Digital Music Server advice

[Paul Mather]

On Jul 5, 2013, at 3:14 PM, 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.


Part of the problem is that your requirements include "no TV," which hobbles you quite a lot.  Most of the cheap things you can cobble together use your TV as a UI (user interface), often leveraging the TV remote control along with it.  For you not to use the TV implies the "Mythical Device" (as you put it:) includes its own form of UI.  That might be bad because it might force you to use, e.g., some small built-in LCD display coupled to its own music organisation software.  As you point out, music software can sometimes be a make-or-break part of the puzzle, like you point out below:


> 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'm not sure you're using iTunes correctly, here (because you can restrict song displays according to various metadata---or at least you could the last time I used it), but point taken.  And there's the rub. Some "mythical device", i.e., some off-the-shelf commercial gizmo that someone sells, if I understand you correctly, is likely to suck just as badly from your point of view due to its built-in music organiser software. :-)


>   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?


I'm not sure anyone makes this mythical device, but what you are describing is very close to the concept of a "media centre" except that you don't want to use the TV (and you don't want to connect it to the network, it seems).  If you could overcome your aversion to hooking up to a TV or some kind of display, then you could probably do what you wanted via something along the lines of what John suggested.

You wouldn't even have to buy anything as expensive as a Mac Mini.  My "media centre" computer cost $35.  Well, closer to $51, because I put it in an $8 case and bought an $8 5V 1A power supply for it (it draws about 3.5W), but it was much cheaper than a Mac Mini, and it can still drive an HDMI display at 1080p (digital audio, too), plus provide stereo analogue out on a 3.5 mm jack plug (as well as analogue TV out on RCA composite video).

My "media centre" computer is a Raspberry Pi Model B and on it I run Raspbmc, which is a version of the XBMC media centre software for the Raspberry Pi.  I connect it to a nearby router via wired ethernet, to make it easy to update the software, plus to put on new content, but you could also use a USB WiFi adapter to network it, too.  It is connected to a 1 TB USB hard drive, and has a small capacity SD card to allow it to boot. All my media content is stored on the USB hard drive, although the software also supports storing it on a networked storage device.

In my case, I use it for video, although it does support audio, too.  (I have also successfully played audio through it via "airplay" [or whatever they call it] from my Mac.)  XBMC is very well supported, and has various add-ons to provide functionality (e.g., artwork and lyrics downloads; access to online services).  It can be "themed" and it even has UI add-ons that let you control it via a Web browser.


> 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.


The Raspberry Pi has a 3.5 mm analogue audio out onboard (so a 3.5 mm stereo to 2 x RCA cable would be in order).  I don't know what the quality is like because I have only heard the HDMI digital audio out.  If you have an amplifier with an HDMI input, you could probably connect the Raspberry Pi to it.

I'm not advocating you necessarily use a Raspberry Pi, but I do think you are likely to end up something more satisfying of your requirements if you do go down the "media centre" road.  That will likely involve some kind of small PC at its heart.  You'll probably want something that is fanless (or at least whose fan is very quiet) if you're listening to music.  You'll probably want something small, too, so it is unobtrusive in your living room.  There are quite a lot of "media centre" applications from which to choose.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Paul.