Squeezebox Alternative or Chasing the Pegacorn

[Grahame]

Cowon X7 ?

 

160 Gb

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0047ZB9XQ/ref=dp_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=all

 

Discussion 

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=71271

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=240

[Dusty Chalk]

  If they basically took your average USB portable HD and just strapped a display on it it'd work too. 

They have those.  I thought.  Nope, just looked, most of them don't have a display...they expect you to have access to one, or for watching movies.  But it's basically a hard drive with a play button.  I wonder if finagling a small 2" display would give you functionality, or if you'd still need something else.

 

So if you don't need ripping, what about one of those other personal music devices that the people on head-fi are always going on about?  Like the Sony or the Fiio.

[skullguise]

^^^ DAP's can indeed be a nice alternative, good thoughts Grahame and Dusty.  I got the Fiio X5, has two mSDHC slots so can go up to 256G (I have 2 x 64G for 128G), more if you want to swap out cards.  Plays hi-rez, has line and digital out, and a bit ugly but functional UI.  The headphone amp portion is so-so, but there are better DAP's out there (just not as cheap).

[Craig Sawyers]

Rapberry-pi based streamer project here http://theaudiostandard.net/thread/501/raspberry-based-audio-streamer-project

 

But I didn't do that.  I just bought a NOS Logitech Transporter, due to collect once I've paid the import tax today.  Obsolete, yeah, but the sound quality is (allegedly) great.

[nopants]

I've heard that their spdif implementation is a schlep but I guess jocko homo would say that about every implementation

[n_maher]

Rapberry-pi based streamer project here http://theaudiostandard.net/thread/501/raspberry-based-audio-streamer-project

 

But I didn't do that.  I just bought a NOS Logitech Transporter, due to collect once I've paid the import tax today.  Obsolete, yeah, but the sound quality is (allegedly) great.

 

The Rpi solution requires a network, based on some quick reading, so no-go there.

The Transporter, which I lusted after for years, also is streaming only so while I wish it would work, it doesn't.  Basically if someone just made a Transporter/Touch or similar that could actually deal with having a 2TB drive hanging off the back that would do it.  Sadly, the Touch gets pissed with drives that big and kept stopping/buffering mid-song.

[crappyjones123]

Is that the case with larger ssd as well nate? Won't be cheap but if you already have the touch and like it...

[n_maher]

Is that the case with larger ssd as well nate? Won't be cheap but if you already have the touch and like it...

Can't say that I've tried an SSD with the touch but it might be worth it. I'm just not sure if you can set it up without network access..

[grawk]

Can you set it up at home, load it up, then disconnect it?

[Grahame]

I seem to recall that they managed to improve the capability of the touch by adding a swap partition when using external drives ... This would be even better using an ssd rather than hdd. I'll see what I can find in the slim forums after the weekend. Likewise as long as the file paths are the same it shouldn't matter if (pre) processing was done on another machine

Edited July 4, 2015 by Grahame

[melomaniac]

Pioneer Elite N-50 perhaps?

[n_maher]

No on-board storage.

[acidbasement]

I think I might try the rPi option.

 

One can connect a touch screen to it when not networked, or control it with a smartphone when networked - could even use your phone's wifi hotspot as your network and control the pi with a tablet or ipod touch or something. On-board storage from SD cards or a USB hard drive, with the ability to access NAS if you need.

 

Also, you can get add-on audio modules from https://www.hifiberry.com/- dacses, spdif-outs, ampses, or just use your own USB DAC.

 

And it's cheap, so it's not a tragedy if it doesn't work as well as I want and I end up turning it into a Minecraft box for the kids.

Edited July 7, 2015 by acidbasement

[nopants]

for the pi you don't really need anything except mpd if even, and a compatible USB dac. it sounds a little funky but very good performance for what you pay. might want to hold off on the screen and use an mpd phone client to see if you like the results

once you get everything set up in cli you typically don't need to access it that way afterward. there are also ssh clients on phones in a pinch

[n_maher]

you are now speaking foreign language.

[dsavitsk]

The Transporter, which I lusted after for years, also is streaming only so while I wish it would work, it doesn't.  Basically if someone just made a Transporter/Touch or similar that could actually deal with having a 2TB drive hanging off the back that would do it.  Sadly, the Touch gets pissed with drives that big and kept stopping/buffering mid-song.

 

You can plug a 2TB HDD into a Rpi via USB, then connect the Rpi directly to the transporter/touch with a crossover cable. Run Squeezeserver (or whatever they call it these days) on the pi (and possibly a DHCP server to give the touch an IP) and you have exactly what you want with one small extra box. And it would be pretty easy to make a small box that would hold the pi + HDD to bring you back down to a Transporter with a box hanging off the back.

