PC as source component

What player are you using to play internet radio? Is it off a website or through Foobar?

If website, make sure that the Music Streamer is selected as the default device for sound playback in your Sounds and Audio Devices.
 
I run a Linux media server.
I control it over the network by Synergy ( remote keyboard and mouse )
Im always protected by the penguin failsafe, never have virus or corruption issues.
Lightning fast.
Uber flexible too. I run music players, media players and streamers.
Best of all, I have a 320gig drive devtoed entirely to Dr. Who. !!!
 
I've been using my PC as a source for quite some time now. I run XBMC w/ WASAPI audio via an HDMI cable into my receiver, and it sounds absolutely fantastic!
 
My library of about 14k tracks are mostly AAC or Apple lossless files if sitting at the computer I have fair speakers connected or I can send files to my denon AVR E400, great for gatherings. Recently set up Rune Audio to share those same files with a raspberry pi and a behringer usb dac to my vintage gear. The little pi with rune is a great little set up, 700 mhz, runs at 1 amp, fanless, clean and simple UI in any browser or tablet or phone app. I'm lovin it!

Sent with my thumbs via tapatalk.
 
Just picked up a Mac Mini. Because of initial costs external harddrives and disk drives are going to come later. Right now I have it plugged into my desktop system via my Audioengine D1 USB dac.

I'm not planning on using any of iTune's formats. I'm planning on ripping CDs and purchasing HD downloads. Any tips and tricks for using a Mac Mini as a music server?
 
I rip songs on my office computer, and copy them to the shared hard disk that plugs into the wireless router with an Ethernet cable.

Est 1200+ CDs on the shared drive, and this winter I may add up to 3,000 LPs which will be a work out. I have another 500 CDs that need to be ripped.

Any PC, or other network authorized device in the house can access the music on the shared hard disk.

My main system, there is a Laptop PC that is connected to the wireless network, it accesses the hard disk using Media Monkey as the content manager and player, the Laptop connects to my Emotiva XDA-2 DAC with a USB cable at 24x96, if the word size is smaller my understanding is that the sending device simply stuffs zeros into the empty bit positions....no harm no foul.

The XDA DAC decodes the digital bit streams from the PC and a DVD player connected via coax and outputs the analog signals to my C-32 Pre Amp.

I also use the Laptop to play files off of Youtube which usually sound terrible, and FM radio stations, some of which sound pretty good.

This is what it looks like in the LR

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Interesting to see this bumped again. My setup has changed quite a bit since my earlier posts. I still have the IO Data Linkplayer I discussed, but I haven't used it much since I got a PS3, Airport Express and jailbroken Appletv.

My media (movies and ALAC) is mainly served up by a Mac Mini these days. It feeds two rooms directly and runs several systems via Airplay, iTunes, Airfoil, Audiotap, etc.. When I play music directly it feeds a Denon 4311ci in one room or a Cambridge DacMagic in the other. Typically, if I am playing my own music directly, I use an app called Fidelia. It has some unique features and a great headphone add on. It also has its own iOS app that can be used to control the music.

The mini also runs win8 via VMWare Fusion. I have J River, WMC, and Foobar installed on it, but I haven't messed with it as much as I thought I would. Maybe something I will mess around with more in the future.

I went through a lot of different ways of getting music and video off of my computers, but I have gotten to a point where I am very happy with my current methods. I also have a Synology NAS that has its own set of features, but the mini is typically my source of choice.
 
I can't quite make up my mind. I'm going to have to get a USB DAC for my PC at some stage but I'm not sure I want to play my music from my PC as I'd either have to use a shoddy mixer (pulseaudio in Linux or the windows mixer in windows) or be restricted to one sound source at a time.

I'm very tempted to put together a RaspberryPi build with a USB DAC, with access to my music via my NAS. I'd set it up with direct hardware access to the DAC and control it via ncmpcpp on my desktop or mpdroid on my phone.

However, I would still like to be able to listen to music while hearing sound from games at the same time and I can't figure out how to do this easily without using a software mixer and down-sampling the music's bit-rate. Hardware mixer viable?
 
