Playing music from external HD

[antonio66]

At the moment it is only a thought, would be to take with me when I go away and use in a 2nd system. Obviously I did not want to spend too much, I can still use my laptop.. Thanks for your help Fretless, but if I did go down this route I think I may well need some help.
Just seen Savvy's post, this is what I'm after, since wifi cannot be relied upon in Cambodia.

[Fretless]

While we are waiting for Tomasz to return, we are doing more planning for our set up at shows. In your experience, guys, if we want to play hi-res FLAC files from an external hard drive, and assuming no access to reliable wi-fi, what set up would you ideally put together?

My setup would then be a standalone (Windows, I have no experience with Apple gear) laptop with the music on the internal disk or a USB drive.

Foobar2000 media player program

AQ Jitterbug (plus maybe a second one in an adjoining USB socket

Reasonable USB cable (see the Oehlbach one that is now on offer)

Oehlbach XXL Masterclock

Good USB cable, like AQ Carbon

That Grace USB DAC you got recently from Drop.

What I am wondering is if a Volumio-rigged laptop can be used as a standalone player plus a USB disk music file library.

[savvypaul]

While we are waiting for Tomasz to return, we are doing more planning for our set up at shows. In your experience, guys, if we want to play hi-res FLAC files from an external hard drive, and assuming no access to reliable wi-fi, what set up would you ideally put together?

My setup would then be a standalone (Windows, I have no experience with Apple gear) laptop with the music on the internal disk or a USB drive.

Foobar2000 media player program

AQ Jitterbug (plus maybe a second one in an adjoining USB socket

Reasonable USB cable (see the Oehlbach one that is now on offer)

Oehlbach XXL Masterclock

Good USB cable, like AQ Carbon

That Grace USB DAC you got recently from Drop.

What I am wondering is if a Volumio-rigged laptop can be used as a standalone player plus a USB disk music file library.

Thanks, Fret.

Is there anything that will do the job of the jitterbugs and the masterclock but in one box?

[Fretless]

Masterclock on its own should do enough.

Difference made by Jitterbugs is more subtle.

Masterclock still only 74 euros direct from Oehlbach

https://www.oehlbach.com/en/audio-equip ... asterclock

Oh. And if you use a BMU just watch out for putting switching PSU's on it. Mostly they don't like balanced mains.

[savvypaul]

Thanks, Fret,

I just ordered the Oehlbach masterclock.

I have found the same with SMPS into my BMU.

[antonio66]

Looks like it could be a Pi with small monitor screen or tablet to control functions. Can anyone foresee any problems with this? There maybe a few questions to come.

[antonio66]

I have asked the question on another forum having been told the Tinkerboard cannot be used without internet. Why can I not have a tinkerboard with touch screen monitor to play hard drives.

[antonio66]

I'll see if I can play around with one of my setups. I would have thought that a Volumio Tinkerboard running it's own wifi hub and with USB storage for music should be able to work without being further attached to a network.

May have time this evening.

[antonio66]

Thank you Mr Fretless.

[Fretless]

Little test.

Turned 'Wireless networking' and then 'Enable Hotspot' on in Volumio network settings on the Tinkerboard.

The TB then shows up on my phone as a WiFi network called 'Volumio'.

It asks for a password, default is 'volumio2' and you get direct access to playing music via the TB. Don't think that any other network connection is then needed.

(except for the fact that the music playing is coming through the wired ethernet connection from the NAS)

Now I have to see what it does with music files on USB storage.

To be continued ...