exile_ken

Chris,<br /> <br /> Thanks for the feedback. I thought it was odd also and I would have blamed my internet connection except that I had the same experience in two locations.<br /> <br /> However, last night I switched over to the "new MOG", a beta version of what MOG is apparently going to become. I have listened to about 20 songs between last night and this morning and have not experienced any dropouts. The beta site is not a "popup" player. It plays the tracks in the same browser window. I also like the method for adding tracks to playlists, and marking artists, albums, and tracks as favorites in the beta version better than the current "production" version. <br /> <br /> Listening to the new Ry Cooder album now and it sounds great!!!!<br /> <br /> Lenovo T400>Media Monkey Gold>DevilSound 2>Mystere ia11>PMC TB2i<br /> <br /> Streaming - Google Chrome 13>MOG beta<br /> <br /> <br /> <br />

After reading Part 1 of this article I signed up for the 14 Day trial for MOG immediately (too impatient to read part II). I have been a Rhapsody user for about 5 years and have been pretty happy as it allows me to preview new music and download to an MP3 player that I use when at the gym or the grocery store. MOG seems pretty easy to use although I am still getting used to the interface. <br /> <br /> However, one issue I noticed between yesterday and today is that when using the MOG player in the browser mode the player pauses, buffers or drops out in the middle of songs. Very annoying and I think its odd I haven't seen it mentioned here in the comments. I have had the same experience at home (broadband cable connection) and at my office (T3 into the building). I just signed up yesterday afternoon so I have only listened to 30 or so songs in three separate sessions and have had the same issue each time. Earlier at my office it was really bad, so bad I ended up shutting it down and going to last.fm.<br /> <br /> Has anyone else experienced this?<br /> <br /> I will continue to test for the next 13 days and let you all know what I find.<br /> <br /> Thanks,<br /> <br /> KM

This may (or may not) be of interest to all the DROBO folks on this site. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/data-robotics-ceo-tom-buiocchi-drobo-threads-prosumer-smb-needle/39663?tag=nl.e539 e_k

Thank you for the response Nigel. The Western Digital drive I am considering requires a a power cord plugged into the wall. While thats not a show stopper, with the placement of everything involved it would be preferable if the external drive was able to be powered by the USB bus connection to the PC. I have done some reading on this and seen some user reviews where it stated the bus powered drive was very slow to respond, sometimes taking several seconds to spin up and start transferring data. Is this something common to all USB bus powered drives? It makes sense that these devices would be quick to stop the drive spinning to save battery power on laptops, etc. I will occasionally be using the external HD as the source of the files being played through Media Monkey, and not purely as a backup. Is there anyone who has tried playing back music from USB bus powered external HDs? Once again any opinions or advice is greatly appreciated. Ken

Iâ??m a long time music lover / hi-fi nut who is just putting his toe in the water in the world of Computer Audio. I am looking for a USB (2.0) external Hard Drive that will serve primarily as a backup drive but will also need to be the primary repository for about 20% of my music collection. I am playing FLAC files through Media Monkey ripped using EAC. I donâ??t have the budget for a NAS or home server type device. From what I have read drive speed and buffer size can impact performance. I have been looking at a few different models that spin at 7200 RPMs and have a 32 MB buffer. I would assume those specs would give me what I need. However I found a very good deal on Amazon for the Western Digital WD Elements drive. 1.5 TBs for $95.00. I am ready to jump on this but am a bit hesitant as the drive speed is only 5400 RPMs. Would this make a difference in sound quality for playing files back from the USB HDD vs. the internal drive in my notebook? Also, I have seen a few forum subjects of people having issues with Western Digital drives. Do these seem to just be those isolated hardware failures, or do Western Digitals seem to have a higher failure rate than other drives? If not the WD, can anyone recommend another USB HDD that would serve my needs better. The price point on this Western Digital is hard to pass up, but I donâ??t want to buy something that wonâ??t serve my needs Thank you in advance for any recommendations / opinions you may offer. KM Lenovo T60 (1.83 GHz) â?' Media Monkey â?' DevilSound DAC (1.0)â?' Classe Audio Thirty (pre)â?' Yaqin 6JI Tube Buffer â?' Forte 4 (amp) â?' ProAc Studio 110

You may also want consider one of the Musiland Monitor products, the 01 US or the 02 US. The 01 has been discussed on the forum on this web site here; http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Musiland-Monitor-01-24192-DACs. If a low price point is important the 01 goes for $72 plus shipping on ebay. It includes a 3.5 mm headphone out (you would need an adapter to plug your headphones into and you can get one at Radio Shack for no more than $5) and RCA analog outputs for your speakers. A step up is the Musiland Monitor 02 which features its own power supply and 2 1/4 inch headphone jacks. The 02 goes for $125 on ebay. The real advantage to these devices is they can be stand alone DACs, or used as asynchronous adapters that can then be connected to a higher end DAC via an SP/DIF or Toslink cable if you kept on the upgrade path that many involved in this hobby do. I personally have not used either product but if you want to read pages of posts from people that have go to the head-fi.org forums and search on musiland monoitor 01 US or musiland monoitor 02 US. Good luck and let us know what you end up buying and how you like it. E_K