I can't quite make up my mind. I'm going to have to get a USB DAC for my PC at some stage but I'm not sure I want to play my music from my PC as I'd either have to use a shoddy mixer (pulseaudio in Linux or the windows mixer in windows) or be restricted to one sound source at a time.

Not necessarily. Playback software for both Linux and Windows can be easily set up to by-pass the "mixers" and output directly to your DAC. I use both Windows and Linux for playback (Linux most frequently) and have set up software in both environments that optimizes audio playback.
 
Interesting thread with some good information.

I'm looking for a Windows based music player software (like windows media center), that can play FLAC files, looks great (album art), easy to use, and that I can control with an android tablet or mouse.

Any suggestions?
 
JRiver (player) and Gizmo (Android remote)

I use Foobar2000 and a remote app, but if you want ease of use and a good-looking UI, JRiver is the way to go.
 
I was using JRiver for the last year or so, but after doing a system restore on my PC I decided to try something different, so I went with XBMC (Xbox Media Centre) which is free open-source software. After a few days i'm very impressed. It has much better GUI and the remote for my BlackBerry and Samsung Tablet are better than the Jriver remotes.

Definitely worth checking out.
 
Interesting thread with some good information.

I'm looking for a Windows based music player software (like windows media center), that can play FLAC files, looks great (album art), easy to use, and that I can control with an android tablet or mouse.

Any suggestions?

JRiver Jukebox and Mediamonkey come to mind. Both will do what you have asked easily, and will allow you to rip CD's to FLAC as well. Add TightVNC to your windows box, and Remote Ripple to your Android, and go for it.
 
Take a look at Albumplayer, I've been using it for 10 years and it does what it does better than anything I tried. It is about $40 depending on the euro exchange, but I felt it was worth it. It makes my 30,000 song collection quite manageable.
 
There is MusicBee, it is free, but I'm not sure about Android control. I use JRiver and found it a pain to make run correctly, I found it a bit buggy, it has a thirty day free trial, make sure you set aside a weekend to play with it and figure it out. I didn't find JRiver intuitive.
 
I've been using a PC with a ASRock N68-S3FX motherboard with a Via HD onboard sound card.
I use JetAudio 8.1.1.2010 Plus VX as media player, I got it hooked up to my Sansui Classique A-900 with some Sony speakers.
 
I've been playing with this for almost a year now and have settled on a small form HP, a Schiit Modi, Win10, and JRiver. I use EAC to rip to FLAC on my laptop to an external Canvio portable drive. I sneaker net the drive to the HP and import the library into JRiver, but can also take it with me if I travel, and have my tunes wherever I go. For those starting out, a PC that may be underpowered for current Win7,8,10 flavors should (will) run Linux Mint quite well. JRiver currently is offering their software for half price in the Linux version. Mint is free, you probably have the hardware in your basement, and JRiver is around 40, an entry level USB DAC is 50, or go the full monty and get a Schiit Bifrost at 400.. What are you waiting for?
 

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I'm kind of talking to myself here, but, being bored off my butt today, I downloaded Linux Mint with Cinnamon. That took an hour and 15 minutes. I burned the ISO to DVD, and popped it in an old laptop from the pile of stuff in my basement.. Booted, found all the hardware unattended, even the on board wireless. I only mention that because I'm constantly amazed that an open source free download does what MS has not been able to do forever .Logged onto my network, so it got updates as it loaded. Took about 40 minutes. There is a tutorial on the JRiver site in the forum section on getting JRiver for Linux. 4 command line cut and paste in a terminal window later, I had JRiver on the Linux system. Took another 15 minutes for all that. Another 15 to move 5250 songs over to the library from my Canvio. Linux saw the Schiit when I plugged it in, and a quick selection for that as the audio (vs. internal speakers) and I was up and using it. It almost seems too easy this way, but for a casual user or the average Joe ( and maybe more than a few audiophiles), this was super easy and cheap. And I used a piece of hardware that really wasn't suited for anything past Vista. I think it stays with the spirit of AK, finding a piece of coal, and pressing it into a diamond. As always, YMMV.
 
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