i tunes .. the best way to proceed ?

Kevin - i dont know what you have as a home network but this is what you could do...

Mac mini with the main system - with a DAC of your choice (plenty of discussions on good and bad on here ...)

You can control iTunes with a touch. If you want speakers elsewhere then an pair like the audio engine with an Airport express will make a low cost multiroom setup. If you want to go full multiroom then something like the Sonos system is designed for this.

As for your music - store in apple lossless or if you have the room, uncompressed.

Hope that helps

James

Thanks for the input James, I'm basicly starting from scratch

I like the ideas of the Mac mini ( was inspired by one of your pictures )

At the moment itunes is on my Laptop, Will I need to reimput all the collection to get a better sound quality ?

Sorry about the basic question

Hi Kevin - is this music downloaded from iTunes or ripped from CD ?

Cheers

James

95% Ripped from Cds

Kevin

What settings did you rip your CD at ? - Lossless/ 320k / 192k ??

James

James,

AAC 128K which seems to be the standard format, do't think I changed anything

but it was a long time ago

Kevin

Looks like to time to re-rip then. I'd get your DAC and get set up and they play with rip settings. Storage is cheap these days so rip in Apple lossess or AIFF and you can't go wrong.

Cheers

James

Thanks James

Will order my speakers for upstairs, think the mini might be my christmas present to myself

selfish but what the hell !

Thanks again

Kevin

No worries - good luck

James

Just had a thought is there any reason why I couldn't delete itunes on my laptop re rip Cds in higher quality format?

Then put the laptop through a Dac till the mini arrived ?

Could itunes then be backed up and transfered to the mini ?

Kevin

Of course. Start your library now. You will find all them tracks neatly organised by artist folder: Album folder in the itunes folder.

On mac, home folder>music>itunes
On PC, my documents>itunes (I think)

Once your mac arrives transfer the files over via ethernet , removable harddrive etc.

If you have a USB harddrive I recommend setting itunes to save music on this drive, saves a bit of leg work later.

Kevin,

I assume when you say delete itunes, you mean delete the music files you have already ripped. Yes, start from scratch. Delete what you have previously ripped. Rip in Apple Lossless or Aiff using your laptop. You will be able to transfer your ripped directory to your new computer/MacMini.

ATB Keith

Gary / Keith

If I delete all the itunes files, then re rip
should I be setting the preferance Apple Lossless Encoder ?

Kevin

If your intention is to use itunes as a means of playback then yes.

As its lossless you can always convert to wav or AIFF at a later date (the original file)

Thanks Gary,

Think thats a job for tomorrow some how, appreciate the advice.

Kevin

Old setting on itunes deleted, started ripping
this is going to take a while !!!

MAke sure its lossless or AIFF, either of these settings is as it was off the disk, you can always take away you can never add!

MAke sure its lossless or AIFF, either of these settings is as it was off the disk, you can always take away you can never add!

Gary,

Ripping in lossless, is there a way to compress the files for use on the i pod?

Kevin

No not really.

The easiest way is to import the tracks as lossless then convert some of them for your ipod, or just accept the ipod won't hold so many tunes.

James / Gary

Advice please..

Have ripped 100 cds to my pc, and have now decided to go and but a external hard disc ( Iomega Minimax the one that matches the footprint of the imac) I can transfer the library to the Harddisc.

Will there be a problem with formats ?

Kevin

Assuming there you went with lossless then that is not an issue. What might be is that you are currently on a pc.

The new drive really wants to be in apples extended format.

The easiest way I should imagine is get the two computers on the same network. And put the itunes folder from your pc into the public folder. aznd allow it to be shared (I think it is by default)

Back on the mac, goto syetm prefs and sharing then advanced and turn on SMB sharing.

After a while your PC should appear on the mac in any finder window on the left select it and the public folder will appear, drag the music from it onto your shiney new drive.

This is a bit of a work around as you really don't want to format your new drive as FAT (which is readable by both PC and Mac) as its slower

Well Totally confused, got my nice new MiniMax hard drive home..

Plugged it in, thinking they said they had formatted it at the shop for me .. Great I thought

Well I've managed to partioned the drive as per the instructions

But it's now asking to be formated . But the only options its giving me is NTFS

Any help please

Munch,

I'm trying to get the music of my pc, mac won't happen for another month !!

Umm, your main option right now is to format as Fat32

The shop will have formatted for you in Apple Extended format.

I explained earlier

Hi Gary,

Have now got it into Fat32, shop said they had sorted but never mind, I was in your home town last night. Do I have to copy the artwork across ?

Kev