slowdown5646

No issues on El Capitan for me, in fact the shaky mediocre bluetooth problem I had with Yosemite appears to be gone. I have a Peachtree deepblue2 and interference would occur too constantly to play anything from my Macbook, now it's flawless (except when I shake my laptop around furiously, which I can't say I do ever).

I always enjoy reading your articles, thanks!

I'm having trouble getting the best out of my CAPS V3 (Topanga) in terms of bluetooth transmission and wireless connectivity. It is running Windows 8.1 and Jriver. I recently bought an Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 mini PCIE card for it so I could have wifi and bluetooth in one package. I have a Peachtree Deepblue2 speaker which uses the aptx codec, but I'm not sure nor can I tell if this card supports that codec. Are there better dongles out there that might transmit better sound quality as well? I read about the Sennheiser BTD 500 but it's a bit pricey. The bigger issue with the card I have though is that it seems to have a mediocre connection. My past wifi adapter wasn't much better. When I use Microsoft Remote Desktop on my Macbook Pro, the connection is typically slow and laggy. I was hoping that I could sync my Jriver library to my iTunes one on my Macbook Pro, but it is way too slow to load music and drops out frequently. Would an airport express with an ethernet connection be a way to improve my internet connection? In summary I'm hoping to find a way to transmit the best quality bluetooth to my deepblue2 and get a strong internet connection between my Macbook Pro and CAPS V3 so that I can reliably screenshare when I need to and access my Macbook's music library as opposed to relying on an external hard drive.

Do you expect to work with SoTM again when the NUC 2.0 is available along with a fanless chassis? It looks like an attractive option worth waiting for!

Hey, I am currently using a mid 2009 15" Macbook Pro. I've had it for years and upgraded some of the parts including putting in an SSD in conjunction with a big hard drive (to make a fusion drive) and more RAM. It still runs pretty nicely but the logic board's processor is quite old and so it's beginning to run slow. I'd prefer not to buy a new laptop at this time but I was wondering if I could perhaps install a newer motherboard from another unibody Macbook Pro with a newer processor. The laptop has Yosemite installed currently. It's been a good music server for many years and I'd like to keep it going and fresh if possible, advice would be appreciated! Specifically this is what I have now: https://www.ifixit.com/MacBook-Parts/MacBook-Pro-15-Inch-Unibody-Mid-2009-2-53-GHz-Logic-Board/IF161-045 And ideally I'd like to install: https://www.ifixit.com/MacBook-Parts/MacBook-Pro-15-Inch-Unibody-Mid-2012-2-3-GHz-Logic-Board/IF161-097 I've replaced the motherboard before, I'm only concerned about compatibility issues. Thank you!

Wow this is pretty awesome, might finally be able to let go of iTunes! I will explain some little gripes I have at the moment: - I don't see a function to ignore articles. Also for some reason artists with the first letter lowercase go at the end. - Scrolling through there is a lag with loading up artwork in album view. I hate this about iTunes but there isn't much lag otherwise. - No sort fields for metadata (Nobody does sort year but I like to list the year of the song in greatest hit compilations as the year the song came out and it'd be cool to have for that. iTunes just picks the last year, Audirvana sorts by the earliest, I prefer the iTunes way) - Being able to add more fields in the single album view would be enjoyable. Also an album year put in. - The sidebar is kind of awkward looking. I know some people like it but a great thing about iTunes was the ability to get rid of it. - The play/stop/etc. buttons seem scrunched up in the left corner. - Album slider would look nicer on top so there's no extra space between the albums and single album view - The single album view in iTunes uses the colors in the album for the text/background which would be very preferable to just grey. Being able to change the color scheme in general would be nice. I know some of the points are kinda trivial but it's nice to get the most out of a library. I think it's better than anything else available on Mac or Windows though and it lacks the lag of iTunes!

Chris did you get a chance to fiddle around with the Pono Player at all? It'd be great to hear some impressions of the intuitiveness of the interface. Great review, looks very promising!

I went with the DYI SOLA solution as suggested by John (who also helped me make it) and it really is a nice step up. Obviously couldn't do a back-to-back comparison but I can say my music never sounded quite as dynamic. For the $35 I paid it was a steal (though it's a bit ugly, but I can hide it mostly). It's a nice solution for people like me on a budget and it isn't very hard to set up.

In all fairness I think I hate all audio software period. iTunes and jriver are ok but iTunes is clunky (and no third party add on software works completely seamlessly with it) and jriver is still an ugly un-elegant looking iTunes kinda thing (that I still don't prefer to use on my mac). Is it too much to ask for everything??? I hate that Frank Ocean's Nostalgia Ultra is only available as 192kbps mp3, among some other releases. I hat that I can't yet afford systems over $5000 with fancy cables. I hate that all in one solutions are not an audiophile's panacea. I hate the various ways in which I must optimize the sound with this and that tweak and this and that OS and this and that optimization. I hate that there's still a lot I don't know about this hobby. And most of all, I hate computeraudiophile.com! (disclaimer: don't take this post too seriously)

I actually just share my Macbook storage (which has all my music) with the CAPS through my home network. Also it looks like it has two antennas if that's what you were referring to (though room for a third...).

Seems like an excellent solution, though it's rather expensive compared to other options. I do have that free mini PCIE slot though that wouldn't interfere with a potential PCIE USB upgrade (as far as I'm aware) - wouldn't something like this be fine? Amazon.com : Intel 4965AGN Next-Gen Wireless-N PCIe Mini Card Network Adapter - Mini PCI Express - 300Mbps : Wlan Mini Pcie : Computers & Accessories

So I decided to go ahead and build a CAPS server (Topanga) and finally got everything up and running. Right now I'm using a really cheap USB dongle for wifi (can't have an ethernet connection) and it's doing the job, albeit pretty weakly/slowly. Can anyone recommend a good but suitable-for-CAPS wifi card/dongle/etc. they're using? Jremote is extremely laggy too so I feel like a strong connection is important here.

Haha, I only just saw this now and it's been nearly a year...I wanted to make a DAC/headphone amp purchase - over other more portable, longer battery life, generally more convenient amplifiers, I went with the Objective2. It's a tad big for a portable "amp" with no bells and whistles but I really enjoyed the sound and I'm still with it today with 0 regrets. Convenience is important for enjoying music but sometimes you just make less convenient setups work to get the most enjoyable sound/experience (within budget).

Look forward to seeing what you do with this! I just made the call to get everything for a Topanga (besides a different case), but I'd definitely like to try upgrading with a nice power supply and USB card so I've taken interest in your cost-effective solution.

Is there any way to make this wifi-capable without hogging up the USB port? It'd be a really nice little music server if it wasn't restricted by ethernet. Also is there a way I could share [music] files with the BBB and another computer? I don't actually have a NAS so this would be extremely convenient as well.