Hi res streaming : Linux and Mac

[PJPJ]

Thanks Dave, you've given much food for thought while I unpack in a few weeks. I do fancy transferring all the 24 bit files to USB drive and feed via laptop to Teac UD-501 dac, and leaving the lower quality files on the network.

I'd also like to do this when I move!

http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_7797267_make-rear-speakers-wireless.html

Where I'm moving it will be impossible not to have speaker cables running across the floor.

[neiltingley]

The main point of using a NAS is resiliency if you use a RAID X disk configuration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID). My NAS has 4 disks in RAID 5 config. If I loose a disk the data on the NAS is still intact. I back up it up every week to two USB attached hard drives.

NAS (or fileservers as we call them) have been industry standard technology for years.

[neiltingley]

Mac OS can read/write with VFAT and FAT32 (older windows file formats) . There is read support for NFTS. I think you need to pay for r/w NTFS.

MACos being based on BSD unix has native support for EXT2/3/4. (man(8) mount)

MAC laptops consistently rank very highly in most magazine 'tests' I've read. In Europe they've pushed Sony and Samsung out of the laptop business infact. I don;t know why anyone would want to use windows in preference to MacOS. There's no competition. Ubuntu is a very good laptop OS too. It's ideal for the inexperienced computer use too. 15 years ago linux on laptops was only productive for geeks but so much has changed.

[Dave2002]

The main point of using a NAS is resiliency if you use a RAID X disk configuration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID). My NAS has 4 disks in RAID 5 config. If I lose a disk the data on the NAS is still intact. I back up it up every week to two USB attached hard drives.

NAS (or fileservers as we call them) have been industry standard technology for years.

I agree, but the problem for consumer users is that they are not running large organisations, with a lot of kit and end users, possibly multi-site, and with a lot of data to protect. Some organisations are even global so there is an international dimension. I worked in a moderately large organisation which operated over several sites with communications links between them for quite a number of years, and indeed RAIDs were used, but the individual drives did fail from time to time I'm told. Each time there is a drive failure there is a cost for a replacement drive, plus also the time taken to fix the problem, though hopefully no loss of data so no cost for data recovery.

Doing the data integrity/security etc. thing is actually quite hard, and to keep data secure requires off site backups, and I think the conventional approach was to use 3 generations of data in rotation which was the method used in one of the first companies I worked for, which had vans roaming the country with backup tapes to different sites.

For a consumer that might require 3 x your 4 disk RAID unit, and a rather strictly observed rotation scheme - cost probably around £1.5k, and it would need what most of us would probably consider to be quite a lot of faff. Chances are most of us have multiple drives, with multiple data copies, and we are resilient at the 90-95% level, and don't rely exclusively on electronic storage. Where there are vital documents/data, these should be kept secure, and probably with copies, which could well include paper copies. I have one friend who has all of his important data as typed or hand written documents!

There has been a lot of talk in the last few years about backup using so-called cloud storage, or using 3rd party data warehouses to store data. There have been articles written about how this leads to better productivity, and is more secure than in-house solutions, but I have not been convinced. There are uses of data where confidentiality is important, and sending data over networks presents problems if the data is not encrypted. Some of the cloud providers say that the data they send is safe because it is encrypted, but users have to trust that they do that correctly, and never slip up. One other business hazard is if an external storage provider refuses to allow access to data (could be for business reasons, or the provider itself may become inviable), or even just blackmails the customer.

The fact is that most data is actually not as vital as one would think. It probably doesn't matter if you lose most of the music you have accumulated during the last few years, as the CDs or copies can be re-acquired. Not that I'm suggesting that one shouldn't guard the data, however. On the other hand single copies of documents or photos which are important to you are really irreplaceable, and great care should be taken to protect these - most probably by taking high quality copies, and keeping them in more than one location. Personal documents, including some photos, some financial documents, and insurance policies etc. are the ones to protect.

[PJPJ]

Mac OS can read/write with VFAT and FAT32 (older windows file formats) . There is read support for NFTS. I think you need to pay for r/w NTFS.

