Mark Fitzsimmons

Is this a feasable project?

I've been daydreaming about this idea for a while. . . I want to create a two channel audio system wish computer at the heart of it.

Here is what I want to do. . . is it possible?

Take the computer with a large hard disk. Rip all of my CDs to lossless WMA.
Get a M-Audio Audiophile 2496 sound card.
Configure the soundcard as a pre-amp.
Use the analog stereo outs to connect directly to monoblock amps.
Connect to speakers.
Add a 802.11b wireless card to the computer.
Use that to connect to my pocket pc via Wi-Fi.
Use the pocket pc to select which audio tracks to play.

Can this be done?

\"I always hope that if one million people see my movie, they see one million different movies.\" - Quentin Tarantino

Gordon Moore

11b won't get the job done....it just doesn't have the juice... The music will be choppy.

The pre-amp idea sounds doable though.

Wayne Bundrick

Pay attention Gordon, the big PC will be playing the music from its own hard disk. The Wi-Fi is for the Pocket PC to tell the big PC what to play. The music will not be flying across the Wi-Fi.

Sounds like a neat idea. But I don't know how you're going to be able to control the big PC from the pocket PC.

Wayne Bundrick

\"It tastes like there\'s a party in my mouth and everybody\'s throwing up!\" -- Philip J. Fry

Gordon Moore

okay Mom.

CRyan

I am doing something similar. However, I am using a touchscreen monitor mounted to a wall for music control ( the actual computer and amp is in an adjacent closet). I use remote desktop to control the music from my laptop and other PC's when not in that room. Works great. However, I am currently just using a reciever for amplification. Have not found affordable amps that fit what I need yet.

If you find any or know of any, please let me know.

The touchsceen on the wall has a big wow factor. Also it lets friend surf the net etc.

There are PDA programs that will control music. I am sure you are aware of this since you mentioned it. I have not yet taken it to that level. Once I get speakers outside, I may look into this further as well.

Have fun,

C. Ryan

Chris Moe

Look into Netremote and Media Center 9.

Netremote is free and a great wifi remote program.

Moe's Home Theater

Ted Lee

gotta love htf....

the only part i don't get is configuring the soundcard as a pre-amp? wouldn't it just pass (through the analog output) whatever you're playing?

also i assume this is a pretty solid soundcard? i would hope it is...otherwise you may negate the benefit of using wma files.

i like the idea of routing directly to the mono-blocks too. nice straight signal path.

this is my dvd collection. there are many like it, but this is my own ...

Joe Ku

I am planning on a similar project and would like to know why you are choosing to use WMA lossless VS an open source/multiplatform option like FLAC or Monkeys audio? I am not trying to rip microsoft or anything, I was just wondering if the WMA format has some advantage over other options, or if it is just personal preference.

imported_Andrew Pratt

I know the M-Audio has good DAC's but I wonder just how good its op amps are? You might find you'd get better sound quality with a true pre amp between the PC and the amps. This is just a guess though as I've no experience doing that with a sound card.

MikeFR

Not sure about the other options but here's my 2 cents on WMA...

Im not a microsoft fan or anything(who is?) but with wma lossless compression you can rip a cd to your hd and it will take up about 300-500mb(conservative est. of two albums per gig, 120gig drive = 240+ CD's accessible at the click of a mouse and cheaper than a 300 disk changer). With windows media player 9 copying your cd collection and organizing it is incredibly easy. Once you set the directory you want music recorded to and set the compression type in the options menu, all you have to do is hit one button to record. CD information is already retrieved through the internet, the music is copied to your hd in directories for each artist with further directories for each album(album covers are also copied to the directory). Creating custom playlists is easy and there are also 'auto playlists' like "Have not heard recently" and "Listen to at night"(It would be nice if you could create your own auto playlists). You can also rate all the songs in your media library on a 1 to 5 star basis and their are advanced classification options as well. And of course you can also add all your mp3's to the media library as well.

Obviously there are other media players that do the same stuff but the combination of wma lossless and an easy to use media player make it a very good option.