Hi All,

I'm new here - but I have been doing electronics and computers all of my adult life. The computers started out doing dedicated hard wired logic to control phased array radars – and the 1st controller I worked on was in fact tube powered. So – digital logic + tube circuits – ya gotta luv THAT! Later on I worked at Digital Equipment and played around with PDP-8’s and PDP-11’s and we had some really huge 5 Meg hard drives for storage!!! Well – ya get da story – VAX –VMS- CP/M – MS/DOS – Windows 3.xx etc. Processors started out with Motorola 6800’s and MosTech 6502’s and then on up the chain to todays toys.

My main love is audio and I’m seeking reasonable solutions for audio streaming and HTPC and media storage. I have cruised some of the threads as well as other sites and of course have had experience in the past soooooooooo I’m looking around for what’s new and what works without costing an arm and a leg – and might even survive the next MS “upgrade” OS.

Looks as if you have some very bright folks around here and I’m glad to be part of the troupe. If any of you have some issues with getting some good audio to go along with your AV systems feel free to ping me or send a PM

Regards - Thomas

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"You Can't Always Get What You Want" - K. Richards - M. Jagger

First off, welcome to the dysfunctional gang

On the audio side I am definitely not much of an audio buff. When it comes to playing back movies I do insist of having the full HD Audio bitstreamed to my receiver/setup, but on the music side I still with 320kbps mp3s when I rip my CDs playing through my sonos system

From what I have seen a lot of audio buffs who play back via their HTPCs will usually go the FLAC route, and then use a player like FooBar which has WASAPI exclusive enabled so Windows Mixer does not get its hands on.

Once again, welcome and please don't hesitate to share any tips/tricks/insights from your current experiences.

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Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

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Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
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Welcome to the forums, thanks for giving us the intro.

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Alex Kuretz
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Thanks for the Welcome guys!

I'm a member of a couple "dysfunctional" audio forums - so I'm always up for something that will lead me astray in one way or another. I've always enjoyed quality audio - but not the type that will break the bank account (that would not take much). Good audio is enjoyable in and of itself - but when added to good video - well - that's real fun!!!! I like listening to the audio in great movies like "Lord of the Rings" or "War of the Worlds" etc. (looooooong list) good audio just adds to the enjoyment. PLUS I get to enjoy some really great music - played as it ought to sound. Sorry to knock MP3 - but compared to da good stuff - eh - it just doesn’t cut it for me anymore. MP3 is passable for listening in the car etc - and Lord knows it's better than the stuff we had "back in the day" (think XXny Walk-man and cassette tapes - or 8 tracks!!) - but compared to the "good stuff" - there is no contest there.

Sooooo yeah - some sort of lossless playback (Flac etc.) a decent DAC and some way to hook things up wireless is where I'm headed. The challenge - keep it under $500. Seeing as the DAC will cost $200 to $350 that is a challenge. Buuuuuuut reuse of old parts and scrounging around for used parts I should be able to get close.

I'll post results when there is something worth talking about.

Regards - Thomas

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"You Can't Always Get What You Want" - K. Richards - M. Jagger