Magic and Lies

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Slim Devices (taken over by Logitech) Transporter

This is the most radical advance in Hi Fi technology since Sony came up with the Walkman. The Transporter is a wireless enabled receiver armed with a DAC (digital audio converter) capable of delivering streamed music to a high end hi fi with no audible (to these 50 year old ears) penalty whatsoever. Stylish in brushed aluminium orblack finishes, this device has transformed the way I listen to music.

The server side is free software called slimserver which provides the stream for one or more of these boxes to pick up (there is a smaller, budget version called Squeezebox). Slimserver will serve a number of formats including MP3, but more significantly the lossless format FLAC.

There are a number of free software applications out there which help rip the music from CD’s or converters which convert downloaded formats into the one you prefer to use - this only works one way - you could convert MP3 to FLAC, but you wouldn’t gain anything in quality.

The server scans your music library and then allows searching via Artist, Album, Song or random plays. It is random playing which is the CD killer - I have collected music for over forty years - my first purchase was ‘Well Respected Kinks’ back in 1964 and have accumulated over 1000 CD’s alone - however as my career focus moved from music to IT, my listening habits narrowed until I found myself with a stack of maybe ten or fifteen CD’s - always the latest purchases on top of the Hi Fi, a small rack to one side and a room upstairs for all the rest - result was 95% of the collection was rarely utilised. So paying a willing teenager to feed rip CD’s at weekends I enabled my collection in under 12 months and using the randomiser provided in the slimserver program, I am now listening to a much wider range of music than I have for years.