Archive for the ‘Internet Music’ Category

Better Sound Through Computing, for Audiophile Masochists

Friday, March 9th, 2012

People who make stereo and home theater fidelity their hobby are rare.  I’m talking about the person who subscribes to the equipment review publications and who has, at any given moment, equipment upgrade plans.  This person is what’s known as an audiophile.  (You may be surprised to know that custom installation a/v companies rarely see these people.  As a matter of fact, a cliche in the business is the prospect who tells the system designer that he or she isn’t an “audiophile” or “stereophile.”  Almost all prospects say that.)  Rarer still is the computer audiophile.  This person pursues the best sound by processing the audio through a computer.  Computeraudiophile.com caters to this person.  Media Center 17, published by J River, is software that caters to this person.  And, let me tell you, when that computer audiophile gets the urge to tweak, Media Center 17 is paradise!  I just spent two solid days with it.  I can’t wait to get back to it.

Media Center 17 is software that manages audio, video, and image files.  The audio portion is the only one I’ve explored.  With Media Center 17, audiophiles get to use 192/24 resolution (i.e. studio quality) music files, higher resolutions should those ever come, and all the usual lower resolutions (e.g. MP3 resolutions).  There’s upsampling, of course.  There’s equalization;  users can choose any frequency range (e.g. 40hz, 40hz to 60hz, 10khz, etc.) and make it as loud or soft as they like.  Both stereo and multichannel playback are accomodated.  My Radio Shack sound level meter in hand, I’ve been playing different frequency tones (http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Test-Tones/dp/B007H9H6JA)  and measuring their  loudness at my listening position.  Then, I’ve been adjusting the Media Center 17 equalizer so that all frequencies are of equal loudness (i.e. so that the frequency response is “flat”).  I’ve also been using adjusting the equalizer just to hear the effect.  It’s fascinating to hear how bringing 125hz up or down affects the sound of this or that instrument.  Of course, as with any audiophile. I’m mainly after this to see if I can achieve better overall sound.

Computers are a headache.  So, of course, using software to play, to manage, and to adjust one’s music files is not for the typical listener.  A computer-based media management tool this versatile is for enthusiasts who can handle pain.   An A/V system that is manually controlled via a keyboard and mouse is the antithesis of an a/v system that has been automated via a programmed remote (see http://www.dhaudioandhometheater.com/blog/2011/09/20/is-your-home-theater-hard-to-use/).   With the former, you may not be able to listen to music tonight.  With the latter, you press the button that says “Music” and you’re all set.  Like some kind of audiophile masochist, I’ve suffered with Media Center 17.  For starters, there’s an open laptop on my equipment cabinet and I’m sitting on an ottoman next to it to play my music.  I’m not sitting in the ”sweet spot” in my ergonomically excellent Ekornes chair.  The cables connecting both my external hard-drive–where music files live–and the stereo, to my computer, won’t permit it.  Control via an iPhone app, so I can sit in my comfy chair, hasn’t cut it.  Some iPhone apps I couldn’t get to work, others don’t offer complete control.   Media Center 17 freezes often.  There is no one to call, just email support and user groups.   Finding out how to do something is painstaking.  Mistakes come easy.  I accidentally removed a key element of the software and could get it back only by downloading the software again.

Did I mention that I can’t wait to get back to playing with it some more?  J  River kindly offers a one-month free trial with full system features.  At $50, if this is your thing, it’s a bargain.   http://www.jriver.com/

 

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Posted in Audio Formats, Automation, Home Automation, Internet Music, music apps, Music Server, Stereo, Surround Sound, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Smartphones Make Home Theater Easy Now, But It’ll Get Better

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

Whether the idea scares you or not–some don’t like relying on one device to do too much–your smartphone may soon be your automated controller.  An automated controller is what makes audio/video systems easy.  You want to watch TV?  You press a button on an automated controller that says “TV.”  The controller, or “remote,” then tells the TV to turn on, tells it what input to go to, tells the cable box to come on, tells the stereo to turn on, and tells the stereo what input to turn to and what sound mode (e.g. Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II, Stereo) to be in.  The remote also knows that when you then press “7,” it’s to tell the cable box to go to the high-definition version of channel 7 (i.e. you’re not telling the DVD player to go to chapter 7).  Similarly, if you want to watch a DVD, you push the button that says “DVD.”  If you want to listen to Sirius, you push the button that says “Sirius,” and similarly for your other audio and video sources.  And, you don’t have to aim automated controllers–the better ones, anyway–at the TV or at the other equipment.  It’s truly user friendly a/v–the way electronics that are designed for people should be.

