High-end network music player - Page 3

You may want to qualify that to exclude PAL. There is a 5% speedup problem with PAL that is corrected via an external 100khz Master Clock. You can read about it on the Esoteric website. Television studios use atomic global master clocks but primarily for time synching.

Sure, the Infrant 'CPU' runs Slimserver (the Squeezebox & Transporter software) on their NAS products (600, X6, NV, even after-market NAS devices featuring the Infrant board). As I mentioned, the PC interface is quite handy for setting up the player, building playlists, customizing user settings, and a myriad of other tasks (see the Slimserver page here.), but one of the most important aspects of the interface is that these same functions (for the most part) can be accessed via the remote control and verified on the VFD. Looking at the Transporter remote, it appears to be even more versatile.

When I have guests over or simply want some mood music for various extracurricular activites, the last thing I want to be doing is dicking around with my PC. If I was listening to one of my mellow playlists when I shut off the Squeezebox, I just grab the remote and hit the PLAY button (yes, only 1 button since my bedroom amp has auto-signal sensing) and viola', instant romance! Else, I just click through the "Now Playing" menu and select the correct playlists or favorites, done deal.

I keep my NAS in a basement storage room plugged into a UPS, then route the data via gigabit switch to my Squeezeboxes.



Nice audio setup, no? Jealous OB?

You can download and play with Slimserver for free from the Slim Devices website.

BTW, since I switched to the Home Depot steel & particle board rack, it is as if a 'veil' has been lifted from the music. The bass is 'tighter', the highs 'airier', and the soundstage has gotten both deeper and wider. Although, I still prefer the sound of CAT5e cables over newer CAT6.

p.s. QQQ, I promise to clean out my inbox soon

p.s.s If anyone is coming to Denver for CEDIA I would love to get together with the folks I have come to know via this forum and finally put some faces to the various screen names. I'm a Denver local, so if you need any intel on Denver, please PM me (after I clean out my inbox and make room that is)

BER is a result that can be predicted by knowing jitter, but now we are talking about jitter as it pertains to high-speed communication, not audio. the implications are different.

On a gig ethernet line for example, if you have too much jitter you will lose bits because the data may be misaligned with the clock. This is not really an issue in audio - instead we are concerned with how clean the received clock signal is, something that does NOT matter in telecom provided it is clean enough to receive the data.

To predict BER you look at the distribution of the jitter and the figure out the probably of a cycle being far enough out on the outlying "tails" of the distribution that it would cause a bit error.

Hopefully you get a very small number, maybe one bit error every couple years or something. That is why it is done this way - it is not feasible to measure a statistically significant number of _actual_ errors, but you can predict them by knowing the jitter. Thus you (more or less) can get the figure in seconds instead of decades.

So BER is not a unit of jitter. However, there is one other very common unit you will see which is "UI" or "unit interval". This just means whatever fraction of one clock cycle, and can be converted back and forth to (pico)seconds depending on the clock rate.

Gee, and i thought they used things like a grass valley frame synchronizer

Fine.. this is one club I can stand to get kicked out of!

I agree. Still... $1700... I would only buy if I could get an eval unit to compare against my DCS transport. I am not interested in trading sound quality for convenience.

But T, even assuming for purposes of discussion there is an audible difference in sound quality, it still does not have to be either/or. It can be both.

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Ron Party

I just placed an order for a Transporter, so if anyone here in the NY/NJ area wants to give it a shot when I receive it in September, I'm more than happy to coordinate. (my DAC does not have a word clock output , so I would need someone else who has one).

Also fyi - I just signed up as a reseller for SlimDevices, so obviously from this point forward, my comments on the subject are no longer unbiased....

But what if one stream uses Monster Cable and the other uses Belden. THAN you could be hearing the differences between the cable!

No worries...I will use a coat hanger for both...

Hey everyone; PhilNYC is going to sponsor an unbelievable super special power buy price for AVS Forum members! Pass it on!

if anyone in the bay area is going to resell these or has one I can borrow for a night of testing, that would be great to hear.

Ron, I agree, but hoping to achieve equal sound quality to my current setup, with an increase in convenience is too much to hope for... but I am eternally optimistic, hence my desire to evaluate.

JetLag...eh...you do realize that the SlimDevices CEO is reading this forum, right...?

tcuzz...if you order from SlimDevices' website, there's a 30 day return policy...

hey Phil, I realy like my new handle 'tcuzz' ... very nice.

I don't know if it's the Lagavullin, but definitely LOL!

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Ron Party

Nice.

That must be the new cat-9 cabling standard that I've been hearing so much about. I'm sure we'll see monster introduce a new line of networking cables that will become very successful. Their new nine-tails/tales line.

And to think, all these years people have been mastering, editing, and storing digital audio sent through ethernet networks with all this jitter. Maybe we can get them to go back and redo it all.

Make sure you replace the power cord (but only up to the wall plate)
http://www.psaudio.com/products/xstr...c_overview.asp

tzucc...sorry, was posting from my Treo, and my thumbs got crossed...

bleair...ask Chu Gai about the coat hanger...

I am using Air-Tunes through my house music system. Meaning I can play all of my I-tunes songs in any zone via any of my computers around the house.... What sets this apart from the simple and reliable Airtunes (811G also)?

In addition to doing the same thing you are doing with Air-Tunes, the theory is that you get higher sound quality because of the attention they paid in the design and selection of quality parts. Asides from that, you can look at the spec sheet to see all of the other functions (eg. word clock, RS-232 port for integration with Crestron et al, digital-input allowing cable/satellite-box/playstation/xbox/etc to use the internal DAC, etc)...

The basic SlimDevices Squeezebox is more similar to AirTunes (although still slightly more expensive)...

Oh Crap... i did not need to know that i can feed this addiction from my treo!

No DRM!

Check this out!
http://inguzaudio.com/RoomCorrection/

Room correction for the squeezebox.

nice link Jermmd.

Wait, so are you saying you won't be doing a power buy?

Jeff

There are passive power supplies out there, Antec Phantom to name one if thats an issue.

There is no reason why a computer now a days should output more than 25db at any given time.

I use Antec Phantom with Valhalla power cord and PS Audio Power Plant. See 10 MB video. It's better than $4000 Cary 303/300 as transport.

I think your video would be much better and get your point across in a far superior fashion if it were really shaky and poorly focused like the serious "artsy" clips you sometimes find on YouTube and elsewhere