Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Digital jukebox

Just thought I would ask for peoples comments following on from the discussion about the upcoming Meridian music server.

I bought the new Audigy Platinum 2 sound card and connected its SPDIF digital out to my 561. This has created a relatively cheap digital jukebox (card ~ �150) which I think has fantastic sound (total system ~ �700).

I'm using 128k MP3s and I must say it sounds fantastic (speakers are all 5000's).

Has anyone else tried someting like this ?

Just thought I would clarify that the reason I think this is interesting is that I'm connecting using digital rather than analogue. I'm not sure what the audigy is sending down the coax cable but the 561 certainly seems to like it.

Sounds very interesting, try ripping at 320K and see what it sounds like.

I burnt so 128K stuff to a CD and played on my 596 and was not impressed with the sound.

But in terms of producing your own music server, I like this idea a lot.

Martin.

Hey Martin - hows it going (still loving the 561).

I tried the 320k - sounded very good but takes up a lot of HD space - could not really tell the difference although have not listened that hard. I think the key for me is the digital connction. With a 60 gig hard disk you can store 2000 Cds. Although I guess there are issues with jitter your 568 should sort all that out. And its just so easy. Especially good for parties.

Chris Purves

I have an 861 with 6K's in front and am using an Audio Request ARQ2 with the removeable harddrives, that at 128 is quite good, but at 320 very good (wave a bit better yet). I have something like 5000 songs on the Request at the moment and have additional zone units in a distributed audio system via Crestron through my house-can't tell much difference between most 128 and 320 over that system-also very good(the teenagers prefer it to their CD payers-also because of their ability to access their own playlists, etc. on their own touch panels).

Request is coming out with genre support at the end of the month. If anyone is in the market for a request piece, I have a NIB ARQ2 60 gig and Zone. Email directly to srgtfury@pacbell.net

Thank you very much

Fury

I would recommend trying using the MP3 encoder LAME with the '--alt-preset extreme' switch. This will result in variable bit rate MP3s at about 190K. 128K fixed bit rate was no comparison.

I'm using the MP3s on an iPod with Grado 125 headphones with very good results. I played with many levels of encoding with this being my best compromise between quality and size - remember I'm using this for portable music.

For the ripping of the wave to hard drive I recommend EAC. Even if you are not cnverting to MP3 this reads the CD multiple times to ensure a near perfect bit copy. EAC has provisions to launch LAME so that you can rip and encode in one step. Directory structures based on attributes such as artist and CD can be automatically created.

It's great to be able to carry a significant number of your CDs wherever you go!

LAME: http://www.jthz.com/~lame/

Some LAME swithces: http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/mp3encoder/2002-January/004369.html

EAC: http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

Enjoy! I plan to connect my Media PC to my 568 soon to use as a jukebox. The Audigy2 is on my short list.

I'm not sure about the Audigy range but I know the previous Soundblaster Live cards could only output digitally at 48KHz. So anything ripped from a CD would have to be resampled from 44KHz to 48KHz and in general that's something to avoid.

I use a Turtle Beach Audiotron in my HiFi rack connected optically to my 568. The audiotron acts as a dedicated network music client and I have it connected to my PC where I've ripped most of my CD collection using Audiograbber and Lame at 320kb/s. Sounds pretty good to me

[This message has been edited by RonnieBr (edited 10-26-2002).]

Hi RonnieBr,

The Audiotron seems like a nice solution.
The Audiograbber software appears to use LAME as the encoder. Can you set the --alt-preset switches?

EAC may still do a better job ripping the CD though. You may want to try a comparision with a few CDs.

Hi Rod,

Audiograbber has a version of Lame builtin and has a simple GUI for selecting some presets. However, it also has a method for selecting an external encoder and passing command line arguments to it. I've always used that method to use the latest version of Lame.

I've kind of stuck to the same command line arguments for a while:

-q 0 -m s -b 320

The first option is meant to use the highest quality version of all the built-in algorithms but maybe I need to investigate some of the newer options.

I use a Plextor CD-ROM to do the ripping and it supports error detection and correction when extracting CD audio. I tried using EAC instead of Audiograbber but with the Plextor drive it didn't seem to make any difference and was substantially slower (which is understandable since EAC is designed to be extremely paranoid about it's data source).

Ronnie

Chris,

I'm pleased that you are enjoying the 561! Was such a shame to have it sitting around doing nothing)-:

Martin.

While I think the 880 Server is a cool Meridian product. I do have to say it`s for those with way more money than time or technical inclination.

For me, the ideal solution is Terabyte+ JBOB (bunch of big discs) array in one of my servers, then rip everything as WAV (no compression).

Playback is through Meridian gear from HTPC using an M-Audio digital card in the HT and in other rooms of the house via distributed Audiotron`s and other PC`s.

For a couple of a couple of grand you have an awesome ultra-high capacity music storage server. One with a decent UI no less (MusicMatch Jukebox).

Now that I`ve done this, I don`t see the attraction of the 880 (for me).

Hi,

Well after a couple of weeks of testing, I can say that the MP3 stuff, even recorded at 320 does not stand up to comparison with the original CD in blind(ish) tests. Shame!

Chris (Sticking with CDs)