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Need help choosing a playback method for my soon-to-be digitized CD collection

post #1 of 6
6/17/12 at 8:58pm
Thread Starter 
Basically, I want the simplest solution for my problem: I want to eliminate all my CD's (or at least put them in storage) and rip them to FLAC or Apple lossless format, retaining the best stereo quality possible. I need the best way to port this to my home stereo / home theater setup, whether this be a wired or wireless setup.

I should also mention that I'm building my home stereo / theater setup from scratch and that I want to keep things as minimal as possible. Right now I don't even own an AVR, although I was wondering if I could get by without one for my purposes. This will all go into my living room in a small apartment. I will be purchasing a 32" or 40" HDTV soon, and I want to eventually build a 5.1 audio setup, although I'll probably start with 2.0. I will be mostly listening to music in stereo and then occasionally watch movies on a blu-ray / dvd player or stream content through my wi-fi. I never really watch TV.

I started my research by looking into Apple's Airport functionality--not sure whether to go with Apple TV here or Airport Express. One thing's for sure--I want to retain the highest audio quality possible. Another concern is having a way to play music while my computer is shut off, but if I am using iTunes, then this won't be possible, right?

As far as sound output goes, I've become enamored as of late by the AudioEngine A5 / A5+ self-powered speakers:
http://audioengineusa.com/Store/Audioengine-5-Plus

They might be just what I need for my relatively small living room. I also noticed that they make a wireless sender/receiver called the W3 that is supposed to have a built in decent quality DAC:
http://audioengineusa.com/Store/Audioengine-W3

I'm curious to here how this setup would compare in audio quality to Apple's Airport functionality and perhaps other setups such as the Sonos.

Thoughts?
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post #2 of 6
6/17/12 at 9:24pm
There are so many equipment options out there I'll let some who are more up to date on current stuff comment on that.

But I will toss out a couple of thoughts on your other issues. Personally I would not use a proprietary codec like apple, somewhat limiting. I'd opt for Flac, I use it and it can easily be converted to other formats for various devices. I play content from my phone to my car audio via blue tooth, and don't need high quality audio in that environment, plus even with a 16 g memory card space does get eaten up quickly.

Your other issue wired vs. wireless. I'm a big proponent of wired where ever possible. If you are in a small apartment and distances are short you may not have any issues. However, if you have a great many neighbors you may have problems if many are using wireless. All you can do is try.

You will need some sort of display in order to see what you are streaming, I'm not aware of any streamer that is fully functional with out some sort of display. My AVR has streaming capabilities but they are very limited and hard to use without a display connected.

Good luck on your quest....
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post #3 of 6
6/18/12 at 7:08am
Neither airport nor sonos will support hi-res if you ever decide you want "better than CD quality". A squeezebox touch is a great, stand-alone solution that does not require a separate display and will allow some hi-res audio playback as well. None of these options will support multi-channel audio/video playback however. If you want to do that, you should check into the Dune Player or Popcorn Hour devices. These will support hi-res audio/video and multichannel. You can control these devices without the use of a display if you have either a smartphone, tablet or pc/mac.
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post #4 of 6
6/18/12 at 7:44am
Well, as many options as there are, I will tell you what I use: A laptop with an external soundcard which converts to optical, and a AVR (Yamaha) receiver/amp. Everything is FLAC. I have an extra long optical cable for laptop portability, and use zones from the amp. Way cheaper than sonos, but less fancy and user friendly too. Every setup will have advantages and disadvantages. I was going for cheapest solution since this 2.1 setup was a spur-of-the-moment purchase a while back, which required another amp, so using my laptop for playback kept the total cost lower. The other level in my home, I use a PS3 and stream FLAC to my HT for playback there. If you are only planning on using one zone, then a PS3 or HTPC (or laptop) are options to consider. Make sure you run at least one network cable (cat 5) if you haven't already.
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post #5 of 6
6/18/12 at 8:11am
Thread Starter 
I think I'm fine with simply CD quality for now.

So SONOS or Airplay or Audioengine's W3 wireless sender/receiver would work assuming that it can preserve CD / FLAC quality via wireless transmission.

The big issue I'm facing is (i) how best to interface with the device streaming the music and (ii) how to stream music when my computer is shut off. Right now I'm looking into a network storage device, but I need a way to tap into it in a user-friendly way such that I can page through my library by artist, album, etc.

I was looking into a Denon AVR-1613 receiver, is the user interface screen just terrible on these receivers, or will it allow me to see a basic tree structure such as artist --> album --> song?

My initial thought was just to plug an external HDD directly into my receiver via USB port, but it all depends on whether I can interface with it in a user-friendly way. Is there a way to use my iPhone / iTouch as a remote to page through my library on my HDD (apart from my computer)?
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post #6 of 6
6/18/12 at 12:16pm
Hi Kalash,
Quote:
Originally Posted by kalash74 View Post

The big issue I'm facing is (i) how best to interface with the device streaming the music and (ii) how to stream music when my computer is shut off. Right now I'm looking into a network storage device, but I need a way to tap into it in a user-friendly way such that I can page through my library by artist, album, etc.
Some NASes support hosting your iTunes library. My Synology NAS contains an iTunes server that allows managing the library from my laptop with iTunes, but the music is still available to my media players when the laptop is off. The NAS is never off.

BTW: according to the specs, the Audioengine W3 does preserve CD quality. However, like Sonos and Airplay, it cannot do high-resolution audio.
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