MACos being based on BSD unix has native support for EXT2/3/4. (man(8) mount)

MAC laptops consistently rank very highly in most magazine 'tests' I've read. In Europe they've pushed Sony and Samsung out of the laptop business infact. I don;t know why anyone would want to use windows in preference to MacOS. There's no competition. Ubuntu is a very good laptop OS too. It's ideal for the inexperienced computer use too. 15 years ago linux on laptops was only productive for geeks but so much has changed.

I'll have to have a good look at these when I update the laptop shortly. (On the other hand, converting speakers to wireless would seem to degrade the sound markedly.)

[Dave2002]

I'll have to have a good look at these when I update the laptop shortly. (On the other hand, converting speakers to wireless would seem to degrade the sound markedly.)

I definitely recommend the MacBook Pro Retina - with SSD - but I realise you might be able to get a cheaper Win laptop.
For various reasons I simply went for one of the top end models with an i7, and for a laptop it is very fast. It does get hot under load, which is normally only when tasks such as Flash kick in - otherwise the CPU loading is not a problem.

A lot would depend on what you wanted to do, and your budget etc. The MacBook Air is great for portability, but does lack the outputs of some of the other MacBooks. Also, if you want very high performance, the top end iMacs would beat the laptops, and a better option could be to buy a high performance desk top, and a lower performance laptop - preferably still Apple. Your budget will be a factor, obviously, as well as space constraints.

We have no real idea what you would want the kit for - other than that audio would be part of the mix.

Re the wireless speaker problem - that could be tough. Clearly there are products such as Airport Express which will transmit stereo, but it appears that you want to run multi-channel sound. If, for example, you wanted 6 speakers, you could use 3 x AEs, but there could be significant timing errors between them. Some multi-channel systems are clever enough to to put in delays for each speaker, depending on room conditions. I know of no consumer multi-channel system which operates wirelessly which would have that kind of feature, though clearly it should be possible to do that. My Blu Ray surround system (wired) has a microphone and a set up mode which compensates for the room, and inserts different delays for each of the speakers. I'm not sure that any ad-hoc system based on wireless could do that, and as I've already mentioned I'm unaware of any commercial consumer products with that functionality.

If by any chance you are into DIY, it might be possible, but it would require some technical knowledge and skill to set up a system with the correct delays for each speaker. It's probably not that difficult, as essentially you'd simply need a digital delay for each speaker, and each would have to be programmed. That could be done at the source end, rather than in each link. Maybe there is already software which does that - but I've not got to know about it yet. You wouldn't even necessarily need to measure the required delays, as a fairly simple knowledge of the dimensions of the room, and distances from the loudspeakers with the desired seating area and using the fact that 1 ft corresponds quite accurately to 0.9 ms, though reflections would not be compensated for.

Good luck!

[richardfinegold]

The networks here have a combination of wireless and wired links. We have two, though they are not interconnected. Most of the laptops and iPads and other devices can connect to both wirelessly.

Macs will probably cost more, but I do think they are substantially better, but YMMV. I have had experience of NAS, but not with your WD units. Perhaps check the user manuals. Most things can be made to work with Macs, though you may have to reformat the drives. Alternatively you may need to ensure that any Mac machines could read and write to Windows file formats - FATn is common to both, but you may need to instal additional drivers for NTFS if you use that format for any attached drive. The most likely format for current Mac OS X files is Mac OS Extended (journaled). The Buffalo NAS models I mentioned earlier tended to use Linux file formatting (e.g EXT2 or EXT3), but that wasn't always a great problem - I don't know about other manufacturers' models.

If you do switch to Macs you'll need to decide what you want the machine(s) for. The cheapest options are Mac Mini, Macbook Air, and then Macbook Pro in that order, though you'd need to check the interfaces on the laptops - the latest models don't come with ethernet (you need an adapter - easy to find/buy for under £40) and IIRC the air doesn't have the combi optical headphone output. If you want to do serious work as well, then I recommend the desktop models - but they are pricey, though if you have the space they are really good to work with and lovely big screens. If you are "only" using these for music streaming then, luxurious though that is, that is something of overkill, and if you don't need (a/nother) laptop, then the basic Mini is probably the best bet. If you haven't already got any Apple stuff, then you probably don't have an iPhone or iPad either, otherwise you could use those for control purposes, and perhaps also for some streaming.

