Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Lesurf[_2_]
The problem is that it does require some savvy and some willingness to experiment at first. MicroSoft and Apple profit from infantalising users. And, alas, until recently UK schools have been lousy at teaching computing. For decades 'IT' (under different names) at school has been 'training how to use the current Windows (or Mac) main software for an office job'. Hopefully the Raspberry Pi has changed that and we'll get the first new generation since the 1980s who will know how to code and happy to DIY.
In addition, commercial closed-box-sellers want to sell you music 'management' setups. These can look attractive to those who are frightened by anything 'technical'. And can extact more money from you than saying, "Just try the software player XXX on your computer and buy a NAS".
But of course the closed box then can trap you into not knowing what's going on. So you risk problems like finding your fancy player can't cope with something, and any new player doesn't really understand how what you had was 'organised', etc.
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I totally agree with you when you say educational establishments are really just demonstrating the use of applications, rather than teaching the use of code to achieve the same results. It's too great a leap for me to see a network audio player or renderer as anything more than just another hi-fi component, and really no different to any other component I've owned or used. Media players like foobar2000 and external storage for computers are fine within their own environment, say within an office for example, but I find myself unable to facilitate that sort of thing in my hi-fi system. Horses for courses I suppose. I have both setups, albeit in different rooms. Our box room office contains our home network with access to the internet, using Rhythmbox on Debian 7 and foobar2000 on Windows 7, and whilst I chose to locate our isolated audio network router and NAS in the same office, the two systems live happily side-by-side without interfering with each other. I prefer having my old fashioned stereo separate to my computers and their audio replay. I guess that's just a personal preference I enjoy.