Digital Music Server advice

[John Rennie]

>I guess the dock is only made for the tablet to sit vertically

No, the tablet sits in the dock in landscape mode.

>32GB is a bit small

Yes, you'll need to stream the music over WiFi, so you'll need a PC or
NAS box running somewhere to store your music.

>So, docking it semi-permanently is OK in terms of protecting the battery?

Yes, it simply stops charging when the battery reaches 100%. You can
leave it permanently charging with no harm to the battery.

Re the Sqeezebox: I toyed with the idea of getting one some time ago
when it was first released. However you need a server app that runs on a
PC/Mac. Also it wasn't clear how much control you get over the library.
I haven't looked at the Vortexbox.

Before you spend any money grab a copy of XBMC to try on your PC or Mac. It's free! http://xbmc.org/.

Re good music: assuming I'm allowed to mention bands other than BOC and
Hawkwind, a friend has recently been nagging me to listen to some of
the new prog rock that's around, and I have to say I'm very impressed.
I suspect most of the bands have listened to a few Porcupine Tree
albums, but being influenced by Porcupine Tree is fine by me :-) Try the
bands Amplifier (best album is Octopus from a few years ago), Alcest,
Anathema, Beardfish, OSI and Baroness.

JR

-----Original Message-----
From: BOC/Hawkwind Discussion List [mailto:BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET] On Behalf Of Keith Henderson
Sent: 06 July 2013 14:51
To: BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET
Subject: Re: Digital Music Server advice

John said...

>When I'm travelling I use a Nexus 7 tablet in a stand:

This looks like a pretty good option.  Cost seems to be about $250 for the 32-GB tablet, and another $50 for the charger unit and dock.  I guess the dock is only made for the tablet to sit vertically (?), whereas I would rather have a "landscape" screen display.  But that's a minor issue as long as the display looks nice, and I figure I can run whatever "app" I want to play music on the tablet within Android (which I know absolutely nothing about, but I'm sure it's easy to catch on...every idiot in the world has these).  :)  (I've never owned a cell, Blackberry, PDA, or tablet...I don't have any friends.)  :)

32GB is a bit small, and of course, I would have to get a WiFi thing for the computer to stream my own personal music over if I wanted to play my own stuff in the living room, but that's OK.

So, docking it semi-permanently is OK in terms of protecting the battery?  It knows how to protect itself, right?

One other thing...
Before I wrote to the list, my very limited search online lead me to a product called Squeezebox - I wasn't sure what this was exactly, but then the first thing I saw was that it was no longer being made (as of 2012), so that's when I decided to just ask the list.

Now I've found something called Vortexbox, which looks a little like the Brennan I guess.  However, I have yet to see an image of the display panel when actually lit.  Also, it looks like overkill for my purposes, as it has an even larger TB harddisk, the same CD drive/ripping capability that I don't really need, and is either designed for both audio and video (hence the larger storage), or else there are two different models.  Again, something like $500, so $200 more than a tablet setup....

Anyway, it looks like Vortexbox is a Logitech product, and I think I saw that Squeezebox was discontinued when the company was bought by Logitech, so is this the "replacement"?

Whatever...I think I'll gravitate in the mini-tablet direction - I need to join the party at some point, so to speak.

Sorry for Bogarting the list for this off-topic discussion.  Anybody hear any good music lately?  I went to see Steve Martin and Edie Brickell earlier this week, and although bluegrass music is not exactly my thing, I was really impressed.  I liked Edie Brickell's stuff in the late 80s (and saw her band back then), and she made a nice writing duo with Martin.  Plus he was really masterful at mixing his comedy side with his serious musical side, and so one was never a distraction to the other.  Wonderful evening of entertainment...and not just for my aforementioned Mom.

I also saw Roger Hodgson with a full band.  I've always loved Crime of the Century, and he played all four of "his" songs from that album, plus the usual bigger hits from later on, and a few oddities.  Enjoyable, though everything was played pretty much straight up without stretching out hardly at all.

And I liked seeing Nektar again, with the Other Wishbone Ash that I hadn't previously seen.  Unlike Jerry, I thought Nektar put on a pretty decent show, though I also felt like they should have done some of RTF instead of Recycled *again* in its entirety (well, Side One I mean) which they did on the last tour (and just about every time I've seen them - 5 times now??).  But Roye's voice, probably thanks to shorter sets each night as coheadliner, was noticeably better than in past years.  Listen to the live acoustic version of Do You Believe in Magic on that one DVD from Germany (Rockpalast)...for an example of how awful Roye's vocals can get when he's overdone it.  So that was a definite improvement.  Wishbone Ash were pretty good too, though just a "guitar" band with nice bluesy songs.  I know the songs fairly well, mainly Argus...they didn't actually play the entire album (as advertised)...though they played I think 5 of the 7 songs, and scattered
 throughout the set.  (Will HW do Warrior from beginning to end?  And most curiously, how are they going to play Nik's song?  Or are they going to conveniently "skip" it, and add Motorhead or something?)

Keith

P.S.  I'm listening to someone named Alison Brown right now, something for my Mom.  I was expecting more banjo-bluegrass, but the song that just came on is full of freaking didgeridoo - it's kinda psychedelic.  Not at ALL what I was expecting.  Who is this person?