Setting Up a Music Server

[Bellend Sebastian]

Has anyone actually done this?

 

I've always liked me Hi-fi but in 2016 even I've got to concede that CDs are old hat.

 

I know you can get streaming music players (there are models from Pioneer and Cambridge Audio that I've got my eye on) but I'm buggered if I know how and what to connect them to. I don't really want to have an actual PC or laptop whirring away in the background all the time - I particularly don't want to wait for Windows to start up if I want to listen to music for a few minutes, but I know less than nothing about NAS servers and stuff like that.

 

I just want the player and a separate box with my music on. How do you actually do this? Everything I can find seems to assume you have a home network - I don't really even know what that means

[potter3]

If it's just the time required to start up preventing you from using a computer, an SSD greatly reduces that. Takes less than 10 seconds for mine to reach the desktop from pressing the power button.

 

If you went with a NAS drive I think you'd just need to load your music onto there, connect it to your router, then access the media from your streaming music player.

[Bellend Sebastian]

I'd like to bypass the computer anyway, because I'd like to control the player via the smartphone app they all seem to come with now, or even just the remote.  Also, it'll be self contained and just sat in a cupboard - I'm not arsed about multi room or stuff like that.

 

An SSD would be great but one that's big enough is quite expensive.  If I could plug a conventional hard drive direct into the player and that actually work that would be good, as they're cheap as chips.

 

 

[Jon the Hat]

I bought a airplay enabled Denon hifi, which means I just pick music from my phone, Apple music etc and play if over wifi. It starts the hifi and everthing.

 

 

http://www.weybridge-audio.co.uk/denon-ceol-n9-with-q-acoustics-3020-speakers.html?gclid=CO7mw8iIkc4CFceVGwod9bUHmw 

 

[Bellend Sebastian]

1 hour ago, Jon the Hat said:

I bought a airplay enabled Denon hifi, which means I just pick music from my phone, Apple music etc and play if over wifi. It starts the hifi and everthing.

 

 

http://www.weybridge-audio.co.uk/denon-ceol-n9-with-q-acoustics-3020-speakers.html?gclid=CO7mw8iIkc4CFceVGwod9bUHmw 

 

Yeah, you hear things like that and think, well it must be easy.

 

Just been to Richer Sounds and they ummed and aahed for ages about whether the player I was looking at would play direct from a USB hard drive before concluding with high confidence that it can, which would be by far the best solution for me (and a relatively cheap one, hurrah).

 

A really silly question now - can you get things like Radio Leicester over internet radio?  I know you can listen live via their website, but do they appear on actual internet radios?