Lookin to get a server

just dave

vintage rules!
Hey guys I'm in the market for a music server,thinkin about A Escient Fireball MX-111.Anybody have one of these,if so how do ya like it? It's got an ethernet port in back so if I got a router would it connect to the internet through my computer ? Any info use guys could give me would be great,Thanks
 
I see no one has replied but my two cents is keep it basic. For a few years, I used an older dual core HP desktop running Windows 7 Pro 64 bit with two 2TB drives in RAID 1. I have about 1.3TB worth of movies and music but am not going to keep serving the movies so t hat will save about 800gb of space. I use JRiver to run the music side and had PLEX for the movies. I'm switching over to a mini PC running Windows 10, have a Synology NAS (DS216j) to hold the drives in RAID 1, and will use a USB DAC with it. Should be less power draw. Although I do like my desktop having 8gb of memory and a good video card....but I won't be playing movies with the small PC...just music and basic browsing.
 
Hey guys I'm in the market for a music server,thinkin about A Escient Fireball MX-111.Anybody have one of these,if so how do ya like it? It's got an ethernet port in back so if I got a router would it connect to the internet through my computer ? Any info use guys could give me would be great,Thanks

I am not familiar with the unit you asked about but I would think you would plug it into the router. The computer that runs my server is connected directly into my cable/wifi router and the players connect to to the server via wifi.
 
I'm going to leap on this thread for a moment.
I'd like to, if possible either dual purpose my desktop or build a separate music server.
Hoping to have ability to rip cds lossless with metadata. Somewhat intuitively? (Easy menu, logically sorting?)
In a perfect world would like to be able to control by way of wireless device.
I see commercially available pieces, for what seem to me absurd money.
Maybe I'm wrong . It's a pc and some software.
I have or will have DAC covered.
I'm not against buying a little more hardware or going for a better software package. While to a degree this has been asked before , because the software (and the hardware) has been evolving, I imagine better solutions are available than even a few months ago.
Please point me in the right direction and I'll do my own research.
Thanks in advance!
 
I guess in a nut shell, I'd like to be able to rip (in lossless) through a friendly interface and be able to pull up (again with a friendly interface) what i have. I'd like to be able to see at least something resembling artwork , title, something. If i can access it though a portable device, (so i'm thinking it would have to have wifi and or bluetooth connectivity) so much the better. USB out would be fine.
A friendly rip, store, access, control box:thumbsup:
 
PS,
for starters i'd like to feed this thing CDs and have easy access to content. Maybe later on I might want to digitize and store vinyl but that could be down the road a bit (years away)
 
A lot of Windows users use JRiver to rip and serve files but it is not free approx. $69. I use Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to rip files and convert them to flac. If you want album art, which you do, you have to pay $7.99 for a lifetime subscription.

I just downloaded and tested EAC (I ripped all my CDs years ago). It is easy to set up and use and gives you very accurate rips. Here is the report it gives you when done:
Exact Audio Copy V1.3 from 2. September 2016

EAC extraction logfile from 27. May 2017, 13:40

Eric Clapton / 461 Ocean Boulevard

Used drive : hp DVD-RAM GH82N Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : No
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 667
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Not detected, thus appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 768 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\FLAC\FLAC.EXE
Additional command line options : -6 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" -T "BAND=%albuminterpret%" -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%--tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" %hascover%--picture="%coverfile%"%hascover% %source% -o %dest%


TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
---------------------------------------------------------
1 | 0:00.33 | 4:52.20 | 33 | 21952
2 | 4:52.53 | 4:08.07 | 21953 | 40559
3 | 9:00.60 | 3:30.45 | 40560 | 56354
4 | 12:31.30 | 3:47.40 | 56355 | 73419
5 | 16:18.70 | 4:25.10 | 73420 | 93304
6 | 20:44.05 | 4:14.13 | 93305 | 112367
7 | 24:58.18 | 3:26.17 | 112368 | 127834
8 | 28:24.35 | 4:59.70 | 127835 | 150329
9 | 33:24.30 | 3:14.18 | 150330 | 164897
10 | 36:38.48 | 4:07.42 | 164898 | 183464
11 | 40:46.15 | 2:51.68 | 183465 | 196357


Track 2

Filename C:\Users\my\Music\Eric Clapton\461 Ocean Boulevard\02 Better Make It Through Today - Eric Clapton.wav

Peak level 57.1 %
Extraction speed 3.8 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 406823B9
Accurately ripped (confidence 22) [C7505749] (AR v2)
Copy OK


All tracks accurately ripped

No errors occurred

End of status report

I set it up to automatically make an artist and album folder and store the tracks in the album folder. The file ends up with a .flac extension not .wav. I think the log is created before the automatic conversion to .flac.

dbpoweramp is another popular app for ripping.
 
I'm going to leap on this thread for a moment.
I'd like to, if possible either dual purpose my desktop or build a separate music server.
Hoping to have ability to rip cds lossless with metadata. Somewhat intuitively? (Easy menu, logically sorting?)
In a perfect world would like to be able to control by way of wireless device.
I see commercially available pieces, for what seem to me absurd money.
Maybe I'm wrong . It's a pc and some software.
I have or will have DAC covered.
I'm not against buying a little more hardware or going for a better software package. While to a degree this has been asked before , because the software (and the hardware) has been evolving, I imagine better solutions are available than even a few months ago.
Please point me in the right direction and I'll do my own research.
Thanks in advance!
Server. heh heh....The following snip is not directed solely at you per se but indiscriminately at the AK community at large . I know it just semantics to most folks here but this "server" term gets bandied about here alot; for why I can only imagine. Me thinks a goodly portion of why is because it just sounds more upper crust fancy and overly complicated/sophisticated than it is really. Erm...audiophilistic if you will. /snipe

As you remark about the "commercially available" pieces, yes they are indeed pricey (mainly for aesthetics) and considering the personal audio only uses around here...whatever you choose it is simply just a run-of-the-mill PC... on a run-of-the-mill personal network. S'not like you're gonna have to set up and configure a data center for multitudes of connections ala Amazon. Again, just semantics but it tweaks a part of my IT persona reffering to it as a [straightens tie] "server" > LOL

$oftware runs the gamut. There are several roll yer own completely free options and/or paid upgrades like Media Monkey, ($25) etc.. JRiver is a universally popular choice here ($70). Top of the heap in this sphere is Roon ($120/yr./$500/lifetime). Bar none, Roon overall is ballz out best of class. Probably overkill for the average user but if you're a music junkie on a network there is no present substitute.

Free trial on all, give em a spin & enjoy. :)
 
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I'm not offended in the least. I get where you're coming from. I'll have to look at the other options Thanks
 
Ok Phoenix, I'm in Bridgewater, and I think I have this laptop music server thing licked. I would be happy to show you what I have and what I did with it. Did we meet at the gathering in Verona last summer? If you're not too far away and we can coordinate, I could help you get up and running no problem.
 
Thanks for the generous offer.
Yes we did meet in Verona. I would like to see that. That'd be great!.
I'll PM you later and see if we can work something out. Thanks!
 
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