The Brennan JB7

Is it possible that you have connected the output from the JB7 ito an amp input that is designed for a turntable (probably marked 'phono')?

 Following advice (several items above) from SpiderJon, I am happy to report that  I now have a Squeezebox running with a new WiFi router and supported by a Synology DiskStation NAS.

Apart from a few things I had to learn about Squeezebox filing, I have been able to impose my own filing system on it. - more or less the same as Gramphone reviews - Orchestral etc, with composers listed at the next level of the hierarchy and works below that.  The main quirk of Squeezebox filing is that if your have items numbered 1,2...10,11, it reads them in the order 1,10, 11,12 unless you force it into the right order by making 1= 01, 2 = 02 etc.

I am most  gfrateful to the forum for sorting this out and I am certain it's much better than the Brennan.

I notice a lot of the discussion is about sound quality and I've seen just one post about the information management aspects of the device. I am currently debating the idea of getting a JB7 but I must say I'm not convinced. The basic model has 160GB storage, which I think reflects entry-level capacity for any internal or external hard drives. Once converted into CD-equivalents that represents a lot of content; converted into tracks it is an order of magnitude larger. I recognise the attraction of getting such a large number of CDs off shelves, etc. but I'd want to do more with the content. Specifically, I find it disappointing that the Brennan offers only 7 pre-labelled playlists and no opportunity to do anything else other than run it on shuffle play; or selecting a CD at a time; or a track at time. I have a 9000+ (and rising) track-collection and am susceptible to the common temptation of wanting to create a range of playlists - eg. one for a dinner party; one for another type of party; etc. and wanting to keep them once created. So being limited to only 7 playlists or shuffle play seems pretty restrictive for my purposes. It is disappointing that the Brennan therefore offers only partial functionality compared to an iPod, but at twice the price. Against this I recognise the Brennan incorporates a lot more functionality and was never intended to provide portable music. Moreover it doesn't have the same, substantial restrictions on the sources from which music can be input that limit the iPod. All the same it seems incongruous to offer such huge storage capacity and so little scope to manipulate it. Perhaps it doesn't matter to most people, or maybe there is a way of providing some sort of halfway-house solution (eg. can you pull off the playlist listing onto an external drive to provide a remote library that can be reloaded?) I'd be interested to hear the opinion of people who have the machine whether they find this an issue, recognising the way they "use" the music may be different to mine. Thanks for any feedback.

This may seem obvious but I'd say an iPod with a docking station with speakers is probably what you are looking for. I'm still debating over the Brennan but have been looking at something similar as an alternative which appears to be a bit cheaper. A new iPod classic with the largest storage (160GB) costs £175-ish but it sounds like you don't need anything like that capacity. I suspect with the launches of the iPod Nano, etc. you could now get a reconditioned second-hand iPod Classic for a reasonable price, connect it to your PC and download iTunes onto it.

Docking stations with speakers come in at anything from around £40 to £200 (just happened to check this earlier today).

There are other iPod-like products and other combinations like the Sony GigaJuke. I suggest looking on Amazon or eBay to see what's available and to get representative prices.

I am only familiar with the Apple solution, although I don't currently have an iPod. But its functionality should give you the file management flexibility you are looking for - ie. using the playlists to segment the tracks in the library and recall them as the mood takes you. The docking station means it is portable so you can move it from room to room and lock it up safely at night too given you'd be using it in a public place. Amazon and the Apple iTunes store are the first places I'd check for music compilations though I have no idea what to put into their search engines.

 I hope this helps.

Frankly, if I had the money to invest in a Brennan, I would buy a Buffalo Tech 4 TeraByte hard drive (set it up in RAID mirror mode so I would have a back up), rip all my CDs into Apple Lossless, and listen from my PC. Of course, I would also invest in PC equipped with an HDMI port and hook it up to something like a Bose home theater system or better for the best sound quality and throw away my hi fi.

Tricky, as MP3's maximum bitrate is 320 kbps ;-)  (and you can achieve smaller file sizes using VBR, too).

The great thing about audio is that it's (relatively) low bitrate, so you really don't need the latest (and most almost inevitably most expensive) technology.

Even the 1.5 Mbps of the 'ancient' USB 1.0 standard is more than enough for compressed audio of CD quality, and USB 2.0's realistic maximum of 320Mbps is 1,000 times what you need to stream MP3s.

High quality audio will stream 'stutterlessly' over 10Mbps Ethernet (or the realistic maximum of 6Mbps of 802.11b wireless), so USB 3.0's 4.8Gbps is complete overkill.

Even if you think you might also want to stream HD video, USB 2.0 is far more than is needed.

It's all good news, because it means you can use  older - and therefore cheaper (and quite often more reliable) - technology as a media streaming system.

Hi all

I have posted on this topic and would like to keep up with any new posts.

I know this particular question is a bit off topic - but would someone please tell me how to sign up for email alerts.

I am not new to forums in general - butwith this one I cannot see any way to watch the topic.

Again - sorry the question is not directly related to the Brennan - but if someone can just help me out here - I can get back to discussign the device again. 

Thanks

Geoff