MRGRIM Posted June 5, 2006 Share Posted June 5, 2006 Hi Guys, I've got a really really old hi-fi that is on its last legs, see as I have ripped all the albums I own to MP3 and are stored on an external hard drive. I've been wondering what would be involved to have some sort of cool music centre using an old tablet pc hooked up to some speakers? The problems I can see straight away is what kind of quality sound card is the tablet going to have? What options do I have here? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PoyBoy Posted June 5, 2006 Share Posted June 5, 2006 Well, you could use a usb sound card. I have seen them in the tigerdirect catalog, but havnt looked online. I expect you could buy a decent one for less that $40. You might also want a front-end, like frodo, for a cool looking interface. Have fun!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Toxie Posted June 5, 2006 Share Posted June 5, 2006 Well I would probably not suggest running a music server on a tablet pc at all. If I had one laying about I would most likely try to use it to control one though. Something as simple as terminal services or other remote admin type thing. I have also heard that some music players have software that can be used to control them over a network but I have no experiance with those yet. I have played with the idea of using an old Pocket PC as a media remote from time to time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted June 5, 2006 Share Posted June 5, 2006 Creative did a PCMCIA version of their Audigy 2ZS so that would have some pretty good sound quality. I would agree on that while a tablet pc in that sort of area would be fairly nice there are better things that you could do with it. Like using it as the terminal for a media center setup. So connect wirelessly and then you can control all your media from the tablet and have it output on your TV or your speaker system. I have always toyed with the idea of either modding an old hi-fi system or scratch building a system to look like a hi-fi which would be my meda server. Never have got round to it, but still like the idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MRGRIM Posted June 5, 2006 Author Share Posted June 5, 2006 yeah well my main idea behind it was to stick a 60GB hdd in it and then just let media player handle the rest kinda like a 'duke box' would be nice cos I could mount it on the wall etc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowy© Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 What about USB soundcard/Speaker... I've never used one though myself but maybe you'd get better sound quality out of it. Mount it in a picture fram and use a picture screen saver for when it's not inuse. Man I need to remote up an entire house lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MRGRIM Posted July 10, 2006 Author Share Posted July 10, 2006 Hummm, I've been giving this some more though and I'm not sure what's the best idea so someone just needs to be straight up and tell me I want a tablet PC to sit on the wall downstairs from this I wanna be able to have a huge playlist that will dump out the sound to a hifi of some sort (Im guessing I need something wifi as the hifi could be several meters away (I remember apple having a product for iPOD that did this, was in an episode) This leads to my next question, where are all my albums going to be stored? People are telling me to use a media server - well ok - but what is a media server (dull question) :roll: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 A Media server is going to be anything that stores your media and allows other machines/users to access it. So even a computer just having all the music on it and sharing it could be classed as a media server. I wouldn't recommend you go with transmitting the music of FM from the player to the hifi as you will lose a lot of quality. There are boxes available to buy that work with wifi and simply stream the music to them and they play it. You have the controling software on the tablet which you can then click what you want to play. You'll want something like this: http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_overview.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W4RP3D Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 I had a go at making a media server a few months ago, but gave up due to ubuntu being unable to detect the sound card plus the pc was reallly really low spec. What OS do you think I should use? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mubix Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 ......(snipped)Man I need to remote up an entire house lol Snowy, you just need a RF remote instead of an IR one. Much better range and it goes through walls ;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MRGRIM Posted July 17, 2006 Author Share Posted July 17, 2006 You'll want something like this: http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_overview.html :P that looks nice, will read somemore into it and see what options I have in the UK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 Posted already MRGRIM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theslayer Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 personaly all my music runs out my main pc to my mixing console then out to my super-audio hifi setup/studio monitors. all you need is a standard sound card most folk want notic the difrance untill A: all your music is riped at high sample rates and is not compressed to formats like mpeg layer 3. B: you have a high quility hifi, a AC97 sound card will do most peoples needs in this situation So what you have would be vnc on the tablet in to the main streaming pc. The other PC stream out to your hifi amp, most have an aux input with RCA's. Jobs a good'un Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.