Re: Audiophile grade music server using several flavors of Debian
Stackpole, Chris wrote:
I am not very knowledgeable on this subject, but I have a few questions
if you don't mind. I am rolling my own entertainment system and learning
a lot as I do. So I have heard terms and of products but I am a far cry
from expert on them. :-D
The comments are interspersed within the body of the email.
If I understand right, the Nokia is how you control the hardware. My
question is what mpd client do you use on the Nokia to control the
software? Do you use it to create and keep multiple playlists? Or is the
adding and creation of playlists done on the PC that rips to FLAC? Does
the Nokia support Album art as it displays the music? Lyrics? Is there
good support for sorting your music (eg, more then just artist/album)?
The Nokia MPD client is MMPC. http://mmpc.garage.maemo.org/
Like I mentioned earlier, it's a one man effort and it's at version 0.1.
Currently I can create playlists, browse songs by artists, file system.
There is no support currently for lyrics or album covers, but it's planned.
You can have several MPD clients connected at once. I usually have gmpc
running on the bedroom computer, and mmpc on the Nokia N800. If I'm
putting together some complex playlist I'll just walk over to the
bedroom and use the much more efficent mouse and keyboard, walk back to
the couch in the isteing room and manipulate the play list from the
Nokia. It's this kind of flexibility that made me eschew the other
commercial offerings. And with these new UMPC Linux devices getting
smaller, I'll probably be able to run a full distro with gmpc (or any
other of the more full featured MPD clients) on of those things in the
future.
Another very interesting option might be using an Apple iPod touch or
iPhone. There's at least one guy I know that has written an MPD client
for those devices: http://www.katoemba.net/makesnosenseatall/index.php/mpod/
Does this control sound volume as well? Or do you have multiple remotes?
I already have seven remotes for all of my tv/music as is. I am also
curious as to if the Nokia allows me to get rid of a few remotes, or if
it just adds more remotes to confuse my guests. :-)
You have several options here; pros and cons for both. The Trends Audio
UD-10 uses the Burr Brown PCM2704 chip. It's a double duty device:
mid-range DAC and a USB to S/PDIF converter. I use it in the latter
category, so there is no volume control of the S/PDIF signal. If you use
it as your main DAC (using its analog ouput) you can control the volume
using any MPD client, but your throwing bits away in the digital domain,
and the lower the volume the more bits being tossed.
I use the volume on my Pass Labs Aleph L analog pre-amp (non-remote
controlled).
To shrink my remote collection, I was personally looking into the
Logitech Harmony 1000 (
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/remotes/universal_remotes/devices/373&;
cl=us,en ) but I wasn't able to find much information on people using it
with Linux (I am sure my standard devices [TV,Wii,DVD,ect] would work,
but not sure about MythTV or any of my other Linux systems). I really
like the display and ease of use. The Logitech rep I talked to did say
that they were going to be releasing a newer version in the next few
months (no release date). He said that he didn't know if it would work
with Linux or not, but that it would have more support for accessing
wireless devices over standard connection frequencies and he didn't see
why it wouldn't over those standard frequencies. If anyone has any
comments, I would be glad to hear them (though if you say "It sucks" I
would like to hear why you think so :D). I am also open to any comments
about using the Nokia as the OP does.
From what I understand, those remotes have to be programmed in Windows.
There is no Linux support. The Nokia does not have any IR, so you can't
use it to control any those devices.
This is the product on the Trends website that I found
(http://www.trendsaudio.com/EN/Product/USB_Audio_desc.htm ), and you
said you use the Adcom which I believe is an optical-to-analog
converter. So if I understand right (that may be a big if) you are going
digital(usb) to optical (Trends) to Analog (Adcom). Why? Why not just go
from Trends directly to speakers? What am I missing?
The Adcom DAC is a digital to analog converter. Before putting the ALIX
server together the Adcom was fed by a Theta Data Basic CD transport.
It's known as having digital separates. The Theta just reads the bits
and output them in in S/PDIF, Toslink (optical), or even AT&T glass
fiber to the DAC. The DAC converts that to an analog waveform; something
a preamp or amplifier can handle. If you've ever bought a CD player,
you're basically getting a CD transport and a DAC in one box; the output
being analog and connecting to an amp or headphones. My Adcom DAC (circa
1999) has inputs for S/PDIF, Toslink (optical), and digital AES/EBU. I
needed a way to get the FLAC files from the USB out of the ALIX fed into
the DAC, and the Trends UD-10 allows me to do that. The setup is:
ALIX USB to USB input of Trends USB. Trends S/PDIF output to input of
Adcom S/PDIF input. Adcom analog line leel out to my preamp. Preamp to
amp. Amp to speakers.
There are several mid-range and high end DAC designers that have
realized that CD transports/players are becoming obsolete with the
advent of digital music players and HUGE hard disks. These new DAC's
come with nifty USB inputs to accept FLAC, WAV, mp3, aac, and mp4
natively. The Benchmark DAC-1 USB (http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/dac1/)
is something I'm looking into as a DAC with a dedicated USB input. It
also has inputs for S/PDIF and optical as well. Purchasing a DAC like
the Benchmark would obviate the need for the Trends UD-10 converter.
You went with the CF route, which to me seems much more difficult then
just using a thumbdrive. Maybe it is just me, but it is hard to beat the
price/space/ease of just buying a multi-GB thumbdrive. The Debian Live
project makes rolling-your-own-thumbdrive distro incredibly easy. Does
the ALIX 3c2 not support booting off of a thumbdrive? Or did you just
really want to use the CF?
The ALIX supports CF on board, and I had a spare CF card laying around.
I never investigated a thumb drive installation. I gravitated towards
Voyage Linux because a) it was Debian based, b) i could apt-get almost
any package, c) the whole OS runs in a read only mode minimizing writes
to the CF card, and d) they specifically support the hardware on the
ALIX boards. It was a no brainer.
Hope I didn't ask too many obvious/dumb questions...
:-D
Not at all.
Have fun with your new setup! Congrats!
Chris Stackpole
Thanks. The Trends UD-10/ALIX combo actually sounds better than the
Theta Data Basic transport. Something I was not expecting. Don't know if
it's because of lower jitter or whatnot...
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