> You then need either a) Softsqueeze, > or b) an actual hardware SqueezeBox to play your music.
If you have a PC in each location, you can run the music player s/w of your choice. If a PC is headless (no keyboard, mouse and display), you can control it from another PC with VNC software. (See http://www.realvnc.com/ for one alternative.) However, you have still some problems to solve: - Old PCs are usually not quiet. - On-board audio or Creative soundcards are designed for high-quality sound. - You don't want to know about the things that happen to your audio in most soundcard drivers and the Windows OS. > Now assume a motherboard/mainboard that has an on-board > digital co-ax or SP/DIF output; can't the Softsqueeze > player output via this to an amplifier with digital in, > so negating the need for an actual SqueezeBox? If you have on-board audio or a Creative soundcard, it may be doing evil things to the audio before it goes on the digital output. And the jitter level on the SPDIF output might be high enough to be audible. > Why pay $250+ for an SB? Isn't this overkill? A h/w squeezebox has a very low jitter clock and a quite good DAC. I'm basing those statements on results of tests by SlimDevices and on published data from other sources. A PC with on-board audio isn't going to perform as well even if your spend several hundred to $ 1000 on a DAC for each computer. > Now if I want to send the same music to different locations > then can't a PC be set-up running SoftSqueeze in each location, > utilizing the on-board SP/DIF output for digital quality > audio? I've been sitting listening to music for about 3 hours through Slimserver and a Softsqueeze. I hear small glitches every few minutes and major, quite annoying glitches every 45 minutes. Maybe there are things I could do to optimize Softsqueeze. However, I think Softsqueeze is a brilliant proof of concept but a poor choice as a regular way to play music. Why would you want to use the 2-line display and remote keyboard emulation rather than an interface that uses the full screen? If you go with Softsqueeze, you might consider use the web interface on each PC. Or some other play software. Bill -- Listener ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Listener's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2508 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=19342 _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
