Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat Moving to a Streaming Setup (A Bit of a Ramble, Sorry)

I've decided to take the plunge and join the 21st century and get all my CDs onto a hard drive and stream the results. The desired end state is to reduce the box count in the lounge (see my sig for the current setup).

As I see it, I have two options, Sooloos or a home-brew setup.

I only want to stream music and access Internet radio.

Wireless Network

However, before I talk options, I think I need to update my wireless router. Currently it's a 802.11 b/g but I assume I'd need a 'n' to support streaming 2 PCs accessing the Interweb. The problem is, my lappy only has 'g' wifi built in so any time I connected it to an 'n' network, it would roll back to being a 'g'.

• Do I need to upgrade for audio streaming?
• Would a dual band router solve allow streaming at 'n' while my PC connects to the other channel at 'g' - are the channels truly independent? (If not I'll run 2 routers on the system)

Options

Please feel free to correct anything wrong in my understanding or if I've missed something.

I did consider other options such as those offered by Naim or Linn but TBH, if I'm spending that sort of money, I'll have a soolos.

Option 1 - Do it yourself.

For this, I'm going to need a NAS hard drive and a streaming device.

NAS is fairly easy to get, install a suitable server application on it, rip CDs and away you go.

The streaming device offers a bit wider choice but the 3 I'm looking at are Squeezebox, Boxee Box or a WiFi enable blu-ray player.

Has anyone here any experience of Squeezebox / Boxee Box? How do they compare in terms of sound quality / ease of use? Have I missed an obvious alternative?

Despite searching the 'web I'm struggling to find any idea of how viable the blu-ray option is as a solution. Anyone here managed it? Can I access Internet radio with one or do I need to set up some kind of proxy receiver on a PC and stream forward?


Option 2 - Sooloos.

I'm totally in the dark here. What component do I need to get going with a Sooloos?

Do I need to keep the 518 or 568 to keep best sound quality?

Can you use headphones with Sooloos? If so, how?


Thanks in advance.

Hi,

It is well worth getting a streamer of some sort as it seems (in my case at least) to encourage you to listen to more music!

The Sooloos is a good option and offers nice sound quality, i did not go down the 'diy' route because i am not very keen on the computer side of things. Mind you it is much cheaper and those who advocate this route seem very sure they are right.

One thing you might want to know is that Sooloos is not happy connected to any sort of wireless network. In fact its pretty fussy about wired routers too, i ended up with an Apple Extreme after issues with my sky router.

I think the MC200 is the entry level for Sooloos these days and it has digital and analog outputs so you could use you existing Meridian DAC. You could use headphones via the amp/preamp connected to the MC200 or direct if you used the analog out and connected to the main system digitally.

You also need a control of some sort to operate the system, an iPhone or iPad is the only way i know of apart from a Control 15 which is more costly. A laptop running controlmac (or PC) should work too.

Good luck.

You don't need n for audio streaming. g will be fine. In fact, b should be ok.

Sooloos is more of a turnkey solution and is probably the easiest way to achieve the best audio quality, but Sooloos clearly has issues as well as being costly.

Squeezebox is much cheaper if you buy a Touch or Touches as your clients. The whole Squeezebox proposition is *much* less plug and play, particularly if you want to make use of the extensive range of very useful plug-ins. Personally, I could not live without Spotify (that Sooloos does not (yet) support), nor the BBC iPlayer listen live and listen again AAC streams (inc. 320k Radio 3).

I have my own prejudices and concerns about Sooloos, mainly with regard to Meridian responsiveness to customer issues and requirements. Consequently, I'm avoiding buying Meridian kit where I can.

As an aside, is the current sale of the M80 at �999 a prelude to a Sooloos-enabled S80?

One big thing you don't mention is the Number of Locations that you want to Stream music to for "critical" listening (as opposed to casual listening)

Sooloos Options
MC200.............�2,000 less Dealer Discount

Mainstream Options
NAS 4Tb..........�350 approx (with many options to choose from)
Squeezebox Touch..........�250
the best Streaming Device for Sound Quality.........plus Remote App availability on iPhone / iPad etc...........plus Internet Radio........plus Spotify (I think......others can confirm or otherwise???)

Wifi Dual Band Router
Netgear WNDR3700 or Cisco E4200..........around �130
Both offer truly Independent 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz Bands.........as well as Guest Network options

Initially one room but the option to run a second room (using DSP3100s) later is attractive.

I have been successfully running a Squeezebox Classic, fed by a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo for over two years, and I am immensely pleased with the system for streaming my music. The price of the Duo has dropped considerably during this time, with a diskless version costing around �110.

Originally, I only streamed music - so installing 2 x 500Gb drives was more than adequate for storing all my music. These can easily be purchased for around �35 each. I have since upgraded my drives to 2Tb to accommodate all my movie collection too.

I used to stream wirelessly, but occasional buffering spoilt the enjoyment, so now I use Devolo 200Gb AV+ powerline adaptors without issue.

I am contemplating upgrading my system, though, by replacing the Classic with a Touch (better DAC) - and replacing the Duo with a ReadyNAS Ultra Plus (haven't yet decided on a 2 or 4 bay) with dual-core processor. This will enable me to install PLEX directly on the ReadyNAS (rather than on my Mac), for wireless streaming to an iPad.

