

Fauzi

[Taito]

Cheers. forums.slimdevices.com is actually what started me thinking about going NAS.

What I really need to decide, is (assing I can get it working the way I want it to) if the benefits are worth $595AU to me (now have a confirmed price on the unit that seems to be the easiest to hack - Synology DS-106).

The idea of a future step to video streaming adds another advantage. 802.11g should provide enough bandwidth for HD MPEG-2 streaming and then some (assuming no massive interfenece problems).

The step from using a squeezebox to video streaming should cost next to nothing, assuming
i) you have an xbox that you don't mind soft-modding
ii) you have an ethernet cable to connect your xbox to your squeezebox.
iii) you don't mind messing around with it until you get it working

Decisions, decisions...

Cheers, Ben

[Crimson]

My dedicated music server resides with my main system and is comprised of a 20" Intel dual core iMac, wireless keyboard and mouse, and 2 Lacie Big Disc Extreme 1Tb external hard drives (yes, that's 2 Tb of hard drive space!).



Why'd I go with a Mac?

1. Like I mentioned above, it resides in my listening room and I needed a quiet machine. This fits the bill pefectly, even more so than a Mac Mini which has an audible fan. Wintel machines, in general, are quite noisy.

2. No PC clutter. It's a self-contained unit (excluding the external drives).

3. I've spent the better part of over a year ripping all my discs (about 1200) to iTunes. All are stored via Apple Lossless. I've used both Airport Express units as well as Squeezeboxes (both wired and wireless) to stream music to other systems in my house.

4. The UI, as can be seen in the picture above is frigging incredible. The 20" display can be viewed across the room and includes album artwork, all controllable via a remote the size of a stick of gum. The menuing system is quite similar to the Squeezebox (hmmmmm.......).

Another piccy:



All I need now is to get a nice wall mounted shelf and get rid of that TV dinner table. I'm also looking into available USB Dacs (It currently feeds an Airport Express wirelessly, which feeds a SN TubeDac+).

My entire CD collection is at my fingertips with a UI that is simple, powerful, and pleasing to look at. (My CD's, BTW, are now stored in 15 black 160 disc Slappa cases).

[Taito]

Very nice sounding setup Crimson!

Here's a few pics of mine - one of the rack to give people an idea of how the squeezebox looks with other equipment, and a close up of the squeezebox.

Sorry about the bad quality folks, these were just quick snaps taken with a mobile phone.

-Ben

[Taito]

And one more - the standard handheld skin provided by Slimserver running on a wifi capable PDA.

[Brandon B]

Crimson -

Have you been able to resolve the issueof iTunes putting breaks or skips between songs on albums where two songs flow one into the other with no break?

BB

[fauzigarib]

Apple Lossless?

Crimson,

Good job, man! Nice to see your awesome setup. Thanks for posting pics.

I'm confused, though... I didn't think the Squeezebox could play Apple Lossless... Am I wrong? I thought neither Slim Server, nor the hardware had any decoding for it... Woulda saved me a ton of time if I knew this earlier.

Taito - I'm going to answer your question with another question. To answer if your extra 595 is worth it, is there really any difference b/w a NAS and a PC with a really large hard drive. And I don't mean that in a facetious way... I really don't know.

Because, like you, I plan on streaming video in the longer term also, and hvae gone 802.11g keeping that in mind. So if there's a big difference keeping the long term view in mind, then yes... I think it would be worth it.

Otherwise, in my (not-as-yet-knowledgeable) mind, it seems that a networked PC with a 5-600 GB hard drive, should do a fairly good job of streaming the required data to your client.

The other question I had for you was: How to stream video? What is the video equivalent of Slim Server and of the Squeezebox? You mentioned an XBox360... How? Do tell... This does seem like stuff for a completely new thread, perhaps in the DIY section of the forum... but I'm really curious.

Love your setup too, Taito. It's really cool how the SB3 goes with anything. I have to hand SlimDevices one thing though... These 2 designs, the SB3 and the Transporter are sexy as hell.

Thanks,

Fauzi

[Crimson]

Brandon,

No, but doesn't bother me for the type of music I listen to. :W

Fauzi,

Yes, the SB can read apple lossless.

[Brandon B]

Damn.

BB

[Taito]

Fauzigarib, actually with a large hard drive would probably do the job with higher performance, but with trade-offs such as size, power consumption...

FYI, the Synology DS-106 could be out done with a cheaper, older pc (purchase cost of about $400 here), but I like the feature set, the way it looks and the way it seems to work. So for me, it's either get a large external drive and run directly from my current laptop (plently powerful enough, but only has 60GB). This i what I have been doing, but am really feeling that it's time to backup the ol' music collection. Or, get the Synology and enjoy that I never have to turn on my computer to listen to my music.

As for video streaming, I believe the XBOX360 can do it with some software on the host that should be available for download (can't remember what it is). With a standard XBOX, there is a software mod going around that allows the BIOS to be written over. Certain software may be installed, allowing the XBOX to appear on your network. Place your movies in a shared folder somewhere on the network and navigate/play with XBOX. Since the XBOX doesn't have wireless connectivity, you can plug its ethernet port into that on the Squeezebox - the Squeezebox also acts as a wireless conection for things plugged into its ethernet port.

Alternatively (and much more simply) there are certain devices from D-Link, Buffalo, Netlink (I think), Zensonic and others that will do the job and should be more or less plug and play. Priced from $300ish up.

Hope this helps, Ben.

NOTE: I haven't yet tried to set up video streaming in this way, so can't vouch for it working.