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Has anybody used this Philips music server
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Hi everybody.
I'm wondering whether to go for one of these music servers
A "Philips Streamium WACS5/05 Wireless Audio Wireless Streaming
Centre+Station"
It is not quite what I would ideally like, as it's 80Gb hard drive is
not enough to store my whole music collection in lossless format (which
currently takes about 110Gb in FLAC format). However nothing I can find
for less that about £700 has a hard drive that big.
This model is a lot cheaper at £233.83 and should be able to store my
music collection in high bit rate MP3 format. So perhaps that would be a
good compromise for the next few years.
It's not however entirely clear how music can be transfered to this
device. The specifications mentions a recording format of MP3 at 128k or
160k. But another section says it can play back MP3 at bit rates from 8k
to 320k and VBR. It also has an Ethernet connection.
Now I'm assuming that the bit about MP3 at 128k or 160k applies to
recording sound from the aux-input, and that I can use the Ethernet
connection to transfer high bit rate MP3 files from my PC. The trouble
is it doesn't actually explain this.
I'll be allowing myself at least a few days to think before I decide
whether to go for one of these, but I was wondering if anybody here has
any experience of this device and can provide any useful comments.
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Did you try Philips' customer service? Many manuals for Philips products
are on the net.
I think your guess about the MP3's is correct, you should be able to
copy them to the device via the ethernet.
When you want to use the wireless feature, make sure it uses encryption
(WEP but preferably WPA), as otherwise you have to run your wireless
network without it.
gr, hwh
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Well I managed to find some tutorials and a manual, by doing a search on
the Philips web site. It's a bit tedious going through it all, but at
least I'm getting some answers.
It can connect to a PC by either a direct connection, wireless network
or wired network. It only describes however how to transfer music using
the software program that they provide. Thats fair enough for people who
don't understand computing, but I generally find that persuading a piece
of software to do what I want is more haste than just copying the files
myself. Perhaps this is possible, if not then I'd just have to put up
with their software program.
It can rip tracks directly from CDs, which would be a good easy way of
doing it, except that that seems to be the part where you can only use
up to 160k. Shame about this, it would appear that Philips think that
160k is enough. That perhaps shows that they don't understand as much as
one would hope about good sound quality.
I still have a few doubts. It seems that it also plays MP3 CDs, (you
would expect this). So when it says that it can play MP3 files from
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Check it first. A minor bug in the software could prevent this.
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8-320k does this refer to MP3 CDs, or MP3 files on the hard drive, or
both. Presumably from both, but since the CD ripping only used up to
160k I still have a small nagging doubt about this. I'm probably
worrying over nothing though. Perhaps I should just check the conditions
of returning the thing, just in case it can play high bit rate files
from the hard drive.
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That seems a sensible thing to do.
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It's looking quite tempting. Still not ideal, but it may be a few years
before I can get my ideal music server. Looks like a have a bit more
thinking and a bit more reading to do before I make up my mind.
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As discs (disks?) will get larger so in a few years you can use the
original CD format.
gr, hwh
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Richard E.
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Richard E.
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