The Optical drive is getting hard to find in any laptop. I was in a Windows store today browsing and there were only 2 PCs that still had one.
I use an external Optical drive with my MacAir. It cost around $70 and it does make great rips and is much faster than my older MacBook Pro. It did however stop working a few months ago but they replaced it at no cost as it was still under warranty. It connects to the Air by usb and I think can be used with Windows PCs, albeit by adding at least 1 driver.

[PJPJ]

I think it'll have to be a laptop - it needs to be portable. It runs the network, edits 24 bit files, runs a scanner at high resolution, edits and restores old photos and sound recordings. Multichannel recordings are auditioned via disc - SACD mainly. Wireless speakers I think will be a no-no - I'll not get performance approaching that of my PMCs.

[richardfinegold]

This is OT, and perhaps deserves it's own thread, but I was wondering if anyone has experience with the Media Players that come with HDs for storage. The Sony player that cost around $2K got great reviews but on Internet Forums people are complaining about the Internet RAdio app, which stopped working and Sony was clueless (Kim Jong Il?). Many other companies offer similar products, someo fthem UK based (Cocktail, Brennan) in the States Wyred 4 Sound and Olive seem to be the leaders. They are all quite pricey in comparison to the home brewed products but I wonder if they offer conveinence or as the Sony apparently does, a different kind of headache.

[Dave2002]

I think it'll have to be a laptop - it needs to be portable. It runs the network, edits 24 bit files, runs a scanner at high resolution, edits and restores old photos and sound recordings. Multichannel recordings are auditioned via disc - SACD mainly. Wireless speakers I think will be a no-no - I'll not get performance approaching that of my PMCs.

You might have a problem with any system if you are intending to use SACD, unless you alrady have a means of using SACDs. The problem I see would be finding SACD drives which could link to any computer, either PC or Mac, and further it could be difficult getting any output from the computer. It could be difficult to get any output from an optical audio output port for DRM protected audio, and even if you could find a way round that, then multichannel would be difficult or impossible using PCM and optical cables. HDMI might just work, though copy protection could still get in the way. My Macbook Pro has an HDMI port which works fine for our use, but your use may not work because of constraints.

Do you have professional equipment, suitable licensed, which can get round these issues? Even if you do, you'd need to check compatibility. I read recently that Apple kit assumes that hi-res audio should be copy protected even if the user is the copyright holder, and would otherwise authorise data transfer. See HDCP - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP

if DRM problems can be avoided or circumvented, then the latest top end Macbook Pros should have enough processing power for scanning and audio and photo editing.

The larger screens of some of the desktop models are really helpful for some more complex tasks, audio and photo editing, and should facilitate significantly easier and faster operations. The iMacs are good, particularly the large Retina model. You may need a laptop for other reasons

[MrGongGong]

Y It could be difficult to get any output from an optical audio output port for DRM protected audio,

I don't do the Hi res streaming thing
but removing DRM from audio files is fairly easy if you want to do it (not that I suggested that you should).

A bit OT but there have been some interesting things recently where automatic systems fail

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/12/cat-purring-youtube-infringing-music-copyright

I made s a piece over Christmas that Soundcloud decided contained someone else's material (it had a long sinewave drone at the start.... erm I don't think that belongs to ANYONE) and had to 'appeal' to allow me to put it online.

[PJPJ]

You might have a problem with any system if you are intending to use SACD, unless you alrady have a means of using SACDs.

Apologies for my vagueness - I'd continue to use a disc player for SACD (and DVD-Audio, I have a fair few of those and more than a fair few SACDs). At the moment I still use a Linn Unidisk SC and LK140 amps with PMC speakers for disc-based music. Upgrading to include BD-Audio in 5 channels is going to prove costly, an Oppo 105 on the cards for a start.

You can use the Oppo for streaming, or as a dac connected to a laptop. However, I'm told flacs are not processed gaplessly; I've so many works as files which need continuous playing. The laborious workaround is to join all the files together (for example Rachmaninov's Pag Vars or Dohnanyi Nursery Vars) otherwise there's a blip at each file changeover. Either that, or I burn to DVD-A and play via the Linn.