iTunes Playback system

[scott fitlin]

Yup, I am just moving into a Squeezebox feeding a Bryston BDA-1 and it's really cool to have so much available from around the world at your finger tips. Too bad it's MP3 quality feed.

I can't wait to start ripping CD's on to a mini mac.

Hi Rez digital formats should be available soon. And I hear HIGH PRAISE OF HI REZ!

Space becomes an issue, BUT, I download alot of my music in WAV format, at $1.00 more than the same track in MP3, but.........

[Mr. Widget]

Too bad it's MP3 quality feed.

My entire iTunes library has been ripped from CDs in Apple Lossless... other than Apple going away or no longer supporting ALE, can you think of any good reason not to use it? WAV is likely more future proof but it is a waste of space, FLAC would be good, but Apple doesn't support it.

I am currently using an iPod with Wadia iTransport and with a good DAC (hope to upgrade to the Bryston soon) the results are sonically outstanding... a proper music server would be a bit nicer from a user interface standpoint, but the portability and flexibility of the iPod is a great asset.


Widget

[scott fitlin]

Hi Widget, how's everything? GREAT I hope. Not everything i have is WAV, but WAV isn't a waste either, IMO. I hear a difference, WAV is better, but huge files. My three HD cards total out to 1408GB of space, then, with my external storages, when I want to clean house I move older tunes into them.

I completely agree, FLAC will be great once supported by all systems, and there is another one everyone is talking about, too. They say the fidelity is all that! But, as I said, I do have alot of MP3, too, and I think if you heard some of my stuff through my system, you would not believe what I can get out of an MP3 file. If one put's aside whether or not my music is what they like and concentrates on the sonics, which I assume most people can easily understand and do, I just think I could impress you.

And, now, they say better quality servers make a difference, and companies are coming out with high end units as well, just as you stated above. Now, when I got my new and bigger computer, I upgraded my Serato to their newest, which is 24 bit, and Traktor was already 24 bit, and this was definitely a BIG improvement, even though most of my music is NOT 24 bit! However, in the near future downloads will be available in 24 bit, and I think it will get really good.

I'll tell you this, most of the current and future music that I play isn't even available on vinyl or CD, and I do not miss my vinyl.

Also, just as back in the vinyl days, I feel you do have to tinker, experiment and work with the new medium to get what you can out of it, I mean, we did do exactly that with our TT's, cartridges, pre's and power amps, etc! The technology has gotten good, and they are advancing with it, and we will continue to receive better, and better.......

I will make one point, as I found this in my own situation, TODAYS music, made and recorded to be available as download sounds better than classic music transferred into the format. Classics sound best in their original format, just as was the case with CD. But, once they begin remastering music for the new format, it, too, will be good. I say this because some of my classics that were not remastered aren't great, but I have some that were remastered for the download format, and IT WORKS!

[[email protected]]

The new update from Apple seems to have resolved the problem. Everything is as smooth as buttah...

[modena]

How is iTunes behaving for you? Mine seems to have gotten real slow these past months. Real laggy when I scroll through my music collection.

Upgrading to iTunes 9 slowed down scrolling AND delayed playing of songs, like been a 2-3 gap between clicking "play" and sound came from speakers.
Upgrading to 9.01 AND Snow Leopard solved this problem. System and iTunes is much more responsive and faster. (managing a Library of 16.000 songs)

[scott fitlin]

Upgrading to iTunes 9 slowed down scrolling AND delayed playing of songs, like been a 2-3 gap between clicking "play" and sound came from speakers.
Upgrading to 9.01 AND Snow Leopard solved this problem. System and iTunes is much more responsive and faster. (managing a Library of 16.000 songs)

Many things released to the public have been put on the market with glitches, that got resolved later on down the road. CD,s were perfect in the beginning? How long till they got CD,s to deliver as originally promised?

At least iTunes gets updates out and available quickly, and there free of charge! And the updates work and solve the problems.

5 years ago, I wouldn't have given ten cents for a music download, now IT IS ALL I PLAY!

[[email protected]]

I'm really not into online downloads, especially when CD's are being offered at the same price. I'd rather have some hard material in front of me instead of a file on a computer. If I really wanted the song on my computer, I'd simply rip it into iTunes.