For a few years now, our smartphones have been effectively letting us choose songs, and make playlists, for listening to on our stereos.  These apps allow one to pick songs and to make playlists from the music on our computer and from the music offered by the likes of Rhapsody, MOG, or Spotify (i.e. internet-based companies that offer just about any song or album).  These smartphone apps also allow us to listen to internet-based radio such as AM/FM stations (i.e. the stations on your table radio, but all of them and all crystal clear), and internet-only music stations (Apple has some, Logitech has some), and Pandora, a service that serves up songs it thinks you’ll like based on songs you type into it.  It’s mind boggling to be sitting in a recliner, smartphone in hand, choosing among all the worlds’ commercially recorded music to playback through the stereo.  Now is a golden age for the music lover.

Getting back to our smartphones, what haven’t been widely available are apps for our smartphones that will let us control our a/v receivers (e.g. to choose CD or radio or DVD or to change the volume).  Some manufacturers have started offering such apps–Denon and Onkyo come to mind.  (Denon, I know, also has an app for control of a DVD player.)  What also hasn’t been available are apps for TV control, like changing inputs and controlling volume and changing channels and controlling the internet-based content (e.g. movies from Netflix, YouTube, etc.).  Samsung has started to do this, though this is very new.  (Heed the warning that the cutting edge is the bleeding edge, and you’ll be happier.)  And, also in its infancy, is controlling one’s cable box with an app.  Comcast has started down this path, purporting to have an app that acts as the remote control.

Still, it seems reasonable to think that not only will these apps grow in number, they’ll rapidly get to the point where they work well.  Of course, once they work well, it will not be enough for a user-friendly experience.  You will still have to run an app for the cable box and another for the TV and another for the DVD player and another for the stereo.  That’s a lot of page flipping to do on a smart phone and things will get confusing quick.  This is the problem with the standard type of universal remote.  Sure, it may be able to control all your devices, but you have to know all the right buttons to push.  It’s a far cry from the one-touch ease of the automated controller, where you push the ”TV” button, if you want to watch TV, and then everything that needs to happen to your a/v system happens automatically.

So, what many predict will happen for smartphones is that they will become like today’s automated controller.  That is, there will be an app for your smartphone that controls all of your home theater system.  You will not have to switch to Comcast’s app for the cable box and switch to Denon’s app for the receiver and DVD player and switch to Samsung’s app for the TV.   Instead, one app will handle the DVD player, the cable box, the a/v receiver, and the TV.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a safe, reliable, user-friendly experience in as little as 2 years.  That will be cool!

For now, the automated controller is still the ticket, while many have a toe-in-the-water when it comes to controlling their home theaters with their smart phones.  In particular, what many users find very much to their liking, is to augment the automated remote with an app on their phone for selecting network-based music.  It’s just a two-step process.  First, they press a button on the automated remote that says “Network Music.”  Second, they pick up their iPhone or their Android or whatever smartphone they’ve got.  Now, smartphone in hand, app loaded, they’re in the driver’s seat to access the worlds’ commercial recordings.  No one I know who has done this is all that concerned about how soon the smartphone will be able to do it all.  The current combination of automated remote and smartphone is that good.  And, many are comforted by the fact that the automated remote will work just fine even when their network is down.  App based control?  Not so much.

 

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Posted in Automation, ethernet control, Home Automation, Internet Music, music apps, Music Server, Radio, Stereo, Surround Sound | No Comments »

Wireless, Network, & Streaming-Based Audio and Video

Saturday, August 13th, 2011

The cutting edge is the bleeding edge.  This is a sentiment I learned from my colleagues back in my retail sales days.  Like any good salespeople, we wanted our customers to be happy with the audio and video systems we sold them. For most customers–users who don’t enjoy breakdowns or glitchy operation–that meant selling them systems that did what they were supposed to do, day in and day out, with no surprises.  Products that promised new capabilities were, rightly so, eyed with suspicion.  They weren’t proven technology and they often worked as promised only some of the time.  Is any of this sounding familiar?

 

There’s a revolution going on in how we get our music.  CD sales have been overtaken by download sales.  More people play their music from a computer file than play it from a CD.  Free and subscription based music are coming to us via the internet.  Music is, more and more, traveling from point A (a network or computer) to point B (an amplifier or speakers) wirelessly. This is the new cutting edge and I’ve seen lots of blood.  Blood has spilled for video, too, for largely the same reasons–and also because of HDMI. This is the convergence of computers and audio/video that people have been predicting since the 90′s.  It’s a world where glitches and unpredictability rule.

 

If you’re sitting in bumper to bumper traffic and you didn’t expect it and you wanted to get to your destination at a certain time, you might get frustrated. If you know the traffic is there before you set out, there’s a good chance you’re going to sit in it calmly. Similarly, you should converge your computer with your audio and with your TV, knowing that it’s not as easy a path to entertainment as playing a CD, DVD, or vinyl record.  Better still, hire a professional. A professional will advise you as to what you can expect by way of glitches.  That person will know how to properly set up your system to minimize glitches and ensure the fun.  First an foremost, that person can design the appropriate audio/video and computer/network solution. (The a/v designer and the computer designer is usually not the same person, but they often work together.)  Beware of a popular alternative to the
professional, the a/v or computer geek/hobbyist.  Generally speaking, the professional has made a career out of it and the other guy hasn’t–though the latter may be getting paid.  Still, why should you care which one you go with?

