On 19/10/2017 09:04, Bob Latham wrote:
In article ,
RJH wrote:
On 18/10/2017 08:50, Bob Latham wrote:

I'd would love to know why you wish to do this.

With a heavy heart ;-)

I'm going to park my music on a Mac Mini, and use that as the source for
playback through my hifi. It's an old machine so not worth much if I
sold it - but it's pretty much silent and low power consumption.

And the critical thing is that iTunes (the Mac software equivalent of
Windows Media Player - or whatever it's called nowadays) can serve the
music alongside a very capable smartphone app. iTunes is a pain on its
own - I can't get it to act as a simple media player. But it works very
well as a software server.

Okay, I get it, personally I see iTunes as a hostile attempted takeover of
the music industry and although my wife ues it for her iWhatever I find it
a pain.

What we do is run a proper NAS, in our case Synology but Qnap are similar.
On that I keep my 2.5K flac albums and share the music folder with samba
so that Sonos and Blusound work fine and also run MinimServer and
BubbleUPNserver. I have several players of different types including


My music (650GB) is stored on a Synology NAS in the cellar, which is
hard wired to most rooms in the house. It'll still get used as a backup,
and to dish music out to various other devices. That said, if I could
find a decent solution that can be operated using a smartphone or some
sort of remote with a screen, I'd ditch iTunes. On which . . .

Denon mini system N9, Sonos, Linn Akurate, Sony Sound base, Raspberry Pi
with a HiFiBerry DAC+Pro and all work and with the single exception of the
Sonos they all play hi-res flac. I'm not saying hi-res is needed!


I'm not worried about hi-res. It's just a decent interface so I can
select and play music, and decent digital-analogue conversion.

In amongst the toy box I have a Cambridge NP30 music server (fine, but a
truly rubbish app), a Cambridge DAC, the Mac Mini, a Google dongle
thing, and a QED uPlay (app no longer works, the support form doesn't
send - tried on 3 browsers, no phone number, rubbish).

Each of those work to some degree or other, and it wouldn't be anything
approaching world end if I had to fall back ob say the NP30.

Which out of interest is your favourite, in terms of ease of use?

I did get to play with a Naim system trhough an iPad. Very slick. But
I'm not in their market, far too expensive.

When my wife wants music for her iWhatever I get foobar200 to create a
full whack mp3 copy of the flac and push that into iTunes.

The NAS goes to sleep when not in use and is in a cupboard away form
everything, not that it makes more than a murmur of noise.

My advice, get a NAS this is what they're made for, second hand if needs
be, stick Minimserver on it.


Yep, I have all of that. And more ;-)


--
Cheers, Rob