WD Live/Xtreamer good for playing music?

[manishk13]

Hi

All advertizing and forum discussion for these 2 devices focuses primarliy on their output to a display device.

I find this a little disconcerting since my main application is music. My home is networked with ethernet ports in the wall ore-wired at 3 points - HT room, living room and bedroom.

1.I want to put all my music (mp3s ripped from 600 CDs) on a NAS near the router and listen at the above 3 points through a networked media player
2. I want to listen to internet radio stations (worldspace is gone) at the same points via the media player

In addition, I want to store all the photos on the NAS and watch from these points and only ocassionally watch ripped HD clips/internet content.

I expect the composite audio out of the media player to go to a stereo/5.1 receiver, not to the TV

Can some expert guide me what would the best media player(s) for me ?Should I get separate ones for music and video ?

Thanks
Manish

 

[marsilians]

Search a bit on the forum and you fill find your hearts fill of streamer device opinions and experiences re: audio. Its just a few clicks away!

 

[GeorgeO]

The SB fits your bill to a T.

George

 

[santhosh]

Manish, both xtreamer and xtreamer pro(will be in markets only in April) will do everything that you have listed as your requirements - play MP3s, radio stations, videos HD and SD and photos from your NAS connected to LAN or W-LAN. Other alternatives which will do all this are WDTV, Asus O Play, Playon HD etc. For all these, you will require a monitor to navigate and play your media. Once you start your playlist, you can switch off the monitor and continue to listen to music if you connect via the composite out. SQ will be nothing to write home about. Try adding an outboard DAC if you are not happy with SQ.

If you are very keen on SQ, then go in for a Squeezebox as George has suggested as it has a decent DAC inbuilt (Burr Brown on the SB Classic and Wolfson on the SB Duet). Add an outboard DAC to further improve SQ. SB will give you the ability to play music from your NAS connected to LAN or W-LAN and also Internet Radio Stations. But it cannot do movies or photos.

 

[svenkateshsmart]

Hi,

Those who are expecting good music out of Xtreamer would be highly disappointed. It is clearly sounding way below a mass-market DVDp without any separation and everything is sounding flat.

Today, we have done an extensive testing with Xtreamer by FLAC files of a particular album and then using a mass DVDp and then a dedicated 10-year-old Marantz CD53 player. As expected, the CDP took the prime position placing the DVDp second and Xtreamer was clearly out of the comparison. In fact, iphone or a transcend mp3 player connected to NAD through dock outperforms Xtreamer easily.

Not sure if a DAC would make a difference. So, I have to depend on my HTPC for all my FLAC files or need to convert all the flacs to wav onto a CD.:sad:

Cheers!