PC for music collection
Discussion
Having finally made the decision to start transferring my (extremely large!) music collection to MP3, I've decided to have a PC soley to store the music on (and will go down the networked squeezebox type route)
Basically, once the ripping job is complete :yikes: the PC will just sit quietly in a corner, and the music called up from the networked squeezeboxes (or similar) elsewhere in the house.
I have no intention of using the music PC for anything else, but it will utilise an internet connection to take advantage of the CDDB(?) database whilst ripping the CDs.
Any recommendations of what type of PC to go for? (I have no problems with building my own unit, but I realise that some standard "off the shelf" units can work out cheaper than custom builds)
My only slight concern would be HDD failure.... it would be a bit of an arse to have a hard drive fail once in has several hundred gigs worth of music on it!
Any thoughts?
Basically, once the ripping job is complete :yikes: the PC will just sit quietly in a corner, and the music called up from the networked squeezeboxes (or similar) elsewhere in the house.
I have no intention of using the music PC for anything else, but it will utilise an internet connection to take advantage of the CDDB(?) database whilst ripping the CDs.
Any recommendations of what type of PC to go for? (I have no problems with building my own unit, but I realise that some standard "off the shelf" units can work out cheaper than custom builds)
My only slight concern would be HDD failure.... it would be a bit of an arse to have a hard drive fail once in has several hundred gigs worth of music on it!
Any thoughts?
I have an old PC (PIII 1.2 with 512MB RAM) in a nice new case as my music and photo server. I just stuffed a couple of large hard drives in it, formatted them in Win2003 server as a dynamic disk and it just sits in my study serving music to my Squeezebox and music an photos to all the other PCs in the house, including the MediaCenter PC in the sitting room where we can hold the modern equivalent of the slide show.
I as well built a dedicated PC for that task. I bought a low spec mother board for an AMD 2000+ CPU I had around. Fitted a 250GB IDE drive beside having SATA connectors for future upgrades as well (m/b is an ASUS A7S8X-MX). On the outside, I connected an external USB-HDD, which is synchronized with the media collection periodically. It's very handy when you bring your music to a party, or when you rip a CD on another computer. It makes your collection mobile and it is a backup!
The computer uses two CDRW drives for ripping (burners have a better error correction, hence they are faster). It is connected to the LAN to access CDDB information, and to be controlled from my work PC. It has no input/output devices since every configuration is done with an exported X-server to my work computer, and CDs are ripped automatically, when a music CD is put into a drive. The second drive is to queue another CD while the first is being ripped. Once a CD is finished, it will be ejected, and the other one starts being ripped.
The software used for ripping is GRIP which offers all these automatic features. It makes use of rippers/encoders CDDA2WAV, CDPARANOIA, LAME, OGGENC, etc. whichever you prefer.
Everything runs on a Linux o/s which is exclusively configured for its tasks to allow efficient use of RAM and other resources. Less stuff running also means low maintenace and high reliability.
I've already ripped around 600 albums with this setup, and I'm very satisfied with it.
The computer uses two CDRW drives for ripping (burners have a better error correction, hence they are faster). It is connected to the LAN to access CDDB information, and to be controlled from my work PC. It has no input/output devices since every configuration is done with an exported X-server to my work computer, and CDs are ripped automatically, when a music CD is put into a drive. The second drive is to queue another CD while the first is being ripped. Once a CD is finished, it will be ejected, and the other one starts being ripped.
The software used for ripping is GRIP which offers all these automatic features. It makes use of rippers/encoders CDDA2WAV, CDPARANOIA, LAME, OGGENC, etc. whichever you prefer.
Everything runs on a Linux o/s which is exclusively configured for its tasks to allow efficient use of RAM and other resources. Less stuff running also means low maintenace and high reliability.
I've already ripped around 600 albums with this setup, and I'm very satisfied with it.
Good Digital music replay requires a RFI "free" environment. The WORST place for RFI is a PC. The steel metal chassis combined with lots of cables a large and "noisy" power supply with no protection means that even music recorded at 24/192 is compromised, let alone a lossy format like MP3. Conclusion. Great for background, it'll drive you nuts if you listen too hard.
telecat
Not the case if you're using one or more squeezeboxes. Personally since HDD's are so cheap at the moment I've opted not to compress (WAV) or to use FLAC (a lossless WAV), so that I can maintain the best quality. I then have a choice later to re-rip to lossy (mp3 type) formats. Going to use a big USB HDD to back it all up.
I bought a configured machine from Dell's outlet site with a big fast HDD. Works a treat with a couple of Squeezeboxes. (Mine you the squeezebox is even better with a better PSU and an external DAC but thats another story)
davidy
Not the case if you're using one or more squeezeboxes. Personally since HDD's are so cheap at the moment I've opted not to compress (WAV) or to use FLAC (a lossless WAV), so that I can maintain the best quality. I then have a choice later to re-rip to lossy (mp3 type) formats. Going to use a big USB HDD to back it all up.
