I'm in the process of designing the system that will be part of my media room retrofit project. One of the areas I'm not as familiar with is the digital media server space. The main functionality that I'm looking for is the ability to rip cds and access songs on my networked PC. Also, but not as important are the ability to stream internet radio and burn CDs.

I specifically don't care about wireless capability as I'll have it wired into my rack system and video, online or otherwise.

One of the systems I was looking at was the Escient Fireball, but $2000 seemed a little steep for not much more than a hard drive, CD-RW drive and a network card.

Are there other options out there that would server the purpose, but might be priced more appropriately? Any other advice in this arena would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I can help you with this. It really depends on what kind of interface you want among other things. You can put a Mac Mini in your system and use the digital output to the rest of your system etc... You can get a touch screen panel for systems similar to the Fireball and the list goes on.

Do you have any more specifics about what you need to do and a price range?

Chris

Computer Audiophile | Turn Down The Silence

Blogging live from CES 2008 (Jan 7 - 10)

Thanks,

The equipment that I'm planning on installing are the following:

Denon AVR-2808CI
Denon DVD-1940CI
Pioneer PDP-6010
TiVo HD
Pronto TSU9400 & RFX9600
Lutron Lighting & shade control

What I'm really trying to accomplish is the ability to store digitally all of my music and be able to play that through the system and potentially through a distributed multi-zone system.

A couple of things led me to consider the Fireball. I liked the 2-way integration with the pronto so as not to have to have the TV on to access the music. The ability to rip CDs to the HD and access music stored on my PC was crucial.

I don't forsee really needing access to stored video, except from the Tivo. I don't plan on streaming video or downloading video locally. So, the video capabilities are of little consequence. And since I didn't plan on buying one of those crappy megachangers, the video functionality of the Fireball was really wasted on me.

I also don't want to have a separate control. If it can't really integrate with the universal remote, I'm not as interested.

At the end of the day, I'd like something that approximates the functionality of the MX-111 minus the $2000 price tag. I'd like to keep the cost of this component at $1000 or less.

Thanks again.