Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Would you buy a high-end CDP now?

OK. Very good discussion. Jerry, if making a DVD investment now, what would be your choices, considering you are already mostly using your Mac for music playback?

I think for movies maybe a ex+ 800v3 might be a good choice and the MacMini or SB3 for music.

Cheers

If it is music only, go for SlimDevices piece (Squeezebox or Transporter).

If you want for both music+movies, go for Toshiba HD-DVD player and Slim Device/Squeezebox.

I would NOT recommend 800 at this stage. If you read reviews here for music, 800 is on par with squeezebox. I don't think it offers good value for $$ today.

Cheers,
Kishore

FYI - HD-A1 HD DVD players refurbished by Toshiba are selling on eBay for ~$300 US

The SB3 is good enough for me as a convenient complement to my G98, but Transporter is a higher end solution.

http://forums.slimdevices.com/forumdisplay.php?f=7

know I get flamed for this, but I am wearing my suit.
Could someone please tell me how all this SB3 works. I know this match: SB3 is a delivery system for music from Internet. Now do I need a transporter (By the way I saw the movie Transporter, it was great].
How all this works with my system?.

Hi Fan

I'm in the process of setting this up at present, so I'll give you the short form version.

You need to copy your CDs to your PC. There are various programmes to do this. The pouplar vote goes with EAC to do the copying (ripping) and the file you've made gets stored as a FLAC file (a lossless compressed file to save space). The SB3 gets these digits either from your PC via a wire connection, or wirelessly if you have a wirelss network set up. The SB3 comes with software which lets you browse the collection of music which you now have stored on your PC (or external hard drives), and lets you play back genres (if you have categorised your music with the file info on your PC), random choices or whatever you select. The apparent advantage is very low jitter, so it sounds good, and you have access to all your music (well, as much as you have copied to the PC).

I'm still setting up the wireless network. I reckon the set up costs if you are starting from scratch without an existing wirelss network are:

(sorry, UK prices here)
�55-�90 for wireless router
�20-�40 for wireless card for other PC/laptop (optional)
�70-�90 for external network storage device (optional if you have enough space in PC)
�140-�180 per 500Gb hard disk for storage (optional if you have enough space in PC)
�180-�210 for SB3, wired or wirelss version.

I'll be looking at ~�500 to get the router, external storage with 1 big disc, and SB3 set up. If you don't deal with computer IT issues for a living, and try setting up a network with a mix of medium old to really old laptop/PC gear (3-5 years old) as I'm doing, you will spend many long hours trying to get it all to work together. Mind you, that's a separate issue to the basic SB3 set up!

I'm looking forward to having it all work, but it's the IT side that's taxing me at present. I'll let you know what I think of the SB3 in due course!

Cheers

George

We look forward to your views on the sound quality of the SB, George.

I bought a Dell Optiplex as my Slimserver to store my ripped CDs. It came with a 160Gb disk which is just big enough to store my collection at present. It cost �350 and runs XP pro so I use it without minitor, keyboard & mouse using a remote desktop connection from my main pC. The Optiplex is quiet machine and I have it configured to go to standby when not in use. I'm very pleased with the set-up and since single hard drives are approaching the 1Tb mark, I have plenty of expansion potential.

I had a few problems in setting up my SB which came with an ancient version of firmware installed and which wouldn't support the WPA encryption on my network. Once I removed the encryption the SB connected no problem and was able to download the latest firmware. I also found that setting static IP addresses for the my principal network components work best.

It's worth the effort and your computer networking skills improve considerably.

Cliff

Cliff,

I couldn't agree more. I have learnt so much in the last few months about IP addresses (I went static also), networks, routers, shared directories, VNC connections (free), tag editing (free), ripping my protected CD's (yes it is possible - free...and why the hell shouldn't I as I've bought the disc !!!), backing up (free s/ware), etc etc.

Amazon are doing a Buffalo 500GB USB drive for about �140 just now....I expect we'll have 1TB for the same price in 18months.

The audiophile SB3 users tend to prefer wired over wireless connection to the PC/server.

Lossless is lossless, but WiFi transmissions can fail with small glitches.

When I first installed my SB3 wireless, I experienced audio dropouts. After connecting direct via ethernet, it worked flawlessly.

Here's a discussion of the topic on the Slim Devices forum:

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=26949&highlight=wireless+sound+quality

p.s. I am ripping CDs with the iTunes Apple lossless encoder. Easy to use, and free.

I think is a good wireless connection is as good as wired. I've copies 1000s of files and programs over my network without any problems.

I did have problems with my SB3 initially as I positioned it too near a cordless phone. Moving it a few feet and switching the network channel to 13 completely cured the interference and I haven't had a signal dropout since.

There may be locations where interference from other networks etc is just too high, in such cases a wired connection may be the only option.

Cliff

I think you have to really stretch your wireless link to find it dropping data. I ran my wireless SB3 plus 4 wireless laptops simultaneously this summer and didn't hear a dropped note anywhere. The laptops were all being fairly busy on Notes, SAP, IE etc. Whether any of those are big bandwidth I'm not sure....maybe Notes is when it replicates.


Having said that, wired means you're at the bandwidth of your router which is stacks more than SB's need.

I have a MiniMac with wireless and all the works, now how this SB or SB3 works with my setup?.
Mr Meridian thanks for your help.