I bought a configured machine from Dell's outlet site with a big fast HDD. Works a treat with a couple of Squeezeboxes. (Mine you the squeezebox is even better with a better PSU and an external DAC but thats another story)
davidy
davidy said:
Not the case if you're using one or more squeezeboxes. Personally since HDD's are so cheap at the moment I've opted not to compress (WAV) or to use FLAC (a lossless WAV), so that I can maintain the best quality. I then have a choice later to re-rip to lossy (mp3 type) formats. Going to use a big USB HDD to back it all up.
My original intention was to go down the WAV route, but with a large collection, using WAV files is going to seriously eat into even the largest hard drives!
I was thinking of MP3's at at least 320k, plus I have no intention of getting rid of the source CD's, they will just go into long term storage (ie the cellar!)
meeja said:
davidy said:
Not the case if you're using one or more squeezeboxes. Personally since HDD's are so cheap at the moment I've opted not to compress (WAV) or to use FLAC (a lossless WAV), so that I can maintain the best quality. I then have a choice later to re-rip to lossy (mp3 type) formats. Going to use a big USB HDD to back it all up.
My original intention was to go down the WAV route, but with a large collection, using WAV files is going to seriously eat into even the largest hard drives!
I was thinking of MP3's at at least 320k, plus I have no intention of getting rid of the source CD's, they will just go into long term storage (ie the cellar!)
A 900GB+ SATA based RAID 5 system is not that costly to build these days, and should be enough to store a few albums uncompressed on
I have done similar to store ALL my CD's and DVD's on.. All uncompressed..
Edited to add. the ASUS K8N-E Deluxe Motherboard has 6 SATA chanels on it 4 of hich can be configured in RAID 5. Never used this board, and would imagine that its not the best or fastest RAID controler, but for the price, and if Volume size is the most important thing, it could be the way forward.
>> Edited by pebbledash on Tuesday 14th June 17:18
** THE PC ***
I love the shuttle XPC's - looks good but expansion is an issue due to size. Will take two hard disks and supports RAID 0 + 1. Using an external USB 2 hard drive as suggested would be good.
RAID 5 would be overkill as you're not going to be doing Video editing or anything which requires great HD performance. You just need to mirror the drive so that you have two disks with the same data on it.
Currently 2x 250GB SATA drives cost 2x£90 = £180
Say each song is 5MB,
1 GB = 1000MB = 200 songs
So a 250 GB drive holds 250 x 200 = 50,000 Songs !
which is roughly 5000 albums !
http://eu.shuttle.com/en/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-72/170_read-11083/
** Audio Hardware+format ?**
An Audigy 2 sound card outputs great audio.
Is also an industry standard so drivers aren't an issue.
Apart from MP3 the other format option is AAC
(which is meant to sound better) and I believe is the default format for iPods ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding
Good Luck !
Ramesh
>> Edited by RameshUK on Tuesday 14th June 18:08
I love the shuttle XPC's - looks good but expansion is an issue due to size. Will take two hard disks and supports RAID 0 + 1. Using an external USB 2 hard drive as suggested would be good.
RAID 5 would be overkill as you're not going to be doing Video editing or anything which requires great HD performance. You just need to mirror the drive so that you have two disks with the same data on it.
Currently 2x 250GB SATA drives cost 2x£90 = £180
Say each song is 5MB,
1 GB = 1000MB = 200 songs
So a 250 GB drive holds 250 x 200 = 50,000 Songs !
which is roughly 5000 albums !
http://eu.shuttle.com/en/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-72/170_read-11083/
** Audio Hardware+format ?**
An Audigy 2 sound card outputs great audio.
Is also an industry standard so drivers aren't an issue.
Apart from MP3 the other format option is AAC
(which is meant to sound better) and I believe is the default format for iPods ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding
Good Luck !
Ramesh
>> Edited by RameshUK on Tuesday 14th June 18:08
The best answer is Meridian Lossless Packing(MLP). This is rather like "zipping" a file the complete signal is recorded but when reconstructed the COMPLETE signal is retrieved because the cues are in the file not reconstructed by the replay program. All High end Audio equipment has shielded PSU's and cabling. The PSU, cabling, Op-amps and DAC's are chosen for their quality AND how well they act with the other components. Computer equipment just isn't put together with the same care.
You know the more I read about SQ of MP3 the more I think I must be a bit deaf.
Granted I've never gone mad on Hifi (not for want, cars and things got in the way) but I find MP3 a perfectly decent trade off between quantity and quality.
With that in mind I would be tempted to rip to a NAS box resplendant with a full compliment of PCI IDE controllers and serve that through squeeze boxes and a proper media client.
Granted I've never gone mad on Hifi (not for want, cars and things got in the way) but I find MP3 a perfectly decent trade off between quantity and quality.
With that in mind I would be tempted to rip to a NAS box resplendant with a full compliment of PCI IDE controllers and serve that through squeeze boxes and a proper media client.
MLP is used for DVD-Audio and is supported by The Audigy 2 (and newer) sound cards by Creative.
It was used because the data rate was not high enough
for the number of channels of a sound stream in DVD Audio - by using compression you can squeeze more channels within the data rate.
***Sond Quality**
Nothing will beat listening to a CD on a good seperates hi-fi setup properly.