[scott fitlin]

I'm really not into online downloads, especially when CD's are being offered at the same price. I'd rather have some hard material in front of me instead of a file on a computer. If I really wanted the song on my computer, I'd simply rip it into iTunes.

I hear you, and completely understand your point, and I say simply you do what is good for you, each has their own.

BUT, for current dance music, YOU HAVE TO DOWNLOAD, as this music isn't widely available on CD, or vinyl as it once was. Then, downloads for extended mix versions price at $1.99, $2.49, $2.99, and $3.99. As compared to the last time I purchased 12in vinyl import dance singles, around 2003, and the price of 12in vinyl import dance singles had skyrocketed to $14.99 EACH! And the stores that were still around had no selection as they once had. Either they wouldn't take a chance on a record if they didn't know they could move their stock, or it wasn't pressed on vinyl, and wasn't available as a CD single, with multiple mixes. Now, I play dance music, as a DJ, it is part of my business as well as something I love. These days, some DJ,s prefer to download, then burn their own CD, and they will usually have a good parametric inline with the CD burner, to remaster the music to their taste. Then their are some guys who swear by the sound of whatever outboard DAC and whatever CD trasnsport. However, lets say, that one is a DJ who travels all over, playing gigs in clubs around the world. Years ago, we HAD to take RECORD CASES, HEAVY, BULKY, and if you were doing a ON Saturday, in a great club, that went to 10 am, or 12 noon Sunday afternoon, YOU NEEDED FOUR BIG CASES, to have enough music, and be able to also have big selection, as one never knows what they will play!

CD Books can be big enough for many CD,s, and if this is how you would do it, no problem from me. BUTTTT, I can go with my laptop, with 50,000 titles loaded, PLUS, lets say I am doing a Saturday in wherever, I can check all evening friday, and Saturday, for the new tunes that get put out at the last minute, or just possibly something I overlooked. OR I can easily pick up any classic house, today's house trance, or techno tune that I may decide I want but don't have in my computer, and for $2.49, and and my WiFi, what the hell? And, unlike years ago, I don't have to worry about airlines losing or damaging my record cases and records. And, take my word, IT HAS HAPPENED THAT WAY! DJ,s have completely lost record cases on flights, or YOUR spinning in a London club, but records are on a plane and went to South America, BUT your playing the next night, OR WORSE, THAT night, and your records won't be delivered to you until 2 days later. Of course, this wouldn't happen with 2 giant CD books with say, 500 CD,s, that can go in the overhead compartment, but the hours of labor spent searching your music, purchasing, downloading, then recording to CD is way too much for me.

Now, just 3 or 4 years ago, the download technology wasn't really that good, pretty poor it was. But, today is a different day, the technology actually sounds GOOD, and not only that, is continually advancing, just as the analog audio technology had for as long as it was our main format.

With my new Serato, and Traktor, which are software, and hardware systems that allow one to use CD or vinyl TT,s, and spin downloaded files like RECORDS! With either a midi encoded vinyl disc, or CD, the TT,s hooked up to the interface box, the interface outputs to your mixer, and also a USB cable from your computer to interface. The new interfaces are 24 bit, and also, in the setup page of Serato, which every time you play, you have to open to calibrate your decks, there is a box that if new software updates are available for your Serato interface unit, and once you have purchased a complete Serato, or Traktor system, the updates are ALWAYS available to you, free of charge, and same thing with the Serato or Traktor OS software updates. Now, the chips inside these boxes have algorthyms that these companies developed specifically for club sound and club use. AND IT WORKS AND SOUNDS REALLY GOOD! Midrange is spatial, and has depth, low mids are QUITE GOOD, and I consider the midrange to be critical to having good playback, highs are outstanding with a well recorded tune, and THE BASS IS MONSTER! No rumble or feedback issues, and with a system with 20 eighteen inch woofers, 16 of them being JBL, and TONS of power, feedback and rumble are issues. My turntables had what they called floating suspensions, basically, the box the TT sat on, was suspended with rubber bands and eye hooks under the console this resides, took care of vinyl rumble, but, CD,s jump sometimes with a bit too much bottom, and I got bottom end, the system has almost 40,000 watts of Crown power, most of it, in the bass and sub bass range, what can I say, in this case, SIZE DOES MATTER!

