tony sayer wrote:
In article , Derrick Fawsitt
writes
For those posters here who are not only involved in Music but also Music
in connection with IT, can you help me with the following query and I
apologise if some here feel this post is somewhat more suitable for the
IT newsgroups, needless to say, I have also posted it in just such a
newsgroup.
I have converted a double garage to an excellent Music Room with a Quad
system using Quad 989 Electrostatic Speakers. I have the usual Library
of Classical CD's residing on shelves and my PC, mostly used for office
business, is in the same room. The room has the type of PVC Skirting
Board that can contain wires and therefore I can if I wish connect my PC
to the Audio system but have not yet done so.

Having the need now to update my PC I was considering building or buying
a PC that could not only manage my Media, but in fact store most of my
CD's so that I can find a piece of music very quickly and even arrange a
concert for my friends. I did in fact previously install Music Label in
order to catalogue my collection of CDs but all it did was tell me if I
had a particular work, I still had to "find it" on my shelves, not
always easy.

I should now like to have a very high spec PC with an enormous hard
drive and masses of RAM that could, (in theory), store my entire
collection but also allow me to arrange quick accessibility to my
collection for immediate playback. I would also need to retain some
capacity for ordinary business and office needs. I must add, I don't
envisage editing or composing music, I only want my PC, when needed, to
access my audio system to manage and store music etc.

Can I ask you to help me in building or even buying such a PC with a
spectacular spec that would fulfil the above criteria.

The main problem is where to put the PC.. their very awkward to keep
quiet!. If you have somewhere nearby to put it in another room and run
some extender cables then that can get around that one. As to soundcards
there are quite a few around I might suggest that you use the SPDIF
output and get a separate Digital to analogue converter.

Audio from soundcards whilst very good usually has some interface
problems linking the audio outs to your amp.

Have a look on the digital village web site for some examples at
"reasonable" prices.

You could use a Digigram but these are rather pricey albeit very good
indeed.. As to software their are quite a few around that are used for
radio playout purposes which allow you to set up playlists and indexing
is very comprehensive. You wont need ENCO or RCS Master control!! but
there is one that doesn't come to mind now I'll look it up later but its
quite inexpensive and works well we used it last year on an RSL...

I use MusicMatch Jukebox for my PC music when away from my main system.
It does everything I need for domestic music reproduction with the
exception that it always has a small gap between tracks, so albums
intended to be played continuously (like Dark Side of the Moon or
Beethoven 9th Symphony 4th movement) play with a short gap as the player
goes from one track to the next. There's a workaround, to record the CD
as one track as well as separate tracks, but that's a bit clumsy.

It's Freeware, and you only need to pay if you also want it to burn CDs
from playlists (you only get 5 free burns with the trial version)

S.


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