mahlerite

I'd like to add some information for prospective Synology purchasers. The review says that this device is a good choice for audiophiles. Having bought one, I agree. However... Setting it up is, shall we say, not quite intuitive. That is, I have 15 years experience as a UNIX user and sysadmin, and I had to stew over it. So, I'm assuming that others will also. The problem is that the documentation tells you how to do everything, but not what to do. I think this is because they think it's so simple they don't need to explain it. And it is quite simple once you know it... What you need to know: The Synology is not a disk drive in the way that a drive you buy at Office Depot and hook up to your computer is. Rather, it's a UNIX computer running an application, custom written by Synology, that provides disk services. This is actually quite neat: it means that the device can make the same data look to a Windows box like it's a on a standard Windows drive while it looks like it on a standard Mac drive to a Mac. This is quite cute. But to do that the application divides the physical disk into volumes. Within a volume folders are created, to which users are given access. What you need to do: 1) Set up at least one volume. This is not hard; the setup application will by default set up all the drives you've put into the case as one RAID one volume. It you're setting up a music server that's just fine. 2) Create at least one user, who will have a name and password. 3) Create at least one folder. 4) Give the user(s) rights on the folder(s). 5) Set up the access services you want. This means the Mac service for a Mac, the Windows service for Windows, and the UNIX service for UNIX. You can choose any combination. In my case I'm using the Synology as storage for a music server on Windows (because I need a classical-music friendly server) and for Time Machine for my wife's Mac laptop. So, I set up two users, two services, and two folders. You're now ready to go on the Synology end. The only remaining step is to set up access on the computer that will be using the storage. This is done in the usual way your computer accesses network drives. I have not told you how to do any of those things; I think the supplied documentation is quite good on that. It also tells you how to do things that are far beyond the scope of this note, such as how to set up the drive to be accessible over the Internet. If you want to do those things you're on your own. But the inclusion of all this other stuff manages to bury what you really need. Bottom line: don't be intimidated by any of this. If I had another one to do I estimate that it might take me 15 minutes after volume creation completes (which takes a while). If that. I just hope this note might help someone get started faster than they would if they had to begin from zero, as I did. In other words, these things are what I wish I had known at the beginning.

APS, this sounds like my dream system. At the moment I'm using Emerald Physics speakers, which I think are good values for the money. They use a Behringer DCX2496 as an equalizer, and also as a digital crossover. I am using a Rel T7 subwoofer. Adding the subwoofer and freeing the main speakers from the demands of reproducing bass was a huge win, and I very much want to keep that system configuration. I'm just starting with digital audio. My idea is to eliminate the Behringer and do both speaker and room correction in the computer. I plan to run the Sonata play program, which is a classical music oriented player built on top of J River. Therefore, it has J River's VST and other functions. It sounds like you get J River to send something to the e18 which get various bands to come out of different channel outputs. This is exactly what I want; have the base separate from the rest and have both speaker and room corrected. Am I right about what you do? And if I am, exactly how do you do it? Do you use a VST add-on to J River? If so, what? Obviously I'm late to this thread, which I found via Google, but any help would be greatly appreciated.