Sonos and WS2012R2 library

Banzai_Joe · 3 Nov 2015 at 09:49

Hi all,
so, i'm going down the sonos route for multi-room wireless streaming.
I have a Microserver running WS2012R2 with a WHS2011 VM on it.
I'm thinking of simply inserting a CD into my laptop, using WMC to rip each CD to a network share (format to be decided). Use device app to play music from the library to sonos Play 1 speakers around the house, either synced or zoned.

That's the 'plan'.

Question for you guys to advise on please:

Would you use native WS2012R2 share or utilise my WHS2011 VM for the music library? OR...something else, like....
Attach a usb drive to my Plusnet router and use that as NAS?
What file format would you use, bearing in mind i'm using the Play 1 speakers which may not realise FLAC quality. (i do have enough storage for FLAC files btw)

One side question;

When i rip soundtracks that are continuous, it breaks them up into their individuals tracks, which when played back you can clearly hear the slight silent gap between each track. How can i combat this whilst still maintaining individual tracks? Or would i have to use something like Audacity to bring them all together into one long track to eliminate the gaps?

Thanks for any advice offered.

George Hincapie · 3 Nov 2015 at 10:03

If you can rip to FLAC then do that, regardless of the quality of your speakers. If you improve your hardware later then it will be a pain to have to re-rip all your discs. Do it once, do it right

a1ex2001 · 3 Nov 2015 at 10:19

I'd use a native share on the WS2012 box anything more seems unnecessarily complicated and I'd rip everything to FLAC or another lossless format you never know what you will be using it for in future and re-ripping is a right pain! once you have everything lossless you can always re-encode to a different format if needed.

You should be able to flag the ripped songs as continuous so they play with no gaps, I've never done it so don't know how well it works.

Banzai_Joe · 3 Nov 2015 at 10:22

Thanks fellas.

platypus · 3 Nov 2015 at 10:27

What component do you need in the Sonos setup to utilise a network share?

I'm tempted by the kit but am put off by the cost.

Banzai_Joe · 3 Nov 2015 at 10:31

Can't answer your question mate, but i've spent a couple of weeks gleaning info from instore and online and all Sonos competitors seems to be around the same price or more.
Bose, Samsung, Panasonic are the ones i looked at.

a1ex2001 · 3 Nov 2015 at 11:10

platypus said:
What component do you need in the Sonos setup to utilise a network share?

I'm tempted by the kit but am put off by the cost.

These days you simply need a player so either the play 1/2/3, playbar, connect or amp there was previously a requirement for a bridge hardwired to the network but that has been removed in the latest versions you don't need anything with a cable connection anymore wireless only is supported.

bledd · 3 Nov 2015 at 11:14

I prefer using native shares for anything media based.

Banzai_Joe · 17 Nov 2015 at 10:03

Hi all,
ok i bought a twin pack of play 1 speakers for £300 (saving £38).
I'm wanting to rip my CD's to the 'hyperserver' (WS2012r2), but...
1) failed when using WMP to rip to FLAC and taking copy protection off
Could this be due to the actual disk or something else do you think?
2) i can't browse to\\hyperserver\music from my laptop or pc. It says...

"\\hyperserver is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions.
Logon failure: the user has not been granted the requested logon type at this computer"

Now, i'm used to domains, and my home stuff is obviously on a WORKGROUP. I just remember what i'm doing, lol.
I'v created a share on the server \\hyperserver\music which allows 'everyone' read/write access.
What else do i need to be doing to allow access to the share from networked computers?

Randell · 17 Nov 2015 at 22:32

the reason they don't do is to minimise support issues I reckon. Sonos is meant to be plug and play and wife friendly.

There is no why they could guarantee maintaining music sync with the all various PC hardware options/driver issues out there.

Anyway I just use mediamonkey on my pc using the same library as my sonos. Or spotify.

George Hincapie · 17 Nov 2015 at 22:45

Banzai Joe, get yourself over to SlySoft and download a trial of Clone CD. Load it but don't use it while you are converting to FLAC. Should deal with the issues you're having.

http://www.slysoft.com/en/clonecd.html

Banzai_Joe · 18 Nov 2015 at 08:51

Thanks George, but if WMP offers the settings that i want, any idea why it won't work? I admit i only tried one CD (GnR Greatest Hits) maybe the CD was too awesomes to be FLAC'd ?!

Will try another CD out, then give up and try other software. Used to use CloneCD back in the day. Really wanted the simplest solution though, dang nabbit!

George Hincapie · 18 Nov 2015 at 14:03

Copy protection I guess, the software I linked to disables it to alliw you to do as you wish.