[William Noble]

"Sonnova" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 6 Oct 2008 15:35:27 -0700, Peter Wieck wrote
(in article ):

On Oct 5, 7:57 pm, "William Noble" wrote:

I'd like to be able to play stuff from my computer to my stereo

Any suggestions?


I still find the Apple TV appliance in conjunction with iTunes over
802.11N
to be the best way to do this. All of your music is transferred (sync'd as
iTunes calls it) from iTunes to the Apple TV's hard drive and can be
connected to a good quality outboard D/A (connected to your stereo system)
via TOSLINK optical. TOSLINK isolates your video system (which can also
take
advantage of the Apple TV box) from your stereo system and avoids ground
loops and other noise and if you use Apple's lossless compression in
iTunes
to rip your music library, the results are stunning.


I looked up Apple TV - it looks like it would be hard to use without an
attached television, and I don't have a TV in the same room as my stereo,
so that might be a problem. I do have a nice D/A on my stereo (a Mark
Levinson 360S), so I suppose one option is to just run a digital cable from
my computer to the stereo, maybe that makes more sense - I don't think my
motherboard has a digital audio output, so a cheapie sound card with TOSLINK
or some such thing might work. I could then I suppose play from iTunes via
that link.

[Sonnova]

On Tue, 7 Oct 2008 05:48:02 -0700, William Noble wrote
(in article ):

"Sonnova" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 6 Oct 2008 15:35:27 -0700, Peter Wieck wrote
(in article ):

On Oct 5, 7:57 pm, "William Noble" wrote:

I'd like to be able to play stuff from my computer to my stereo

Any suggestions?


I still find the Apple TV appliance in conjunction with iTunes over
802.11N
to be the best way to do this. All of your music is transferred (sync'd as
iTunes calls it) from iTunes to the Apple TV's hard drive and can be
connected to a good quality outboard D/A (connected to your stereo system)
via TOSLINK optical. TOSLINK isolates your video system (which can also
take
advantage of the Apple TV box) from your stereo system and avoids ground
loops and other noise and if you use Apple's lossless compression in
iTunes
to rip your music library, the results are stunning.


I looked up Apple TV - it looks like it would be hard to use without an
attached television, and I don't have a TV in the same room as my stereo,
so that might be a problem.

That is correct, It would be difficult to use without a TV. OTOH, I do use it
with an H-D TV and it is not just a gateway to my digital music. I also
access U-Tube through it, watch my digital photos stored in iPhoto as slide
shows in high-definition, download movies and TV shows via iTunes (I watched
the original Superman TV pilot from the early fifties recently - what a hoot!
Also watched a PBS documentary about the history of radio broadcasting as
seen by DeForest, Armstrong, and Sarnoff. Very good!). I can also view
high-definition movie trailers of the latest films, if I want to. So as you
can see, I find the Apple TV appliance to be very useful, certainly one of
the best entertainment purchases that I've ever made (not that it couldn't be
improved. It certainly could be).

I do have a nice D/A on my stereo (a Mark
Levinson 360S), so I suppose one option is to just run a digital cable from
my computer to the stereo, maybe that makes more sense - I don't think my
motherboard has a digital audio output, so a cheapie sound card with TOSLINK
or some such thing might work. I could then I suppose play from iTunes via
that link.

That would work if the computer were in the same room as your stereo,
otherwise, you'd have the same problem as with the Apple TV. having such a
hook-up wouldn't work very well if you couldn't see to navigate to your music
titles. IOW, you'd have to sit down in front of your computer choose a song,
and then go listen to it. Come back, choose another, etc.

But if you do go that route, you might want to look at the Airport Express
product:

http://tinyurl.com/5ak464