[nopants]

you are now speaking foreign language.

sorry I should have quoted the preceding post, it wasn't intended to work for your needs

[acidbasement]

sorry I should have quoted the preceding post, it wasn't intended to work for your needs

Yeah, I'm planning to do similar to your prior suggestion, but with Nate being unable to do the network thing at his work, he'd probably need the touch screen, no?

Edited July 8, 2015 by acidbasement

[bhjazz]

Closest I can think is a version of what Colin was talking about  You could use a NUC to run daphile and likely to store you content as well, then just basic wifi to get to the UI.  I realize you said you didn't want any network connectivity.  Still, I've been playing with daphile and it's pretty cool. 

 

daphile

[b0bb]

If they still made the Classic I'd probably buy one.  If they basically took your average USB portable HD and just strapped a display on it it'd work too. 

 

I have the 6th gen ipod classic, removed the mechanical HDD and replaced it with a 250GB flash msata drive, upgrading it to a 500GB unit in the next couple of months as it is starting to fill. The msata to ZIF interface bridge board is the key to the whole thing and it fits nicely in the space vacated by the HDD.

 

This setup is capable of supporting 2TB flash cards, in theory.

 

This is talked about at great length at the other site.

[Dusty Chalk]

Did you do it, or did you send it to someone to do it?  I seriously need to do that to mine.

[b0bb]

Did you do it, or did you send it to someone to do it?  I seriously need to do that to mine.

I did it myself . This works for the Gen 6 and Gen5.5 aka ipod video

 

This is similar to the one I used, can't find the exact one as it was 2.5 years ago. Just be sure the seller includes the ZIF cable, the original ipod ZIF cable is too short.

http://www.microsatacables.com/msata-ssd-to-40-pin-zif-adapter-card-as-toshiba-or-hitachi-zif-hdd

 

I am currently using the Samsung 840 msata

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/ssd840evo/overview_mSATA.html

 

Iphone opening tools

https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Tools/Plastic-Opening-Tools/IF145-000

[Dusty Chalk]

Thanks.

[4tray]

I actually got linux audio working on my ASUS RT-AC68U router and had a USB audio device connected to one of the ports. It played media files via ncmpcpp and was fine except I wasn't entirely happy with the audio interface I had paired with it. For a while for better quality I had it pumping audio out thru a TOSLINK which I had into a EMU 1616 running standalone...

There was nothing wrong with the router based setup but I ditched it because I mess with my router a lot and liked to have music that worked even when I took my network down.

anyway, now I just have a Intel NUC. I have a 2TB hard drive inside of it with my whole music library and it runs windows with foobar2000. it's tiny, consumes barely any power, and runs windows so i can do other things on it too, although I have it next to my TV so it can stream music to my stereo as well as provide my TV content with the Kodi media player.

Edited September 6, 2015 by 4tray
bumping an old thread but wanted to post my story anyway

[Craig Sawyers]

I've heard that their spdif implementation is a schlep but I guess jocko homo would say that about every implementation

Bit of a late reply, but you're right.  The BNC SPDIF waveform was not good (slow notchy rise) and TDR looked nothing like 75 ohms on a 50ns timescale.  Also there is no DC blocking on the pulse transformer, so is operates with a DC bias.  Ugh.

So I removed the existing transformer, and replaced with Newava S22083.  Fed via 169 ohm resistor and 0.1uF DC block on the input end (from the 74HC74 driver already in there), 43.2 ohms in parallel with the secondary and 39 ohms in series.  This gives the correct 0.5V p-p output, optimally loads the transformer, has a TDR that has a couple of 50 millirho 500ps long features from the connector itself, and the waveform has a clean 1.5ns rise and fall time.

 

The Rpi solution requires a network, based on some quick reading, so no-go there.

The Transporter, which I lusted after for years, also is streaming only so while I wish it would work, it doesn't.  Basically if someone just made a Transporter/Touch or similar that could actually deal with having a 2TB drive hanging off the back that would do it.  Sadly, the Touch gets pissed with drives that big and kept stopping/buffering mid-song.

Again a bit of a late reply, but as you can see I've been getting under the skin of the Transporter.  My set up is now hard wired CAT6 connection from router to Transporter, PC and Synology NAS, 2 x 2TB Raid 1.  iPad wireless connected to Router running iPeng as overall controller.  CD collection is now ripped using dBpoweramp uncompressed FLAC. I'm subscribed to Tidal HiFi for streaming.  PC has to be on and running Logitech Media Server for the Transporter to do anything meaningful.

Simple menu choices on iPeng give streaming, CD collection or Radio.