Home networking my music library

Converge · 29 May 2018 at 13:49

Hi all,

I'm really quite dense around how to do this and whether I really need additional equipment, but please can someone help?

Effectively, my situation is that I have my whole music collection on my desktop PC upstairs.
I play it there using MusicBee, I convert music down using DBPoweramp to then import to iTunes to add to my iPhone.
The functionality I was looking for next was a way to share my music across my wifi to my Macbook Pro and/or Denon AV amplifier.

How do I go about doing this please?

I guess I'd be using iTunes on my Macbook to play the music if that's easiest, but the music on iTunes on my desktop PC is only at a bitrate of 128kbps AAC as it's for my iPhone. The FLAC and 320kbps stuff I have is not in a library on iTunes as iTunes is horrendous performance-wise on Windows, hence why I use MusicBee (and it's just much nicer).

Any help would be ace. I wasn't sure on which sub-forum to use as it kind of touches upon a few areas.

Thanks!

rids57 · 29 May 2018 at 14:37

JRiver Media Center should do what you want - it's not free but you can get a cross platform Master licence for $70 which lets you install on both Windows and iOS devices. You should be able to set the library on Macbook to the one on your PC and play normally. No idea about your AV amp but you'd probably have to connect it directly to your PC so it could be seen as a device.
Not 100% sure on anything but worth reading up on, plus the developers are extremely helpful (and active) on the JRiver forum.

Converge · 29 May 2018 at 15:00

Thanks rids, so I guess other more expensive options would be setting up a NAS or using Sonos or stuff like that then? I'll read up on Jriver!

Meanwhile, keep the suggestions coming!

rids57 · 29 May 2018 at 16:06

Even if you set up a NAS, you could still use JRiver to manage it. You would have the files stored on the NAS and could then have JRiver libraries (databases) local on each device, so you wouldn't need the PC to be on in order to listen through the Macbook. As for Sonos I don't know anything about it, so I'll leave that for someone else to chime in on.

maj · 29 May 2018 at 19:33

Due to cost of JRiver I installed Logitech Media Server (which is free) which is then discoverable by my Denon receiver. It means I have to have my PC on to stream music but when I get my micro server up and running I'll be using that as the host as it'll be always on anyway.

Not sure if LMS is Mac compatible or not. I also have my home networked hard wire via ethernet for best performance.

Converge · 29 May 2018 at 20:27

maj said:
Due to cost of JRiver I installed Logitech Media Server (which is free) which is then discoverable by my Denon receiver. It means I have to have my PC on to stream music but when I get my micro server up and running I'll be using that as the host as it'll be always on anyway.

Not sure if LMS is Mac compatible or not. I also have my home networked hard wire via ethernet for best performance.

Thanks Maj, I'll check that out too!

mick4545 · 31 May 2018 at 18:39

I have a refurbished (£26) Amazon Echo Dot on order. I will connect this to my amp with a 3.5 to RCA stereo cable, I should then be able to voice control Plex music from my NAS and Amzon Prime Music via Alexis.

I allready have an Echo ver 2 for general stuff, it is near to where the Dot will be so I will change the Dot wake word to Computer.

"Computer play playlist xxx" for Prime Music. "Computer ask Plex to play xxx" for my own files.

The speaker on the Echo ver 2 is good enough for light listening, "Alexa turn on Radio Two"

All this will be integrated with a Logitech Harmony Remote.