 

A good professional knows which equipment to put together with which other equipment, and with which end-users.  This is system design. Good design is crucial if you’re going to be happy with your purchase.   A good designer can tell you the kind of performance you can expect from a system or from an individual component.  If you give him adequate time and attention, a good designer will be able to get you a system that matches your expectations as close as possible, within your budget.  The hobbyist or geek, on the other hand–usually a friend or relative–often gives recommendations without understanding what you will find easy to use and maintain.  Unlike the hobbyist, the professional sees so many more people struggling with this or that equipment, that he better understands which people find which equipment easy or difficult.  A good designer/professional may
even change your plans about what products or features you should pursue, steering you clear of aggravating calls to tech support and clear of angry family members who can’t use the system.

 

If you’re not sure whether any of this applies to you, here are some telltale signs that it does.

1. You want something wireless (e.g HDTV, music, Netflix, satellite radio, speakers, etc.)

2. You want to get your music or TV content from the internet

3. You want to enjoy your music or video throughout other rooms of your home or in other geographic areas

4. You want high-resolution audio or high-definition video from the internet

 

It’s not all doom and gloom.  If you accept what limitations there are and decide to take the plunge, I highly recommend computer based entertainment. Youtube, for instance, is much better on the big screen and with the vastly superior sound that a good stereo can provide. And, streaming movies is extremely convenient.  Just browse the available titles on your computer or TV screen, press a button, and within 3 minutes you’re watching the movie. There are several ways to do this, my favorite being Netflix.  It’s less than $10/month for unlimited movies and the picture is very good and the sound is great.

 

As for music, I wouldn’t believe how broad and inexpensive the options are if I didn’t see for myself.   I use Rhapsody, have for years, and for $10/month I can listen to just about any song or album I want from the 1950′s on–I haven’t tried earlier decades. It sounds great, too.  For 90% of the people I meet, it sounds every bit as good as it needs to.

 

Lately, I’ve been delving deep into a given year’s 100 best albums.  To find out which albums these are, I settled on the recommendations of www.besteveralbums.com. So far, I’ve created separate playlists of 100 albums each for ’67, ’68, 2010, and 2011.  I can listen through a whole album at a time or I can shuffle the playlist and hear songs come up at random.  I didn’t have to buy any of these songs–that’s what the $10/month paid to Rhapsody is for.  When Captain Beefheart pops up in the playlist, the computer fetches the song from Rhapsody.  It’s exactly as seamless as if the songs were on my own computer, when it works–which is 95% of the time. I’m fine with that.  I’ve discovered so much great music! This is the promise of convergence coming true.  I’m like a kid in a candy store!

 

Your idea of a good time may differ, but if it’s audio or video related, you may want to find an a/v professional and take the plunge, safely, into computer-based entertainment.

 

Dennis Hartwick, dennis@dhaudioandhometheater.com, DH Audio and Home Theater, (908) 686-4913.

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Logitech Touch Media Player

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

Advantages (many):

Put your CDs in storage

Lots of audio formats supported:

MP3, FLAC, WAV, AIFF, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, HE-AACv2, HD-AAC, Apple Lossless

WMA Lossless, APE, MPC and WavPack supported through transcoding

Some formats may require additional software installation (e.g. QuickTime), depending on platform

Crystal clear radio reception for every station on the AM/FM dial, via the internet

Receive Sirius satellite radio

Receive internet-based music services  (e.g. Rhapsody, Pandora, Slacker, and others)

Plenty of add-on features available (e.g. see artist biographies, get cover art) and the list is growing

Unit measures only 3.57 x 5.90 x 3.18

Unit costs $300 and includes Squeezebox server software

No computer required to operate

Passes the following streams through its digital out:

16 bit / 44.1 kHz, 16 bit / 48 kHz, 16 bit / 88.2 kHz, 16 bit / 96 kHz
24 bit / 44.1 kHz, 24 bit / 48 kHz, 24 bit / 88.2 kHz, 24 bit / 96 kHz

Will play higher sample rate files than above, by halving the sample rate.  So, you can listen to 192/24 files.

Mutltiple units may be used to pipe the music throughout the house

Disadvantages (few):

It doesn’t come with a wireless touch screen controller

I own the Touch.  The reason I wanted a media player at all was to play audio files off of a hard drive.  My hard drive happens to be a network attached storage device, otherwise known as a NAS.  You could use the hard drive in your computer or an external hard drive or whatever storage device you want.  My audio files came from the CDs I copied to the NAS.  I copied my CDs to a NAS mainly because I thought that being able to browse my titles on my computer would help me rediscover what I own.  And, in particular, I envisioned listening in shuffle mode so that music would play that I forgot I had.  I was right.

