Need help - music server advice

[Edroom]

I am taking the plunge also and need some specific advice, excuse me if I get any lingo wrong or list something incorrectly, this is my first foray into downloading music, never even had an iPod. I didn't like the way the compressed music sounded but with lossless/ flak I have been convinced to set up a system for convenience. With help I have set up a music server with unraid and have loaded plex to manage the music. I have not started loading anything yet but have been advised to use XLD for music and MAKEMVD for movies.
I have a older dac ( ps audio ultralink 2) for my 2 channel stereo and it has optical , coaxial and aes/ ebu inputs. My question is how to get my music from my server/ wireless network to my dac, would airport express have appropriate outputs? Does it handle lossless? Will it integrate with my pc, I am running Windows 10. Are there other options?
I assume I will control the system from my iPhone or iPad with plex, am I missing anything here?
Thanks!
Ed

 

[Jeffery]

While just a small snippet of your total question, MakeMKV will convert DVDs or BluRays that you own to .mkv files (and this in itself is a touchy subject around here). Not all devices will play .mkv, and the files are large. I personally like to convert my .mkv files to .mp4, pretty much everything I own plays .mp4s and the files are much smaller. It takes a little trial and error to get a good balance between quality and file size with Handbrake - you can actually create compressed files larger than the original - and it's time consuming without a fairly powerful computer. So there's tradeoffs like everything else, I guess.

I just use my NAS (server) to store the files, but play them back with a variety of devices. For streaming the movie files, I like Roku for the TV in the man cave. It will work wireless or ethernet. For movies to the living room, I have a home theatre PC and use a program called Kodi there - it used to be called XBMC. It'll stream music, too. For streaming wireless music to everything, I really like Sonos, but looks like they'll be going out of business soon so I wouldn't bother with that. For streaming to the PC, I use JRiver. It has a neat cataloging feature.

There are so many ways to skin a cat these days, but Apple will probably be the safest method. I don't use any Apple products - probably why they seem to either outlast or absorb everything else - but they are so much larger than something like Sonos that they'll probably be around a lot longer.

There are lots of guys here doing this sort of thing, I bet you get plenty of options to consider!

 

[stupidhead]

will watch with interest Ed, good luck!

 

[uofmtiger]

Plex has Chromecast Streaming built in. I haven't tried it with my Chromecast Audio device since it is unplugged right now, but I can launch Plex on a computer and launch it on an iPad. Then iPad works as a remote for Plex and the computer will send the audio directly to the Nvidia Shield ( my casting device) via casting.

If you are planning to use Plex all the time, then this would be a good solution.

AirPlay works differently. Plex doesn't have Airplay built in, so you would send the stream to the iPad and then Airplay it from the iOS device to the Airport Express. This would double the activity on you wifi router for audio, so with older routers, it could be more likely to cause an issue. If you run iTunes, the AirPlay features are built into its interface and the Remote app for iOS will control the audio and let you send it to the AirPlay device.

There is an also an app called Airfoil that works with just about every operating system that will steal your computer audio or specific program's audio and send it to the Airport Express.

 

[derekva]

Look up 'Raspberry Pi' on Audiokarma. There is a very easy (and cheap) way to build a Linux-based credit-card sized PC that behaves like a Logitech Squeezebox clone. There is a company called HiFiBerry that makes a product called the Digi that uses the I2S output of the Raspberry Pi to create an S/PDIF output to your external DAC for about $45. All you need then is a smartphone (Android, Windows or iPhone) or a web browser to control music streaming.

-D

 

[Edroom]

Thank you all for the advice , i will sort through and see what seems to make sense...