...but MP3/digital formats offer a huge benefit in terms of portability. If I'm strolling around the kitchen in my pj's making breakfast I'm happy just to be able to listen to music !
That's one of the reason listening to music is better than TV. You can do other activities at the same time.
Reading, working out, gardening ....driving (this is PH after all :-)
Also some albums sound much better than others.
Madonna's Ray of Light and Jackson's History sound much better on my Hi-Fi than my other albums.
just my thoughts
It was used because the data rate was not high enough
for the number of channels of a sound stream in DVD Audio - by using compression you can squeeze more channels within the data rate.
***Sond Quality**
Nothing will beat listening to a CD on a good seperates hi-fi setup properly.
...but MP3/digital formats offer a huge benefit in terms of portability. If I'm strolling around the kitchen in my pj's making breakfast I'm happy just to be able to listen to music !
That's one of the reason listening to music is better than TV. You can do other activities at the same time.
Reading, working out, gardening ....driving (this is PH after all :-)
Also some albums sound much better than others.
Madonna's Ray of Light and Jackson's History sound much better on my Hi-Fi than my other albums.
just my thoughts
RameshUK said:
** THE PC ***
RAID 5 would be overkill as you're not going to be doing Video editing or anything which requires great HD performance. You just need to mirror the drive so that you have two disks with the same data on it.
Currently 2x 250GB SATA drives cost 2x£90 = £180
Say each song is 5MB,
1 GB = 1000MB = 200 songs
So a 250 GB drive holds 250 x 200 = 50,000 Songs !
which is roughly 5000 albums !
True, but mirroring only gives 50% of the total disk capacity, and striping is not fault tollerant. If like me you store you DVD collection online, (4-7GB a DVD with no compression but, movie only) and also have your CD collection and ALL digital photographs as well. Then it does not take long to Chew up 300GB of disk Space. its would be possible to use RAID 10 (stripe and mirror) but more capacity is gained but using these 4 disks in RAID 5.
It all depends on what the aplication is I guess Now much data etc.
but DVD collection + CD Collection + Photo Album etc = Lots of disk Space.
Most of the albums I have ripped in lossles format are between 300 and 400MB each, that equates to a lot less than 5,000 albums on a 250GB disk, the actual total is a lot nearer 600.
Now where did I leave that NAS...
>> Edited by pebbledash on Wednesday 15th June 09:48
davidy said:exactly. The music is digital. The level of quality degradation depends on the format and hte compression ratio. RFI does not affect the conversion process in any way. If you were playing the music using the PC's sound card, then yes, it would be a rather compromised listening solution. Play the music using a networked component like a Squeezebox though and you don't have the PC-related problems. The new Squeezebox 2 has a BUrr-Brown DAC and is really rather good. You can always feed the digital signal froma Squeezebox into an external DAC, like the CYrus DAC X and get very high quality sound (with quality music files).
telecat
Not the case if you're using one or more squeezeboxes. Personally since HDD's are so cheap at the moment I've opted not to compress (WAV) or to use FLAC (a lossless WAV), so that I can maintain the best quality. I then have a choice later to re-rip to lossy (mp3 type) formats. Going to use a big USB HDD to back it all up.
I bought a configured machine from Dell's outlet site with a big fast HDD. Works a treat with a couple of Squeezeboxes. (Mine you the squeezebox is even better with a better PSU and an external DAC but thats another story)
davidy
Sorry to dredge up an oldie - but i would agree with using a Shuttle. I'm doing this right now, using 2 shuttles. One is always on, and fairly low spec, the other is a games machine which dims the street lights outside when i switch it on. I run my mp3s via a squeezebox thingumy. One other point.. have you condsidered NAS...? I've backed all my mp3s up to two Maxtor external USB2 HDs attached to a linksys NSLU2... Works well for me. Either way, good luck!
Sorry missed Zod's contribution. No the compression routine is not affected by RFI however any digital music signal within a computer(or player) WILL be affected by RFI and the signal will be degraded. Hence even mid range players now have shielded signal paths.
>> Edited by telecat on Thursday 23 June 22:28
>> Edited by telecat on Thursday 23 June 22:28
Going back to the original question... why bother with a dedicated pc? The current squeezebox is wireless so just hook it up to your lan and serve the files from your normal pc (assuming you have one). That way you don't have to spend money on an unnecessary pc and don't get the fan noises in the living room.
I've got one of the original squeezeboxes when it was called a slimp3 player, wasn't wireless and didn't come in an enclosure but consisted of a smoked 'glass' front and a small black box stuck to the back. It's still going strong after several years of use and is a superb bit of kit. The painful bit is ripping all those cds. I ripped all mine at 320kbs, can't see any point in doing it at a lower rate with disc so cheap these days.
Mark
I've got one of the original squeezeboxes when it was called a slimp3 player, wasn't wireless and didn't come in an enclosure but consisted of a smoked 'glass' front and a small black box stuck to the back. It's still going strong after several years of use and is a superb bit of kit. The painful bit is ripping all those cds. I ripped all mine at 320kbs, can't see any point in doing it at a lower rate with disc so cheap these days.
Mark
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