Does a front end exist

[ted_b]

that supports the latest DACs (Minerva, AlphaDac, BDA-1) 24/192 native capability, runs on Vista, and has remote (iTouch, Nokia, etc.) access capabilities. I plan on demoing all three said DACs, and the Vista pc housing my music is in another room, with a 15 ft tether (firewire cable, in the case of Weiss Minerva, for example). I can't even find a remote front end for anything (MediaMonkey, Foobar, etc.) but Squeeze Center (my current setup) or iTunes (not an option, all my stuff is FLAC, and iTunes won't go to 24/192)...both nice iTouch apps. If the answer is no, I guess I drag the tower into the music room for the demos, huh?

thx

Ted

 

Edit: Sorry, I guess it would help to look. i found iMonkey which looks like it will work. I have a large portion of my stuff in FLAC/cue file setup (meaning album sized FLAC files with associated cue files for metadata), which Media Monkey spits up on, but oh well. I'll keep looking for a Foobar or XXHighEnd?

 

[PeterSt]

If you have programmable remote software and a decent IR receiver you can trust, this all works with XXHighEnd. But ... I myself did not find that programmable remote software yet. They all seem to be flakey.

The XXHighEnd side can be programmed fully.

 

In my current version there's support for WiFi remote control, but this version is not up yet.

And besides, you won't be having a WiFi remote I guess ...

 

An option would be just a remote keyboard covering the distance ? (Alt-P is Play, Alt-N is Next, ALt-U is volume-Up etc. etc.).

 

If you indeed want to try, let me know if you need help !

Peter

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Ted - I've used iMonkey but found it very limited. It can only play from playlists and can't browse a complete library.

 

On another note iTunes is fully capable of 24/192.

 

I suggest using another computer to remote control the music server. This allows 100% control and is really the best way I've found on the Windows or OS X platforms.

 

[ted_b]

Peter, both my Nokia 710 and my iTouch are wi-fi, so I'd be ok there, right? Look forward to that release. in the ematime i will try the XXhighend demo regardless.

 

[ted_b]

Oops, thanks. You're right Chris, iTunes is 24/192 capable...but a moot point. I'm not moving from FLAC right now (not 800 gb's worth at least). OK, so here's where I'm stupid on this...how do i use another computer to remotely control this one? And I would probably use my wife's laptop, cuz dragging a desktop, etc into the room is the same as just dragging the source computer in. Might as well just do that. So...a laptop to remotely control my tower. Talk to me....I know I'm missing something very obvious here.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Ted - No worries. Yes, use your wife's laptop to remote control your music server. Microsoft has a little application called Remote Desktop. Here is a write-up from Microsoft. Let me know if this helps at all or if you have even more questions. We'll get you there :~)

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsXp/using/mobility/getstarted/Remoteintro.mspx

 

[ted_b]

Chris, sorry wasn't clear. I'm aware of remote desktop in XP. I'm on Vista, however, and the classic issue with Vista Home Edition is NO remote desktop. I will look for 3rd parties.

 

The other idea, at least during demo days, is to move my favorite demo albums/songs over to iTunes and use it. The problem: on Vista I can't seem to figure out how to convert anything higher than redbook to Apple Lossless. The FLAC-Apple Lossless convcerts like DBPoweramp are limted to 16/44 on the Apple Lossless side, even when converting to WAV first. then I tried moving the wav stuff into iTunes..works fine. But no way to convert to Apple Lossless there either. I guess i'll use wav files and iTunes for my hirez stuff, Apple lossless and itunes for my redbook, and hope that a better solution is available if/when I decide to move to one of these DACs from my Modwright Transporter (which sounds incredible and is not broken....just doesn't do anything above 24/96).

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

OK, now I got ya. Use any one of the VNC applications. Most are free and allow even better control than remote desktop. Just do a google search for VNC vista or something to that affect.

 

Be careful with iTunes on a PC. It's not bit perfect very often.

 

[ted_b]

Chris,

Thanks. And I forgot about the iTunes bit perfect discussion issues (never cared cuz up to now never used it for anything but iPod). I'll go back to plan A and try remote desktop to a pc front end like MM, XXhighEnd or Foobar.