[Jaspersharpe]

As we're (hopefully) moving house sometime soon we've decided to finally take the plunge and replace the hulking great cd player / amp / DAB / etc system that takes up an entire corner of the dining room with something more modern.

While we're at it and as I now have a decent PC, I'm also going to transfer the 100s of CDs we have to mp3.

So, we were staying with friends at the weekend and they had one of these, which seemed ideal. I've worked out that getting the biggest capacity ipod and one of these will cost about £340 which is cool but the question is, is there a better way?

Obviously there are loads of other mp3 devices and you can get a system that has an HD rather than having to use a portable device and a dock (neither of us are that bothered about portability). But without spending hours looking just to find out that the above is ideal etc etc

Anyone? Oh and slackers, I'm not going to be installing umbongo on a Dreamcast or anything as I want something that "just works".

 

[GCW]

you could get a hard drive hi fi, something like this although with a bigger HDD.  You can still plug your iPod etc into it.

I converted all my CDs to MP3 a few years ago, via the PC.  It took about 3 weeks- sitting from 6pm until midnight putting discs in, checking titles etc etc.  Utter ballache mate, so the advantage with the above is you can do it as you go along (I think).

[slackline]

I you're an audiophile consider ripping CD's to FLAC as opposed to mp3 as its loss-less (no degradation in audio quality).  If sticking with mp3 go for a decent bit-rate.

I've been tempted by things similar to Squeezebox but haven't been arsed yet.

Ripping CD's is far less of a ballache than ripping vinyl!


You can hope it will "just work", but there may well be teething problems 

[GCW]

Ripping CD's is far less of a ballache than ripping vinyl!

Amen to that.
I must admit I ripped the rarities from vinyl, but downloaded most of the other stuff to save hassle.
Back in the day I used to record (manually) from vinyl to recordable CD, then rip the CD to MP3.  Aaaaaarrrrgh 

[Jaspersharpe]

That's a good point GCW. I didn't think there'd be a way round sitting in front of the PC for hours. 

That looks interesting slackers.

[Jim]

how bothered are you about sound quality?

[Jaspersharpe]

Not massively.

[Houdini]

Personally, I'd forget buying an iPOD and that fancy pants piece-of-shit stereo thing you're considering - that looks almost as hateful as Bang & Oulfsen trash.

I'd use the laptop you already have w/ a nice freeware player like Foobar (this will play every format under the sun, and will also rip CDs to whatever format you desire) and buy a pair of small powered nearfield studio monitors (ie. integrally amplified: all the power you need is tucked away nicely inside the box away from kiddie fingers, no extra cabling etc..) 5" cones are plenty, and a simple external soundcard (these are tiny: just a small box that connects between your lappy and the monitors). 

The reason I'd go for nearfield monitors is they don't project sound to a space 5 or 6 meters in front of them as most speakers do, but to a much smaller distance which makes them idea for listening at the PC and obviously, are much better if you have touchy neighbours w/ Spidey Hearing or young kids in neighbouring rooms (yet, they're more than capable of being cranked up if you're in a mood to party).  The other reason is secondhand re-sale value; even if sound quality is not that important to you, buying good kit will make them easier to flog and thirdly, may actually & hopefully (!) make you more interested in listening to music reproduced better - which is really rewarding.  Not to mention the fact that you hear more at lower volumes.

I have a pair of these 5" KRK active (ie powered) monitors, you can pick these up for €300 a pair new, though cheaper 2nd hand. 
 


Unless you are a audio-snob into serious amounts of sub-bass, these will cater for anything.

You can also find decent nearfield studio monitors in places like Richer Sounds.  I know producers who payed no more that 100 pounds a pair for their 5 or 6" B & W monitors and they sound great for both mixing/making music and home listening.

External soundcards can be very cheap to hellishly expensive, but for your purposes, spending more than 60 odd quid for a new USB-connecting item would be just fine.  If you have firewire ports on yr lappy then you can buy firewire connecting cards too, but these tend to be pricier than USB2.0 kit.

As far as formats (what you choose to rip your files to from CD) - FLAC really is the only way to go, an average track ripped directly from CD in original WAV file format may be say, 60MB.  The same file converted to FLAC may be half or less that.  And storage is cheap as chips these days, so why bother w/ mp3's which sound shit to an attentive listener?

[Jaspersharpe]

Thanks Houd. I'm a fucking dunce with this shit so all angles to look at are useful.

[Jim]

I wouldn't bother with the computer route, its a bit of a pain in the arse at times. go with something like the hard drive hifi that gareth suggested

[Houdini]

its a bit of a pain in the arse at times.

Really?  How so?

The only problem I've had is w/ soundcard drivers.  Nothing serious tho'.

I just hate to see people part w/ cash on apple kit ...  and other stuff w/ "I'll break down so easy" written all over them. 

[GCW]

You could just get a DAB radio with a phono input, a 3.5mm to phono lead and run the sound from your laptop headphones/souncard.

Horses for courses, very much depends what you want.

And I'll put my hand up and admit I love my old skool audiophile seperate system.   

[Jim]

because it involves so much other stuff, eg with a laptop - you have to get it, make sure its charged up, if not plug it in, then plug in audio leads, wait for it to start up, sit down infront of it, open your music player, then choose your tunes. With a dedicated system, you just switch it on and press play which I think is what jasper is after (ie it goes in the corner and "It Just works"TM)

I am also a hifi'ist and have my computer hooked up to the proper hifi in the dinning room and do play music vis it but much prefer putting CD's into it as it is much easier and also the quality is much better

[Jaspersharpe]

With a dedicated system, you just switch it on and press play which I think is what jasper is after (ie it goes in the corner and "It Just works"TM)

Yeah, you're right Jim. The Mrs certainly wants something as described.

[Jaspersharpe]

I just hate to see people part w/ cash on apple kit ...

Yeah that's why I'm asking the question.

[Jim]

Don't buy apple stuff its shit, also as I'm over 30, its my duty to frown upon anything that is cool & trendy

[GCW]

The Mrs certainly wants something as described.

And let's face it, that's the vital thing

Something like this would be OK- DAB, 160GB drive, multi room capability.  Downside is it's 600 odd quid.     Can you manage with a smaller hard drive?

[slackline]

Probably void any warranty, but I'd imagine its "relatively" easy to open these things up and change the HD's, you could copy over any OS by attaching them to another computer.....



...sorry I got carried away there, you wanted to KISS

[soapy]

have a lurk on this forum, they appear to know what they're talking about

[Jim]

I don't think he is after a network player.
Like slackers siad, probably easy to change the hdd out for a bigger one if and when the time comes