Since I started using it in 2008, I’ve banged my head against a lot of wall on account of Logitech’s Squeezebox software.  This is the software one uses to control the various Logitech media players—the Touch included.  You see, there’s a right way and a wrong way to use Logitech media players and software.  Perhaps what I’m about to tell you is good advice for other media player solutions as well.  I’d play it safe and assume so.

First, when you copy CDs to a hard drive, make sure you create files that will preserve the meta data (e.g. track name, artist name, album name) should you ever copy those files.  For instance, .wav files, once copied from, say, your overflowing computer hard drive to an outboard hard drive, will lose their meta data.  So, when you copy your CDs to whatever storage device, don’t create .wav files.  I settled on .aif files as they’re compatible with both Logitech and iTunes and they maintain the meta data when they’re copied.

I used iTunes to copy my CDs to the NAS.  It doesn’t matter what software you use to copy your CDs to a storage device.  Just pick a file type that will preserve the meta data when that file is copied.  Squeezebox software is not for copying your CDs to a hard drive, by the way.

Second, load the Squeezebox software onto the same drive as the music.  This is huge.  I started out with the Squeezebox software running on my laptop and the music stored on my NAS.  Lots of headaches ensued.  They usually involved the software not syncing with my NAS.  So, no music.  And, many computer restarts and many hours on the phone with tech support.  The tech support is pretty bad, by the way.

Third, assign a fixed IP address to your Logitech Touch and, if you’re using one, to your external storage device.

Having the Logitech Touch, now that I implemented the three lessons above, is like having a microwave oven. You never want to go back to not having one.  I use the Touch for Rhapsody.  Rhapsody is awesome if you’re a music lover.  For $10 a month you can listen to just about anything you want and it sounds pretty damn good.  And, I play vinyl for its superior sound quality, so I’m picky about sound.  Indeed, if I fall in love with a record I buy the vinyl or the CD because I hope it will sound better than it did on Rhapsody.  But, the quality of Rhapsody is enough to let me enjoy the music.  If I don’t fall in love with the record but I want to hear it I can play it anytime I want as long as I keep giving Rhapsody $10 a month.  What’s not to like?

I love Sirius satellite radio.  Deep Tracks is the best radio station I’ve ever heard.  This is the radio station I always wanted, probably because I’m a 43 year old white guy who likes classic rock.  Deep Tracks mercifully avoids all the songs you’ll hear on the classic rock stations and plays the other cuts and, at least as important, the other bands from roughly 1965 to 1975.  I’ve been turned on to great music by the James Gang, Loggins and Messina, Renassaince, Stephen Stills, Robin Trower, Poco, and the list just goes on and on.  What a rich era.  I always knew it was, and there was never such an easy way to get exposed to it all.  The Logitech Touch serves it up.  Oh yeah, and Sirius has a couple hundred other stations—providing music and talk radio for a variety of tastes.

Having Squeezebox and the Touch also gives you access to any terrestrial radio station anywhere.  Or, at least, that was it seems like.  Want to hear what radio is traveling through the air in Portland, New Orleans, Madison, LA, NY, Honolulu, London, Paris, Istanbul?   I don’t think any of that is a problem.  So, no more worries about ugly antennas and static.

You get still more music sources, and other niceties, as well.  There’s a live music archive.  You won’t necessarily find the big name bands here, but there are tons of live recordings to check out.  There’s Pandora and Slacker, Last.FM, a podcast player.  And, both Logitech and 3rd parties write plug-ins for the Squeezebox software.  I’ve downloaded ones that find cover art and that give me bios of the artists.  And, way cool, is software that I got for $10, called iPeng, that puts all of the above sources and plugins onto my iPhone.  I use my iPhone4 to control my Touch.  It works great.

So, to get all this you need $300 for the Logitech Touch.  Once you have it you get the software for free.  The Touch can be connected directly to your stereo with either analog or digital cables.  If you want better sound you’ll use the digital output into a good digital to analog converter.  While you can choose want you want to hear by touching the Touch—this device is basically all touch screen on the front with inputs on the back—its need to be wired to your stereo prevents most people from having it at their side when they’re sitting on the couch.  (The Touch does, by the way, connect wirelessly to your hard drive and to the internet, if you like.  I like to go wired when I can, and that’s how mine runs.)  So, use a laptop for the most comfortable control of your Touch, or use the iPhone if you’re good with one of those.

For more info, check out:

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/speakers-audio/wireless-music-systems/devices/5745

To get a Touch installed in the greater NYC metro area contact DH Audio and Home Theater, (908) 686-4913.

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