Hi there, new poster here looking for a bit of advice. I have checked the similar threads and I can't seem to find exactly what I need.

Over the last several years I spent hours ripping my CD's to my external hard drive, so I now have thousands of digital music files (mostly mp3, some wma). The hard drive is a Buffalo LinkStation NAS (network attached storage) with a built in DLNA server.

Recently I moved into a new house that has whole house audio with all of the speaker leads in the basement where the home theater will some day go. The previous homeowner ran an RCA cable from the office on the main floor to the home theater area in the basement, presumably to have the CD player in the office, and the stereo in the basement running the speakers.

I have placed my stereo receiver in the basement and can now play audio in all rooms of the house through a home tech speaker selector. I would like a device that I can put in the office that will consume the digital music from the NAS, send it through the RCA cable to the receiver and play in the house.

All of my research comes up with a couple of options:

1. Run the music from the media center on my Vista Ultimate PC.
2. Copy all of the music to an iPod or other player and connect a dock to the RCA cable.
3. Purchase a new networkable A/V receiver.
4. Purchase a media receiver like the Linksys DMC 250.

Here is why I am not wild about these options:
1. I don't want to run the PC everytime I want to listen to music. I also don't want all of the PC audio playing all over the house. All of the music is on the NAS, I should not have to have a PC running to get to it.
2. I don't want to install iTunes nor shell out the several hundred dollars to get a player big enough to hold my music collection.
3. Since I don't yet have the home theater, it seems silly to shell out several thousand dollars to purchase a networkable A/V receiver. Most of these have price tags bigger than my whole home theater budget anyway. When I do have the home theater, I would consider ripping my 200+ DVD collection as well, but that is several years down the road.
4. I only want to play music, so I don't want to connect a TV or other monitor just to be able to select music. I don't need pictures or movies on the device.

It could be that I am just being cheap. It could be that I found a niche that no one is making a player for. I'm not sure. It also does not make sense for me to dig my CD's out of the office and play from them. That seems like a big step backward.

Is there something that I am missing that will fit that piece and be under $200?

Thanks for any help you can throw my way.

I'd consider a Squeezebox

I'd consider a Squeezebox

I just saw a post about those while searching for a DVD ripper. I will check that out as well.

Thank you!

Sonos is another possibility

OK, I have checked out those products, and the Sonos looks like it could fit the bill, but once again, $1000 price tag.

The squeeze box looks good as well, the price is better, but it appears you need still use the PC to control it. They don't talk about pulling directly from a NAS with no PC in the mix except for Internet radio.

Any other options out there without a PC in the mix?

I think you might want to look hard at your desire to avoid the PC. Having a PC involved allows much more support for the user interface, which can be a big pain if people don't get it right on some dedicated box. I use a couple SqueezeBoxes (and SqueezeCenter server software, of course) to control my ~2100 album collection. They are completely separate from the PC audio, no worry about having "all PC audio played throughout the house".

My server is on an always-on desktop computer. But if you're worried about power usage, an old used laptop (lid down... go to suspend, lid up... resume and play) could work almost as well. Or you could get a low-power dedicated server box for less than some of that other equipment. Or you may even be able to find a load for SqueezeCener that runs on your NAS, but you would still want/need a browser to control it. But I think you'll really appreciate the extra intelligence of having the PC involved.