Digital Music Server advice

[Keith Henderson]

John....
Thanks for trying, but unless I'm mistaken somehow, none of these ideas helps me.

>If you like using an iPod 

I have one, and "like" it, but here I'm just using 'iPod' as any random handheld digital music (only) device, though of course I don't want another one or a tablet version (or Touch)...I want a compact stereo component console with nice forward-facing (!!!) display.

Mac Mini (from the image on Wikipedia) has no display at all.  Right?  No good.  The other cheap thing is a game console and a featureless box.  Again, not at all what I want.

I don't want audio through the TV.  I can do that already (we have a "smart" WiFi TV, though we have no WiFi).  I suppose I could get one, but I don't really want to use it.  Can't think of any advantage really.  We watch TV on our TV - that's what it is for.  The computer will be in a different room than the TV - I don't want my interface with the music player to not be in the same room as where I listen to it.  So yeah, I could play iTunes via the computer through the WiFi, into the TV and out the soundbar, and maybe have a display on the TV of what's playing (?), but I don't want that.  First, we have two small stereo speakers on the TV/stereo stand that don't link to the TV.  The stereo (and TV) additionally links to the soundbar below (with an A/B/C switch), so we listen to music through two small speakers (mainly treble) in addition to soundbar (adds bass...sounds good together).  I need the digital device to go through RCA cables into the
 stereo, as I said, then - to get this same setup.  And I watch TV with no sound (ie., sports where you don't need sound, and I hate the announcers 90% of the time, and HATE constant promo-ing during the broadcast) while I listen to music, so I can't use the TV for music, 'cause even if it would play through via a separate "channel" while displaying the TV image (not sure it does that, but who cares), I wouldn't have any music display.  Hence, I need the nice display!!!!!!  That's the whole damn point really.  Plus the RCA cables.


Also, I don't want it to run iTunes, it should have its own unique file-managing software.  I don't like iTunes, although I use it for managing stuff on the computer here.  I want it to have a *better* way of reading in music files, displaying them, and choosing stuff based on all the various metadata (artist, style, title, playlist, whatever).  On the computer, I have to go and find something through 8 layers of convoluted sub-directory structure, open it up for use inside iTunes (which takes some nontrivial length of time), in order to play it or do anything.  I want the device I buy to instantly call up and play anything (ie., search on a title/artist name as I do in Spotify*) without having to display a window full of a thousand icons or a million lines of songtitles that I have to scroll through for 10 minutes.  I have a lot of music.  I want the library to be hidden (from the display) at all times that I'm not actively searching for
 anything.  There shouldn't be any "open" or "closed" music files - they should all be "open" all the time, at least the files in its own internal hard-drive (and preferably those connected to a second hard-drive through the USB in the back, as well).


*Spotify on the computer (instead of iTunes) would actually be the way I *would* play music on the computer via the TV (WiFi) if I was going to do this...you can have it load all your personal music files into the Spotify GUI, though I don't like that either; one reason is because it replaces some of your own designated album titles/graphics with what it thinks they should be from its own global library (gives a compilation title/artwork instead of the original source!), and that's stupid.  Only in offline mode would it show the right thing then, and I don't want to have to keep switching back and forth (unplugging the ethernet cable) between "modes."


Who makes *this* mythical device?  Anybody?

Thanks again!  I appreciate your contribution, seriously.  But I'm just ignorant about stuff available in the marketplace, not completely stupid...I know *exactly* what I want for the reasons I've stated.

Keith H. (State College PA)

P.S.  Sound quality is not critical...my stuff is not FLAC.  Majority is 192 kbps AAC.  Stereo speakers and soundbar are just ordinary stuff.  Not remotely audophile gear.