Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming 500GB: how many albums?

Hi Ronnie,

a) No post updated.

b) I switched off MP3 transcoding, before ripping any albums. I don't realy know, if this has saved disk space or not. I could try switching it on to see if what little space is left gets consumed.

c) It's hard for me to say, the speakers on my PC are not the best; but it sounds ok whilst surfing.

d) To update the cover art; one uses the ControlPC program to just drag / paste the new artwork and then hit save, which updates the Sooloos system. I recall someone saying that all metadata and artwork is stored in the Sooloos database and not embedded into the album file. However, I can not confirm this. I'll export an album that has updated artwork, to see how the artwork is presented, but I know that does not tell us about the internal storage.

Regards,
Carl

Hi Carl
Thanks for the info.......obviously only joking on the "jazz" spelling.....and was referring to the thread on here about a year ago about UK versus US spelling, and in particular, the use of Z instead of S in many US Spellings.....

As regards Sooloos, please Don't go to any trouble trying to find out those answers......just thought you might have come across them in your ripping etc.

In my experience, 192kbps MP3 would take up about 20% or 60Mb of the space that a Lossless Album would take up.........When ripping 1,450 ALbums, this would add about 87Gb to the storage requirements.......not an insignificant amount when one is working with 500Gb on the C15 or MC200.......If you have MP3 Transcoding switched off, then your 1,450 Albums in 467Gb approx, provides people with a decent rule of thumb (467Gb after allowing for Base 2 rather than Base 10)

As regards the ControlPC being limited to MP3 only, I thought that the Source info might have been transparent.......I.e. The Screen would show you format of the file being played.......obviously, your computer must be Transcoding on the fly whilst streaming.....otherwise, it would be playing the native FLAC file

The main reason I ask is that if this MP3 Only Restriction had indeed been lifted then Sooloos might become a more attractive proposition to those who wanted Zones in different parts of the house, where Computers were already used.......using SPDIF Out (or Async USB / FireWire) out of those Computers to local Processors \ Players e.g. F80's

Thanks for the thorough info guys!

Regards,
Bob

Ronnie & Carl,

Just to confirm the question of Control:PC transcoding.
Control:PC will play a native file format unless it is 96/24, in which case it will be down sampled to 48k etc.
It does not transcode back to MP3.

Hope this helps

Gerry

Thanks for that information Gerry...

Just to make this crystal clear....my interpretation of what you've said above is if a User uses ControlPC or Control Mac and plays a 16/44 FLAC file, then the ControlPC / ControlMac Player will play the FLAC File and Output it as a Lossless Data Stream to a Digital Output on the Computer (either SPDIF or via a Asynchronous USB device) and pass the Lossless Data Stream along to a downstream Processor????

In effect, the Computer just becomes another Sooloos Zone capable of playing and Outputting the full Lossless file??

Do you happen to know if the ControlPC software has any special built-in Drivers to bypass the Windows Kernel..........or likewise if the ControlMac has any special drivers to bypass the OSX Audio MIDI interface

Again, many thanks for the info.......I think many who are interested in a thru-house Sooloos System will see this capability as an advantage for use in non-critical listening rooms (e.g. bedrooms) where Computers already exist, but people still don't want to compromise in using 192kbps MP3 files......which is what others had said previously would by played by the ControlPC / Mac Players

Cheers

Hi Ronnie,
Yes that is the information that I have from Meridian, however I can't (at this stage) verify whether Control:PC/MAC uses special drivers to bypass Windows/OSX interfaces.
So it puts another interesting possibility in front of existing or potential Sooloos owners.

Regards

Gerry

Thanks very much for the information Gerry.....much appreciated

As you say, a very interesting option indeed for the less critical listening rooms and negates the need to have a separate 192kbps MP3 Library for those purposes