Wireless - Hoosier21 steps into the 21st

[hoosier21]

Bellsouth finally got DSL out in my neck of the woods, woohoo.

I am looking for some hints-do's-don'ts for you guys that have experience with wireless routers and playing music in the house.

My MP3 files collection is going by the day, this has me thinking about mega storage server stashed away somewhere, and an interface for getting to those files, and most important, getting them to a stereo for listening.

I have seen the Slim Devices - Sqeezebox, is there anything else out there I need to look at?

Any ideas on how to make/build the mega storage PC on the cheap, I have some older PC's available to me. Is it just a matter of getting a wireless card and huge hard drive in one of those old boxes, and I am done?

Thanks

Russ

[tryrrthg]

Sonos looks way cool with the handheld remote with screen and all that crap. Stereophile gave them a good review if that means anything, probalby not... but it looks pretty cool

http://www.sonos.com

http://www.sonos.com/graphics/products/cr/cr100/cr100_lg_3.jpg

[BaggedLancer]

Any Pentium 3 700ish mhz machine will make a great music server. Drop in some 250 gig(or whatever you want, but I prefer 2-3 of the 250gig hard drives) and you have yourself a nice little server.

I believe that only XP professional will allow you run it as a server, since XP Home does not include the server options in the OS. I am in the process of doing exactly what you want to do. I plan to hook it up to my tv and use a wireless keyboard w/ touchpad on my sofa for the ultimate laziness :)

For a faster and more stable connection, always avoid wireless if possible. Linksys makes some great routers as well as Netgear.

Also, you can wire your music server right to your receiver to play music right into your HT.

[Refefer]

Stay away from Wireless Pre-N right now... in very rare cases people have found it to be faster, but right now a majority of people have found it to actually be slower than wireless G.

As for a server, I have one setup for music and videos myself. Grab a copy of windows 2000 if you can since it is rock solid in terms of stability and has very good server features while being extremely cheap right now to purchase.

I'd just set it up as a Network Attached Storage so that any other computer on the network can grab files from it. Stick a large HD in there and you should be good.

Take another PC, set it next to your music center, rca the audio into your preamp, svideo into your tv, and you should have a fairly decent sounding music server that can be accessed using the TV as interface with a keyboard and mouse.

[rskarvan]

If money is no object... there is always the Olive Opus.

[disneyjoe7]

Bellsouth finally got DSL out in my neck of the woods, woohoo.

Nice I take that a personal Thank You ;)

[shack]

Any ideas on how to make/build the mega storage PC on the cheap, I have some older PC's available to me. Is it just a matter of getting a wireless card and huge hard drive in one of those old boxes, and I am done?
IMO you would be better off just getting an exernal HD. I picked up a Western Digital My Book 250GB hard drive for around $110 (after rebates). It's portable, good interface, easy to transfer data from one computer to another and works nicely as a backup for the stuff you don't want to lose. (I have a 160GB as well and use it as a backup/storage for all of our family digital photos).

[hoosier21]

[QUOTE=tryrrthg]Sonos looks way cool with the handheld remote with screen and all that crap. Stereophile gave them a good review if that means anything, probalby not... but it looks pretty cool QUOTE]

Cool for sure, 750.00 clams ouch

I think I am too cheap for this right now

[hoosier21]

If money is no object... there is always the Olive Opus.


This Russ "cheap" A

[hoosier21]

IMO you would be better off just getting an exernal HD. I picked up a Western Digital My Book 250GB hard drive for around $110 (after rebates). It's portable, good interface, easy to transfer data from one computer to another and works nicely as a backup for the stuff you don't want to lose. (I have a 160GB as well and use it as a backup/storage for all of our family digital photos).


Yes this is what I have started thinking, just add an ext. for the bulk, then maybe the Squeeze Box is the way to go for getting it to my stereo.

[BaggedLancer]

IMO you would be better off just getting an exernal HD. I picked up a Western Digital My Book 250GB hard drive for around $110 (after rebates). It's portable, good interface, easy to transfer data from one computer to another and works nicely as a backup for the stuff you don't want to lose. (I have a 160GB as well and use it as a backup/storage for all of our family digital photos).


That's a good suggestion(cheap as well) however it keeps you very limited to how you can access your music. It all depends whether or not he wants to access his music through his AVR.