Need help buying a shelf MP3 player

[E.L. Lambert]

I have a 4 year old Sony 400 CD player which I am thinking of getting
rid of and converting to an all digital MP3 player. I don't need
portability; All I want is a home shelf unit to replace my CD player.
Also, I don't want the home unit to be a digital gateway that depends
on a PC; it must be able to play music standalone (although I could
hook it up to a PC occasionally to download new music.)

Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any shelf MP3 players.
Everything I can find is a little portable unit such as the iPod with
40GB or less of storage. I guess a portable unit would be ok, except
that they just have crappy "headphone out" outputs... no RCA coaxial
or optical outputs for better sound quality (the kind that are
standard on every other freakin' home udio component made in the last
15 years.) And also, 40GB isn't enough to hold 400 CDs worth of
music at 256kb; I'd much rather pay a bit more and have a bulkier
unit to get 100GB or more of storage.

Any suggestions on a product that would fit my needs?

[Kai Howells]

You don't mention what your price range is, however the Yamaha
MusicCAST system should fit the bill for you:

http://www.yamaha.com/yec/musiccast/idx_concept.htm

It's a regular-sized component, and can be expanded to stream music to
remote stations in other rooms as well, via wired or wireless ethernet.

On 2004-10-27 02:22:30 +1000, (E.L. Lambert) said:

> I have a 4 year old Sony 400 CD player which I am thinking of getting
> rid of and converting to an all digital MP3 player. I don't need
> portability; All I want is a home shelf unit to replace my CD player.
> Also, I don't want the home unit to be a digital gateway that depends
> on a PC; it must be able to play music standalone (although I could
> hook it up to a PC occasionally to download new music.)
>
> Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any shelf MP3 players. Everything
> I can find is a little portable unit such as the iPod with
> 40GB or less of storage. I guess a portable unit would be ok, except
> that they just have crappy "headphone out" outputs... no RCA coaxial
> or optical outputs for better sound quality (the kind that are
> standard on every other freakin' home udio component made in the last
> 15 years.) And also, 40GB isn't enough to hold 400 CDs worth of
> music at 256kb; I'd much rather pay a bit more and have a bulkier
> unit to get 100GB or more of storage.
>
> Any suggestions on a product that would fit my needs?

[[email protected]]

Kai Howells wrote:
> You don't mention what your price range is, however the Yamaha
> MusicCAST system should fit the bill for you:
>
> http://www.yamaha.com/yec/musiccast/idx_concept.htm
>
> It's a regular-sized component, and can be expanded to stream music
to
> remote stations in other rooms as well, via wired or wireless
ethernet.
>
> On 2004-10-27 02:22:30 +1000, (E.L. Lambert)
said:
>
> > I have a 4 year old Sony 400 CD player which I am thinking of
getting
> > rid of and converting to an all digital MP3 player. I don't need
> > portability; All I want is a home shelf unit to replace my CD
player.
> > Also, I don't want the home unit to be a digital gateway that
depends
> > on a PC; it must be able to play music standalone (although I
could
> > hook it up to a PC occasionally to download new music.)
> >
> > Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any shelf MP3 players.
Everything
> > I can find is a little portable unit such as the iPod with
> > 40GB or less of storage. I guess a portable unit would be ok,
except
> > that they just have crappy "headphone out" outputs... no RCA
coaxial
> > or optical outputs for better sound quality (the kind that are
> > standard on every other freakin' home udio component made in the
last
> > 15 years.) And also, 40GB isn't enough to hold 400 CDs worth of
> > music at 256kb; I'd much rather pay a bit more and have a bulkier
> > unit to get 100GB or more of storage.
> >
> > Any suggestions on a product that would fit my needs?

[[email protected]]

I'm a huge fan of the MusicCast. I've had mine for about a year, and
it's still my favorite toy. Yes, the price tag is still way too hefty
for casual music listeners (about $2,000 for the server, $450 for each
client); and any techie willing to set up a home network can probably
get the mp3's on his/her PC to stream over the home stereo for a lot
less money. But for ease of use and aesthetics, this can't be beat.
I've got just under 10,000 songs at 192 bps stored on the 80G drive.
Sound quality is just fine for casual listening; yes, if you play the
mp3 file back-to-back with the original CD you can hear the difference,
but aside for times when I'm lying on the couch doing nothing but
listening, I have no quarrels with the sound. Plus the client is great
-- I love being able to access my entire collection from my bedroom.

Yes, I wish the hard drive were bigger. I have an immense CD
collection, and a lot of it won't fit. But, as a practical matter, I
have the lion's share of the music I listen to on a regular (or even
annual) basis stored on the box.

[The Open Sourceror's Apprentice]

(E.L. Lambert) wrote in
om:

> Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any shelf MP3 players.
> Everything I can find is a little portable unit such as the iPod with
> 40GB or less of storage. I guess a portable unit would be ok, except
> that they just have crappy "headphone out" outputs... no RCA coaxial
> or optical outputs for better sound quality (the kind that are
> standard on every other freakin' home udio component made in the last
> 15 years.) And also, 40GB isn't enough to hold 400 CDs worth of
> music at 256kb; I'd much rather pay a bit more and have a bulkier
> unit to get 100GB or more of storage.
>
> Any suggestions on a product that would fit my needs?

If there's room in the case, try making an MCAS computer on a modern SBC
board with a flash drive instead of a hard drive. I've made a number of
MCAS systems over the past several years. Making one that auto-mounts the
CD would be trivial, it's merely a hack to a DOS batch file.

Software:
<http://mcascar.tripod.com/index.html>

One possible hardware example:
<http://www.dpie.com/pc104/mopslcd7.html>


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