Interesting Audio Solution

[mgrobins]

I received a product brochure in my e-mail from Nintek whom I have purchased gear from in the past. I haven't heard of this audio solution for linking HT and PC before but wanted to share it and see what people think.

I have been considering a setup at home here where I can have all of my cd's stored in a good format (FLAC seems to be rated well) as well as my current mp3 collection and just have playlists.

I use a small pc in my HT rack so I don't know if i'd benefit from a squeezebox style output or just from something like this sirrocco (no room in the pc for an internal soundcard unfortunately).

Anyway... have a read and se what you all think .

Here are 2 types of product on offer.

Digital Wireless Audio Bridge:

http://www.nintek.com.au/x/Scripts/prodVie...idproduct=12687

http://www.sondigo.com/sirocco/overview

and accompanying review: http://www.digitalhome.ca/content/view/1606/98/1/0//

Edit: I use WPA encryption on my wireless network at home - I can't find info on whether this device offers security options to log onto the network or not (or if it's even required....)

USB sound (also a bridged connection to your PC):

http://www.nintek.com.au/x/Scripts/prodVie...idproduct=12685

[Guest JohnA]

hmmmm, that wireless solution looks good and for the price its worth a try

I don't want to put a pc int he HT room so this wireless setup could be a goer for me.

May order one and try it out.

Thanks for posting the info

[????]

Yeah researched this (the Sirocco) quite a bit. From all that I have read on forums - sounds like it is very impressive for the price. Audio quality quite good. There is an extensive thread on either AV or AVS forums.

[mgrobins]

manufacturers forum states WEP, WPA, WPA2 functionality and MAC addresses are listed on the device physically (if you have active filtering).

It's not ideal for me as the machine I store my music on is already in my HT! I just need a way to get the best audio quality from it.

by the way.... ripping CD's - what's the best way to store the audio? I had heard FLAC is excellent (but i'm not sure if that is proprietarty and can be played through winamp, WMP etc).

[hired goon]

G'day,

by the way.... ripping CD's - what's the best way to store the audio? I had heard FLAC is excellent (but i'm not sure if that is proprietarty and can be played through winamp, WMP etc).

FLAC is best IMHO. It is not proprietary, can be converted back to WAV quite easily, and there are plugins for Winamp, foobar, etc (Dunno about WMP).

--Geoff

[hired goon]

G'day,

Anyway... have a read and se what you all think .

So basically this is an external sound card.

You can connect via ethernet directly or via wireless. I'd like to think that 802.11g can handle uncompressed audio without stuttering, but I guess you need to try this at home to find out.

You can use any media player that can use this device as its sound card. To play tracks you need to go to yer PC and run yer media app. No controlling the playlist from yer lounge (unless yer PC's media app can be controlled remotely).

I suspect the analog outs on the device would be ordinary, so use the digital outs connected to yer pre-amp or DAC to get musical goodness.

Kinda cool if you are setting up a big playlist on the PC in yer office and wanting to stream elsewhere so the party people in da house can get down and wave their hands in the air, without letting 'em wave their eccy-stained paws all over yer CD player (like they just don't care).

Not that useful if you want to relax in yer lounge in the comfy chair with a big spliff and listen to watever takes yer fancy and skip tracks that may be getting yer paranoia on a bit too much.

Me, well I prefer a device I can control from the listening position. But this Sirocco gizmo may be useful for parties, I suppose. It's cheep enuff that it could come in useful one day, when the inspiration strikes.

--Geoff

[mgrobins]

I sorta think a squeezebox would suit me more, or maybe the USB dongle from Sirocco as I have my music in my HT and like you Geoff, prefer to be able to control it locally.

[sold]

I use a small pc in my HT rack so I don't know if i'd benefit from a squeezebox style output or just from something like this sirrocco (no room in the pc for an internal soundcard unfortunately).

There's a number of decent external USB soundcards around, which may work better if you control everything from the PC (I'm using an Edirol UA-1EX).

And have to add that I suggest that anyone who intends to buy from Nintek makes sure they do their research before doing so.