Digital Music Server advice

[Steve Freight]

Try this. I know a number of people who have these.

http://www.brennan.co.uk/

Steve


On 5 July 2013 20:14, Keith Henderson <khenders64 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 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.
>



-- 
View Steve's Photos of Hawkwind Porcupine Tree and Isle of Wight
http://www.flickr.com/photos/venthawktree