Wireless Audio

Greetings!

I'm not a high tech guy but have been contemplating a new CD player but I already have so much music on my PC. Having heard a lot about audio streaming and only today I noticed a letter in the Doctor section of MaximumPC Magazine, page 22 to be exact, in which a reader asks for recommendations to connect his PC to his stereo amp. The Doctor didn't hesitate to recommend Aperion Audio's Zona Home Audio Link ($150) and my first reaction was, WOW! That might be jjst what I'm looking for. Therefore my questions:

1. Does anyone here own/operate this system, and if so any recommendations? Or are there better units out there?

2. What quality output could I expect from this type system?

I called Aperion's customer service and they said the output/send unit simply plugs into the USB of your computer and the input/receive unit jacks into your L/R RCA inputs as another device on your AVR. Range is about 150' but I only need it to stream about 25' through one interior sheet rock/stud wall.

Thanks you.

Thanks for the great feedback. I didn't know about the NAD offering.

The only difference that I can see between the NAD (I think they price a tad high) and the Aperion unit is that NAD touts a Burr-Brown TI PCM1781 Digital-to-Analogue Converter, which means what in terms of a benefit? And the SNR for the two are: NAD=>-80dB, Aperion=91dB.

Yes, the Aperion comes with both send and receive units for $150 plus six different cables and two USB power adapters.

Shoot, I think I'd favor the Aperion based on the above but then I haven't considered the Squeezebox Touch that ap1 mentioned at all and now I need to study up on that. Maybe I should simply get another computer and move this one next to the AVR as the Mobo has an HDMI out and I could simply jack it directly into the AVR, correct?

Sorry, I neglected to reply.

The only place we currently store music is on our home PC. We don't own an "i" anything or portable anything else. We only listen to music through our AVR which has a very old but still functioning CD player attached to it. We were using our Blu-Ray player for CD's but like the sound through the CD player better.

Regardless of whether we choose to go with a wireless audio device such as the Aperion/NAD types or a Squeezebox, would there be a recommended preference of one format/software type over another? We're currently ripping our CDs using Windows Media Player and WMA Lossless now but slowly discovering that perhaps non-proprietary forms may be better, such as Foobar2000 and FLAC???

We have a modest collection of CD's and from what I have been able to find out, dbpoweramp free or reference sounds like about the best in combination with Foobar2000 since (I just today learned this) Windows Media Player doesn't play, rip or burn FLAC files, is that correct?

Which leads to another question. If CD's and CD players are going away, where/how will folks purchase new music 'albums' with quality encoding? For example, Amazon only downloads MP3 encoded music, right?

Sorry for all the questions but we're audio troglodytes squinting into the 21st century.

Thanks everyone for all the very helpful input. This is totally new for us and very, very confusing. As with everything else in life, it's easy once you know how.

First, no, we're not locked onto or otherwise committed to Windows Media Player and/or WMA Lossless. We started with Windows Media Player because it was there free on the computer and WMA Lossless because we learned somewhere to rip CD's in Lossless formats because they were at least as good as CD quality vs. MP3. That's virtually all we knew up until last week. So far we only have about 100 or so CD's ripped onto the hard drive of one computer which we run through an old Pioneer amp pushing two Polk RTi4's hanging on the wall above the computer in our bedroom.

Second, at this time wireless is our only choice from computer to AVR since they are located in different rooms but not so far that wireless won't work. We had three computers but the ancient Sony laptop crapped out and we're down to two, both Windows; an older XP unit and a getting older home built Vista unit. It would be nice if our living arrangement allowed the computer to be close to the AVR because the Vista s motherboard has an HDMI output.

Only within the past year have we purchased a new AVR with decent front three speakers to enjoy 5.1 with our 50 Panasonic plasma in a small living room. Our system is modest but then so have been our needs. Since we both work and have a 5 year old who occupies the TV/DVD/AVR mostly, we parents do very much enjoy watching a grown up movie and listening to good music in between!!! Presently we drop CD's into the player for music and that's just fine but it would be slick if we could conveniently tap the computer hard drive instead, although I'm still not sure how the sound from the optical drive on a computer compares with that from a dedicated CD player.

When we started looking for a new CD player, whoah! Everything we read was about streaming and getting rid of the dedicated CD hardware, therefore our questions here. Since we do have a tight home entertainment budget we want to maximize our outlay toward the future - which with the advent of streaming doesn't seem to favor a new CD player. My concern is the sound quality. I simply want to end up with sound as least as good as that coming out of our CD player.

I downloaded dBpoweramp and Foobar today to begin the process of ripping my CD's to FLAC. On a dBpoweramp page it said that Windows Media Lossless files could be converted to FLAC files just fine. So since I already have many of our CD's ripped to WM Lossless, this would be as good a choice as re-ripping CD's directly to FLAC? Also, haven't spent enough time with it yet, does Foobar2000 show album art like Media Player?

WOW! I've been dinking around with Foobar2000 for a couple hours, well, also ripping disks to FLAC, but from your screen shot obviously you're much more talented with a computer than I am (but then almost everyone is!) although I did learn how to divide up the screen and put a square in the lower left corner with displays the album art. My home screen is really basic and it's obvious to me that the learning curve for this software will be a very steep one to make this look better. How did you create the tab for ART?

Question: Would I needlessly be filling up my hard drive if both Foobar2000 and Windows Media Player coexisted with one storing FLAC files and the other WM Lossless files? I'm thinking I'd be better off space wise if I just kept Foobar alive and removed all the Windows Media files, yes?

While looking around the internet for "how to" sites on Foobar2000 I have seen some very handsome screen shots of what some very talented users have made but even if I could come close to something looking like Media Player I'd be in high clover.

Is album art the only reason you continue to use Media Player?