Home MP3 jukebox

January 15, 2007 2:48 PM

I'm looking for recommendations for a home MP3 player. I want something with much larger capacity than an iPod (preferably using standard 3.5" drives), and am happy for it to be physically quite a bit bigger than an iPod. It needs to be quieter and less power-hungry than a standard PC. If it had a sensible UI and a remote control, that would be good too. Hopefully, it would be cheaper than either an iPod or a PC, too. [Currently, an old linux box does this job, but it is too noisy for my small apartment, and the interface is too clunky.]
posted by beniamino to home & garden (17 comments total)

Squeezebox is worth a look, although this doesn't fit *exactly* with what you want. Problem is, I'm not sure anything does.
posted by mcstayinskool at 3:04 PM on January 15, 2007

It seems to me like the player has become separated from the storage. The Roku Soundbride and (now) Logitech Slim Players have pretty nice UIs and remotes, but they rely on networked storage running special server software. You could probably pick up a network ready storage enclosure, or a little network storage server that can be hooked to a USB drive. Some of them come with media server software included, or can be upgraded via 3rd party firmware.
posted by Good Brain at 3:06 PM on January 15, 2007

One of these things might work for you. Poke around eBay and there are lots of different models.
posted by cillit bang at 3:07 PM on January 15, 2007

If you have the time, you can assemble one from a kit such as the daisy, with the advantage being that you can then add whichever bells and whistles matter to you that don't come in the box, and so build it to be exactly what you seek. Custom made for you :)
posted by -harlequin- at 3:09 PM on January 15, 2007

Alternatively, you could get a water cooling kit for your linux box.
posted by delmoi at 3:19 PM on January 15, 2007

Yeah, you want a network attached storage (NAS) device with a honkin' hard disk in it and TwonkyMusic installed (some come with this already, others can have it installed) and a Soundbridge or the like. I have a Soundbridge, and for the $150 sale price it's hard to beat. (Its wireless LAN support is 802.11b and WPA only, so just hook it right up to the NAS with a cable.)

BTW, your garden variety NAS is a small Linux box these days.
posted by kindall at 4:01 PM on January 15, 2007

I also have an old computer (700Mhz P3) running Linux for NAS. It's on 24/7 and it's only just audible if everything else in the room is switched off.

I shut it up by replacing the fan inside its power supply with a quiet Papst fan, replacing the existing small CPU heatsink with a larger one designed for a more modern PC, and wiring a 180 ohm resistor in series with the new CPU fan to slow it down from a whine to a quiet whirr.

Most of the noise now comes from the hard disk drives themselves. If I was really keen, I could probably cut another few dB's by rubber-mounting those.
posted by flabdablet at 4:46 PM on January 15, 2007

Deck out your Linux box with an Antec Phantom PSU, a Zalman CPU heatsink and fan and a passively cooled video card (eg; Nvidia 73-series). You may also want to get a new, larger, case with big 12cm fans that you can throttle and rubber grommets for mounting the hard drives.

I did most of the above several years back when I temporarily tried out Linux. It was the only way I could leave the computer on 24/7 and still sleep.
posted by krisjohn at 4:56 PM on January 15, 2007

The McIntosh MS300 music server is the best available right now, at least that I know of. I lust after this, I covet this, I break the tenth commandment. This little box is awesome. Lots of music, not compressed MP3 crap, and a fluid interface. When the prices on this sort of stuff drops I am there. In the meantime there is the Olive. Very, very nice.
posted by caddis at 6:42 PM on January 15, 2007

one of the boingboing folk loves... sonos. it can play music from any of your PCs or mp3 player, or from a subscription service like napster or rhapsody. might be pricey, though... their smallest bundle appears to be around $1K.
posted by bruceo at 6:44 PM on January 15, 2007

Does a VIA EPIA count as sufficiently low power? Can run linux on it with some minor effort and it's more than capable enough in terms of CPU power and storage.
posted by polyglot at 8:23 PM on January 15, 2007

oops, posted too soon. An EPIA motherboard and cpu (fanless) can be had for $100-200, plus another hundred or so for mini-ITX case & PSU (can be external for even smaller visible formfactor), $50 for RAM and then whatever you want to spend on a HDD. Those are new prices, you could probably do better on eBay.

It'd probably run 'doze media centre edition (ewww) or any of the linux-based DVR distributions (eg mythtv) which understand remotes and can play MP3s. You can also hook up LCD displays via USB, etc.
posted by polyglot at 8:32 PM on January 15, 2007

look at the Xbox Media Center You can store your music on an internal drive, or pull it off the network. Great front-end UI, you can get Xbox's dirt cheap and it's easy to mod them now - you don't even need to use a screwdriver.
posted by diggum at 9:36 PM on January 15, 2007

On the low end side I've got just a setup, created from an old G3 Clamshell iBook (about two hundred pounds off eBay), a set of Apple Pro speakers (maybe twenty pounds) and wireless access to one of my Macs that has 200GB storage.

iTunes provides the interface, and if I'm too lazy to get out of bed and I'm using my PowerBook i can VNC to control it.

Works for me.
posted by Mutant at 11:53 PM on January 15, 2007

I'll second the xbox media center idea.
posted by backwards guitar at 12:48 PM on January 16, 2007

I third the xbmc. I set one up and I can watch all my movies, access music over a network, update to last.fm. Used xbox, remote kit, 5.1 speakers & solderless adapter + modchip came in under £100. Plus you can get the cheap xbox games now.

However, it is not small and it does draw a fair chunk of juice.
posted by srboisvert at 1:03 PM on January 16, 2007

My vote: Archos 604 WiFi - stream anything and everything to the archos via wifi. It's got a 30GB hard drive, but it's wifi, so it doesn't matter - you can stream audio/video right off your networked PC. If you get the DVR kit you get a remote control as well as spiffy outputs to tv for streaming xvid/divx/whatever videos through the machine and onto the tv.

I love mine.
posted by soplerfo at 8:42 AM on January 17, 2007