Now, these days, I don't travel or work outside the NY area, as I did years ago, matter of fact, my business is bumper cars in Coney island, with a MASSIVE monster club system, and 5 years ago, I just didn't want know about the new technology, and then one day, it was the only format, much of what I play is available in! 2 summers ago, I felt it was good enough to use, and it took me a minute of reformulating my system, and getting things to sound the way I wanted it too, BUT, man, ONCE I DID, IT GOT AMAZING! I SWEAR IT IS! I do admit, that I enjoy this format immensely. but just a few years back, would have told you it will never be worth shit, but I was wrong.

The best thing of all, is it keeps getting better by the day, week, month, and year.

And, unlike records, and even CD,s the files do NOT wear out and become unusable. records wear, CD,s get dirty, scratched, and then unreadable. Files can get corrupted, but, this too, is fixable, but a skipping vinyl, or scratched CD is not.

Jeez, this more typing than I have done in a while,

[hjames]

But Scott, most of us are NOT running a massive music club/Bumper cars.
Its NOT about current Dance music for most of us.
I get great sounds by buying CDs and ripping them to disc.
It's not the same as pumped up club/dance trax, but I'm just not that into that kind of music, I don't need Serano,
and I don't buy $4 a track cuts either. I'm not a commercial DJ like you. Few of us are!

I like having the CD on the shelf if there is a problem.
If the file is lost or corrupted, I rerip. No biggie.
If a disc is damaged, I replace it, pretty cheaply.
I've got 28,000 tracks loaded into iTunes here on a number of Seagate barracuda drives.
It works really well for a system that's part of the operating system.

Sure, there are better systems for higher cubic dollars,
but for built in technology, this is awesome!

I've read your story before - sounds like a great thing for what you do.
Most of us aren't into that commercial market, its not what we want or need.

And frankly, its your business - its a pro system.
Its not a home music system,
its not an iTunes music system.
That's what this thread was about.


No flames meant, but sheesh.

[scott fitlin]

Heather, I take no offense to what you say, speak your mind.

Let me tell you this, I also now have an iPod at home, and a Fatman iPod docking station, that has a vacuum tube, and love it. I download all the classic Salsa, R & B, Rock, and Soul, and Jazz to my hearts content. It sounds good, these days.

At home, in my apartment, I have a small system, 2 speakers, and a Bryston preamp, a Bryston 3B SST amp, a CD player, and my iPod and docking station.

It works just as well here as in pro apps. At least I am happy with it.

Of course, I would just rather talk about my pro system, but, I mean you could understand, I'm sure. The big system is my baby.

However, on a consumer level, I am also finding that when I take my Macbook home to download at night, and playback in the morning thru my home system, I do both loading in Serato and whatever I want to have in my personal iPod, and the newer gear just sounds better, and REALLY good, to me, at home, as well as commercial use. Now if you read Widgets post, he mentions high end servers, and this is what I have been reading about this summer, and something I too, want for the living space. They are making better digital stuff for both Pro and Consumer use these days.

Anyway, I got up one day, and things got great again, for me, as the music is happening, and we are inventing new things all over again, and THIS TIME, THE THINGS WORK, and KEEP getting better. Just my opinion on things.

Alot of technologies have trickled down to the consumer market from the pro markets. No disrespect, but, lets talk beryllium for a second, once upon a time Be was the domain of TAD, and professional compression drivers. Today Be is the material of LUST in high end speakers high frequency drivers. Both JBL and Altec developed products originally used in their pro lines, and then got used in their consumer products too.

So, my opinion is that the two worlds do actually interact with one another, even though.

Once again, I just would rather talk about my big room, but, I truly believe my posts have useful information. I mean, the Fatman docking station was not all that expensive, cost me like $600, and makes my iPod much nicer sounding. And the Fatman IS a consumer product.

[hjames]

Heather, I take no offense to what you say, speak your mind.

If you are going to reply to my post that I had deleted immediately,
please restore it back in place so everyone can read it and so the thread makes sense, ok?