I mention the iPad, as along with an alternative iPod Touch/iPhone, this can be utilised as a 'system controller' - with apps such as the ReadyNAS Remote, iPeng, SqueezePad, Logitech Squeezebox Remote, Media Remote, and PLEX, for example.

If you choose to stream your movies, and buy an AppleTV connected to your television, with either an iPad 2 or iPhone4S (but not with an iPod Touch), you can mirror whatever you have loaded on your iPad or iPhone4S onto your television.

If I wanted, I would buy the appropriate number of Squeezebox Touches for each room to stream from a ReadyNAS via Devolo plugs (whose data throughput can be monitored via supplied Mac/PC software). As I don't have Meridian DSP's, I have also considered buying the Arcam rDAC.

Sure, it's nice to have the Meridian all-in-one audio solution, but it's woefully inadequate for a comprehensive audio and video media solution - and vastly more expensive.

The Sonos system is another option which is a bit more expensive than Squeezebox but more plug and play. It's arguably less flexible than SB and doesn't currently support 24/96 which may be important to you.


As mentioned above, the number of locations that you plan in the longer term is a key question. Once you discover the ease and flexibility of streamed music, the temptation to add more systems is overwhelming. I�ve ended up with 5 SB systems when I only envisaged two. Going down the same route with Sooloos would have been very expensive

I�m not sorry I went down the SB route and with latest server development including video streaming, it�s even more tempting.

For a little background reading, you may want to have a look at Computeraudiophile.com.

Cheers Tintin

Hi VK, that's perhaps a bit misleading given that we can't have cake and eat it.

Just to explain why....

I've just lent a spare SB3 to a work colleague over the weekend. First timer for streaming/novice. I told him to download the server software, point it at his music folder, switch on the SB3, link to the server and done. Guess what....he's loving it. No issues at all.

So, SBox can be exactly plug n play. However, if you want to play with the extra toys that it has then that's a user choice. They aren't very hard to manage.
e.g. BBC player.

I agree that Sooloos is behind in the options. However, it does support the BBC radio channels via RadioTime 'plugin'

SBox is good IMHO because it allows both 'the novice' and 'the nerd' to use it as they wish.

I have both. I've had the SB3 for several years and a couple years back I added the SB Touch. They are both used over a wireless network. The music is ripped to FLAC and stored on a Buffalo Terastation, 500GB per disc running in RAID5 which gives about 1.3TB of storage. I use my SB3 DAC and analogue output to feed my second system - Quad preamplifier into Meridian M60 actives. I take the digital out of the Touch into my main system.

A few weeks ago I added a Sooloos system: MC200 and TwinStore. Why? Well, I had an ID40 sitting unused in my 808.3 and I fancied the ultimate SQ, the plug and play and the UI of the Sooloos. Maybe I'm being naive but I am counting on the new iPad app to provide full functionality in the future. MC200 analogue out feeds my second system and the ID40 gets its data over the network (200Mb/s home plugs). Import of FLAC files was relatively painless.

Pros and cons: sound quality is marginally better via Sooloos and I have the peace of mind knowing it's as good as spinning discs. Interface is better even with the current iPad app - faster response to searches etc. Editing metadata is easier with Sooloos. It's great having the always on functionality; the squeezebox server sits on a pc which needs to be on. Updates of the server software and the plugins are sometimes painful on SB.

On the other hand, I wouldn't be without Spotify and BBC as others have said. So now I use Sooloos for my own collection and SB for the radio and Spotify.

Thanks for pitching in with an alternative view Nick. I know I'm more technically saavy than most and just didn't want to come across overly pro-Squeezebox. If people think that the SB is relatively plug and play for the simple things, then great.

FWIW, I had a proper play with Erland Isaakson's CustomBrowse and MultiLibrary plug-ins and they are VERY powerful indeed. Powerful enough to handle classical music in a completely different way to non-classical. For example, instead of a single top-level menu item for my CD Library, I now have a menu for "Classical CDs" and a menu for "Non-Classical CDs". Under Classical CDs, I have sub-menus for Composer, Conductor, Artist and Album; because composer comes from the "Composer" tag, I don't need to make "Beethoven" an artist and so Beethoven does not appear in the artist list... Ditto conductors (if I want - not decided on that yet). For Non-Classical CDs, I have sub-menus for Artist, Album, Genre/Sub-Genre and Decade.

And I've just been playing around. You can create as many "sub-libraries" as you like using pre-defined or custom SQL queries based off the file tags. Further, you can create your own tags and have them scanned in using the CustomScan plug-in; you can make new menus from your own tags and SQL/XML queries. It's complicated, but powerful.

I ought to mention that these plug-ins are no longer free. Erland has decided that he wants some cash for them and fair play to him. Personally, I feel that a minimum donation of $50 for a lifetime license for ALL of his plug-ins is money well spent; these plug-ins transform the music searching/finding functionality of the Squeezebox proposition.

I will write all this up when I settle on a scheme.

Edit: Worth mentioning that, although the UI is not in the same league as Sooloos, the Squeezepad iPad app is very good (and much better than iPeng for iPad IMO).

I'd like to echo that Sooloos is only an option if you can run a wired network. I tried real hard with some success to run it wireless. While I had long stretches of flawless play, there were drop outs and freeze ups that made me go out and run the wire. It's been fabulous ever since.