To continue... Great advice here with a clear message that we continue to be in a state of flux and online services seem to be the future rather than the local library-based approach we have used over the last few years.
The Touch is beginning to make a lot more sense than first impressions suggested - some of its features I did not pick up from the current product page and thought it was just an SB3 with a touch screen. Initial responses on this forum did not disabuse me. To summarise for the far distant scenario from these posts and my personal experience: Ripping should be outsourced as a dying requirement. Tagging they might need help with, including the choice of a clear policy over issues such as compilations, genres and classical music. Storage: Perhaps it is not needed at all with Spotify or Napster solution. Assuming that is a step too far for some, I would suggest an external drive for the library. There are pros and cons for internal vs external (USB 2, Firewire, SATA External all easily fast enough) but as it is probably going to be in the living room most important of all it needs to be very quiet. For a novice an external drive might give more flexibility if you need to help with the setup. One great feature of SqueezeCenter is that it does not care about the folder structure but works straight from the tags. In practice our user just needs to drop any new music files into the correct root folder or sub-folder and re-scan the library. This is until the library dissapears into the Cloud. Backup policy: essential if local files are used! If you pay for music (sorry for this, but I know a few people who do not) just work out what your investment is... Mac: just use a Mac Mini or iMac if you have one. iTunes works for some, not for others and it is going to be a love it or hate it relationship. For our scenario I would tend to suggest it as a starting point, especially as SqueezeCenter links to it by default. The SB family opens up additional control and music selection options beyond a pure Apple solution; also SqueezeCenter gives easier management of multi-room audio in my opinion. You also give access to the superb Boom and the presumably (I have not seen one let alone tried one) superb Radio for more than Internet-delivered services. To me this is a critical advantage but it might not apply to our scenario. I am hearing that Spotify (for example) could be enough. PC For the PC don't touch iTunes with the proverbial but use something like dbPowerAmp and the tag editing suggestions above - or get someone else to manage your library. There are many attractive small, all but silent PCs and one of these could provide a fully usable library and SqueezeCenter host. Windows Home Server got one short mention but I cannot see a place in our recommendation because I don't know what it would add, perhaps out of my ignorance. Perhaps it enforces file security where optional backup regimes do not. WiFi Wired is easiest but a straw poll of my adult students suggests WiFi is in pretty widespread use. WiFi, if I remember rightly, has not been mentioned. Should we suggest dual band and seperate out -n for workstations and -g for Squeeze devices? I notice the Touch has: "One-touch setup (with compatible WPS-supporting routers)". I have never tried it and list of compatible routers would be helpful. Sounds like a welcome feature though. Turnkey Solutions Vortexbox gets a lot positive comments so this might be an option if the Mac or PC solution does not appeal and we are not ready for the cloud. I presume we could just recommend the integrated box for an easy life or offer to install the software for them if they prefer a different platform. Interesting Times I'm not ready to give up the security blanket of my CDs yet, but I am beginning to wonder why. Perhaps I still don't believe that I have ripped them without errors. I need to let go as... This is clearly an outdated attitude and we should recommend a virtual solution on local disk storage or more radically, in "the Cloud". The Squeeze devices get a clear recommendation as providing the best of mix of replay-hardware-options, control & accessibility, with multi-room playback. The Touch should get a clear recommendation when it is available if only because the touch screen will make set-up a lot easier and it has some new capabilities. While there is no one, clear solution - there are solutions. My plan to defect was ill-thought out. Time to start saving for low power, quiet server I can live with because I cannot live without SqueezeCenter for my SB3 and Boom, for the time being anyway. I need to investigate more radical options further before abandoning my local library. Appologies for any typos - this has been typed up in a bit of a rush. -- dBerriff ------------------------------------------------------------------------ dBerriff's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12247 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=67637 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
