Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Best Way to stream to my G68

I'm probably not the only one ( well, at least i hope not ) thats a little overwhelmed by all the solutions available today, and want to know what the most cost effective but at the same time good enough way of getting my music from my Mac to the G68 is.

I am currently going through the laborious task of losslessly ripping my music collection to the 2tb drive in my recently purchased time capsule and had the intention of using that in conjunction with the airtunes 802.11n airport base outputting optical to the G68. This would be very cheap, which, for that reason alone leads me to believe it won't be the great solution i hope it would be.

i'd be grateful if anyone has some insight into this and how, preferably without spending too much money i can make the most of my music.

And yes, i'll be buying one of Apple's latest and greatest when they ship and ( as I've been reading in the the iPad post ) would like to integrate that if possible.

C'mon guys, sort me out!

Cheers
James

Been doing this for three years now with no real urgency to even contemplate spending a pile of cash on making the system any better. MacBook's, big drive, Remote app for iTouch & iPhone, Airport - optical to a G68, G57's and B&W802D's. That'll do nicely, thank you.

The next 'sensible' purchase will be an iPad, by which time I'm sure an even cooler Remote app will be in the wings - the justification for complex, 'feature rich' systems which you really have to 'learn' how to use, and more so, which my wife would never use, has no appeal - other things in life to be getting on with. Just my view.

I just bought an AppleTV and love it, it was �175 from http://www.additionsdirect.co.uk/

You need a discount code, try these.....

20% Discount at Additions Direct with our Promo Code when you spend over �50
Date Added: 13th Jan 2010 | End Date: Unknown
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I have set it up so it only syncs my playlist called lossless, I also have flashTV running on it so it can use external USB drives as well, however, I will probably never get round to filling the 160gig drive anyway, I normally only ever have 50 favourite albums I listen to, maybe 100.

Seeing as we are talking about Meridian processors here, anything with a competent digital out should be good. The Airport Express is so simple and elegant I think it's the way I'm going to go myself...but the hi-fi buff in me thinks it is disturbingly cheap... would it be better to take the digital out straight from the computer itself? USB input on the G68 is limited to 16/48, which at least is good for ripped redbook. Or, do I need a Logitech Transporter? These may be worth exploring, but if the data is coming from the same place, unless its being corrupted on its journey all should be ok, as far as I can see (although I am a novice here and maybe this is more of an extra question than an actual response). The critical part here is the M processor and its handling of the digital input, am I right?

I wrote a table in the Wiki that tries to show some of the trade offs with each and very rough prices.

http://www.meridianunplugged.com/wiki/index.php?pagename=Music%20Server%20Options

I've used airtunes with my mac and iPod touch via remote to the airport express and onto the G68. For convenience and low cost, this is a nice option. My only complaint is that sometimes the signal is dropped and I have to reset the router. Evidently, this is a problem for some people living in apartment complexes where cordless phones and other devices can disrupt the signal. I read some posts on the Mac forums where people have experienced this as a common problem. One person losses his signal every time his neighbor's phone rings! Good luck.

John

Ok, so presuming i don't have any real issues with the performance of my wireless network then the airtunes option would be sufficient. What benefits are there using apple tv over this ( currently use my PS3 with some software called Medialink for video which works ok, but haven't even considered that for audio ) ? I read the Wiki and it would appear that performance wise both are similar.

Thanks all for your advice.

Don't forget that if you choose compatible formats to rip to, then different solutions are not mutually exclusive. So just because you may choose ae first this doesn't prevent you from changing or, as I do, mix different clients in the future.

I originally ran squeezebox, later added ae then more recently replaced squeezebox with Sonos all with the same music library I ripped 7+ years ago. Only now am I slowly re-ripping but that is more to do with taking advantage of cheap/large storage than any incompatibility with devices. Ironically I have chosen to go with FLAC which will not play native on my ae or iPod / iPhone but for these I still have my old library or the option of transcoding new rips using dBpoweramp.

For �60, ae is a great starting point for music servers especially if you already run an iDevice or Mac. Unfortunately won't direct connect without a convertor to a pair of DSP's due to optical out.

There's an interesting thread at hddaudio.net with some Airport Express setup suggestions and troubleshooting. The images in the first post don't load for me (maybe I have to sign up and log in) but the subsequent posts deal with finding spare wi-fi channels and other bits and pieces to help things run smoothly.

There's some choice reading elsewhere in that forum, which can be quite entertaining...

presumably then i could take the G91 out of my system, move that into another room with another AE unit via optical again and have another system running from my music collection too? and switch between output zones?

Apart from video is there any advantage to using Apple TV?

Thanks again for everyone's help.. you guys deserve a mention in the Queen's honours list

With Apple TV you can also store music locally on its hard disk so you don't always have to stream.

The iPod Touch/iPhone remote app controls it very well BTW.

I much prefer the Apple TV, due to the fact you can store it locally, streaming is generally fine but sometimes when downloading something or grabbing a torrent it can stutter.

I also love the user interface on the apple tv, being able to browse all your album covers on the TV is great, and even the screen saver which shows all your album covers scolling up the screen is really nice, you suddenly see a cover and think "Not listened to that for a while.".

Then you have the fact you can watch TV shows, view pictures on your TV very easily etc. etc.
It all just works and is seriously slick.