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Article: Dream Music Server Feature: Part 1


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I've come up with a somewhat unconventional approach to having my music library, with all its breadth of genres, available to me in my daily drive/distance drive SUV in 16/44 form. Driven heavily by the age related quirks of the vehicle. A 2014 Mercedes SUV. Its Apple iPod connector is the older type, Mercedes doesn't make one for the Lightning type connector, and using an adapter doesn't work well. It'll only play compressed formats from the SD card slot. So my only options for at least Redbook sound is, iPod, or CDs. It supports the full iPod functionality on the system screen.

 

(With one bizarre alternative... it'll also play DVD-Audio disks in full multi-channel splendor. Great to have a pricey dead format as my only true multi-channel option.)

 

I picked up a few 64gb iPods with the old style connector cheap on eBay, along with two with the 120gb internal hard drive. Loaded each with a single or compatible genres at 16/44 AAC, and on the non-classical ones, created a couple shuffle playlists. A small CD rack in my closed-top console holds them all. Color coded them with strips of colored plastic tape on the top edge. If I'm in an Afro-beat mood, I grab the relevant iPod, plug it into the adapter, and off I go bouncing down the road.

 

As for Qobuz, I load the app on my phone with my current interests, along with a few hours of Radio Paradise at lossless AAC, but can only stream via bluetooth, and for whatever reason, doesn't sound as good as the array of iPods. Good enough.

 

I've yet to find someone who'll help me get the built in idiotically small hard disk out of the system so that I can install a plug in for external hard disks. That's going to be my goal for the next car.

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On 11/28/2019 at 2:01 PM, Jud said:


Yep, Qobuz is a treat to listen to in the car or on walks. I like having my home collection available too, because (a) many (all?) Qobuz tracks over the phone app are only available in RedBook, and (b) my own tracks are easy to find - I want a particular Aimee Mann album, I just go to the “A”s, no searches necessary.

 

Jealous... because the other thing that drove me to the madness of a pile of iPods is the mobile phone signal where I live, and where I often drive for photography. Where I live, I don't get the LTE symbol on my Verizon Wireless phone, and except for one second floor bathroom, only one bar. Yeah, out in the sticks. On the 7 mile drive out to a major road, with a lot of homes along the road, I go to "no service" notices a couple of times, and don't get LTE until I'm about a mile from the major roads. Verizon Wireless' response has been, that's why your phone can connect via wifi, it's just not economic for us to build out our network in low population areas. (In this neighborhood of a couple thousand houses where both FiiOs and Xfinity built out their wired network. Go figure.) On my 50 minute commuter train trip to work each day, there's a 10 minute stretch of one bar or "no signal" about 10 minutes into the trip. Can't even scroll a book page.

 

Many of the national and state parks around me have similarly bad connectivity. Surprising since I had good connectivity all over the wide open US western national parks like Monument Valley and Escalante Steps (other than under ground), but here in central Virginia? Bah.

 

I'd long read about how the network revolution was unevenly distributed and shrugged, but now I'm living the dream/nightmare.

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