I know there are other mid and high end solutions.
I read about the Sonos system, as well as that high end server technology that Fred Sanford is privy to ...

I've even got an Apple TV on my big system, so I can pick and choose Albums, Artists, tunes, using 802.11n
wireless feed directly from my main iTunes server ... that works pretty well, but ...

I believe the best upgrade to an iTunes system would be to take the fiber optical datastream directly
out of the airport receivers, feed that to replacement DACs and feed their output to the amps and speakers, instead of using the apple DAC (chip) ...
I may look into that at some point, some of the folks here have written about DAC kits and such and it sounds like a grand approach.

[hjames]

I've been playing with some new-to-me tech this weekend.
I went to a friend's place a few weeks back and he had a squeezebox Duet system in his music room.
It gives him a very smart music server running on his mac Mini [FLAC files], with a smart colorful remote in his music room.
Basically, the squeezebox system scans through your iTunes collection, builds its own index to the songs, and plays them via a small music server
running on your computer, and sends them wirelessly (or via ethernet) to a small receiver down with your music system. You get a remote so you can scan and find the music you want to play, away from your computer. Sort by Artist, genre, playlists, whatever you configure it to do.

I like the possibilities, and it seemed a step above the Airport Express that lets me run my L200plus system as remote speakers off the computer, or the AppleTV (downstairs with the 4341s) that lets me scroll through my music files and pick remotely what I want to hear while I'm there.

So I read the Slimdevices forum for a couple weeks, and when I had a chance to grab a Squeezebox Classic (receiver) at a discount, I was all over it. I had already loaded the server software on my (intel) mac mini, it scanned my itunes and gave me access to the 30,000 songs I have loaded on my computer. So when the "Classic" arrived Friday, I wanted to get it up and running with all speed.

But - the wireless networking was a true pain, couldn't get it configured for some reason, until I restarted my mini and finally "saw" it on the network. Much time spent in configuration, and I had it working ... A bit later it even had my iTunes playlists loaded - amazing ...

So I unplugged it from power in the office, carried it downstairs and put it in the living room on the Carver receiver and the L200plus speakers.
Pick "A Space in Time" - it started in, played a bit, then - halted while the buffer reloaded. I fooled with it a bit more and it rebooted a couple times!
I powered it down and let it sit.

Then this morning I worked with it a bit longer - scrolled through the Artist list and found John McCabe - The Velvet Gentleman ... figured I'd let it roll through the Erik Satie pieces while I relaxed - but - it was shuffling the album, and I couldn't find a setting to force it to play the tracks in order!

Played some of the Philip Glass Songs from Liquid Days (Thanks Seawolf! - I found a signed CD on Amazon pretty cheap!) and again, it shuffled them in a random order - not playing tracks 1-6 sequentially! I'll reread the manual and see if I can find more configuration info, but I am not impressed.

Maybe I have too many songs (30k - 266gig) , but I don't think its going to work for me ...
I called customer service this afternoon and asked for an RMA so I can send it back next week ...

Maybe I need a mini-monitor and another AppleTV or Macmini ... I'm looking into that possibility now by refurbing the Mac Mini 1.5 G4 that Emma used until last June when it crashed. She got a new Intel mini, and we put her old one on the shelf - but this week I opened it and replaced the bad hard drive with a 160g seagate, and popped a new 1 gig memory stick in. Once I get a copy of leopard (OS X 10.5) loaded I can try it further
I've got Emma's wireless Keybd and mouse here somewhere ... We'll see how that works, but i didn't want to put a (small) computer down there with the Carver and my HK CD changer ... ah well!

I've looked at other options, but the closest is the the Sonos system, and its pricier than I want to go!

[hjames]

Worked with this thing more this weekend, but at least this model doesn't seem ready for Primetime ...
so - I just got an RMA number and boxed it up for returns. Wifi networking seemed intermittent,
and it rebooted periodically for no apparent reason.
So - as quickly as possible, I'm shipping this Squeezebox Classic back to Logitech for a FULL REFUND!

Life is too short to fool with funky hardware!

My next plan is to repurpose Emma's crashed G4 Mac mini.
We took a power hit in June in the midst of a service pack update
and it came up corrupted. She's went right out and bought an Intel mac mini,
restored everything from Time machine and barely lost a beat.

But I kept the old mini on the shelf - thinking maybe I'd make a media center server from it
So I got a new (160 gig) hard drive to replace the bad 80 that was in it, and once it was installed,
I found out the memory stick failed as well - so the new 1 gig of memory arrived and was installed
Friday night in all that snow storm. Installed OS X Tiger 10.4, configured networking, and bammo!
All is well! I can SHARE iTunes and playlists and everything from my main Mac to the G4 mini!
Now I'm awaiting Leopard install discs from Apple and once I load that, I'll be ready to try it out.

Ideas on mini-monitors would be welcome ...

[hjames]

Continuing the saga ...
Decided to repair Emma's dead G4 mac mini into a digital music station, instead of the Slimdevices/Logitech Squeezebox Classic that I tried and decided was too creaky.

I dropped a new 160Gig 2 1/2 inch HDD ($90) into Emma's old G4 mini, ran a hardware test and it said the memory was bad. Sad, but that makes sense - she was in the midst of a software update when we had a brownout and then power dropped completely! So, I dropped $40 for a 1 gig memory stick, had that rush-shipped, and rebuilt the machine during the (1st) Friday/Saturday snow storm.
Loaded a fresh copy of the operating system, OS X 10.5 (Leopard) , and set up networking, and it was good to go. It comes from the factory with an application called FrontRow- which provides a simplified access to iTunes, Movie trailers and similar content on your computer.

I wanted to get a small monitor for it - like 10 or 12 inch, max - but while browsing the DC CL yesterday I saw a 19 Dell LCD monitor for $35 so I jumped for it ... does a clean 1280x1024 and nice colors!
The old G4 mac mini doesn't have the remote control port like the newer Intel ones do, so I ordered an aftermarket USB receiver that lets Apple remote handpieces work on the older non-remote machine - ($30).

So - now I have an extra small computer that boots directly in the FrontRow, and can be run with a small remote control to scroll up and down through the music on my main server and play it through the Carver receiver and the L200-3ways ...

I can also use iTunes to surf through internet radio stations and play them on the nice speakers!

I don't like having the big monitor there right now, but I can always sell the 19 Dell for what I paid for it if I find a good 10 inch LCD
(or keep it for a spare for Emma's and my main computers!)

Total investment, just under $200 - not counting the initial cost of the bad G4 Mac mini, of course (but I've seen them on eBay pretty cheap!).

Oh, and the picture below, the little bity silver and white box hiding behind the funky remote,
(on top of the Harman Kardon CC changer at the base of the monitor) is the mac mini - they really are very small!

[hjames]

The system I described in the last post was too much grief - when I was sitting in my easy chair
I couldn't really see the 15" monitor to control the music ...
and with that monitor our living room was turning into a place only a geek would love ...

So I pulled the Monitor & G4 Mini and donated it ... and went back to using the Airport Express (the wall wart looking thing)
as the audio interface between itunes on my office computer and music delivered via Wifi to the living room stereo.

More recently I bought an iPhone 4S and discovered the free Apple app called "remote". It lets me log on to my
office computer from my iphone and control iTunes from my easy chair!

And most recently I've got a Jolida tube amp running the living room system (L200 3 ways) ...
It sounds quite nice - I think its time to up the fidelity on my music files!
In the past I was ripping everything at 320kbps mp3s - but as an experiment,
I'm ripping the 2009 Beatles remaster CDs with Apple Lossless (m4a) - using
the Apple Lossless (automatic) setting in iTunes. It appears the bitrate varies from song to song,
but Abby Road, for instance, shows as a bitrate somewhere between 647kb (Her Majesty) and 958kb (Mean Mr Mustard) ...

Of course, the files will be larger - less music will fit my phone or Ema's iPod, but the iTunes files are on a
Seagate 500GB Barracuda 7200rpm in my Mac, that has plenty of headroom for now!

I'll do some extended listening over the holidays and see if its an improvement ...

Continuing the saga ...
Decided to repair Emma's dead G4 mac mini into a digital music station, instead of the Slimdevices/Logitech Squeezebox Classic that I tried and decided was too creaky.