How To Setup Your Home Network For Streaming High Quality Music

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How to setup your home network for streaming high quality music Recommended Network Peripherals At Cyrus we’ve spent a lot of time and effort testing various network peripherals and we’ve found the following products offer the very easiest in setups and have proved to provide extremely robust and reliable connections. 1. Wireless Router If you have access to the Internet you will most likely have a wireless router, as these are often given away free by your internet service provider. If you’re aware that you connect to the Internet using a modem you will need to buy a wireless router to stream from a network attached storage drive (NAS). NETGEAR DG834G Wireless Router Price: £30 - £50 The key benefits    Easy to setup Features an ADSL modem and Wireless LAN capability UPnP Compatible 2. Network Attached Storage (NAS Drive) A NAS drive provides you with centralised storage for your entire CD collection. You can even use it with several streamers connected simultaneously. To give you an idea of what size you may require 1TB can hold approximately 1500 high quality albums. Western Digital My Book World Edition Network Hard Drive Price: £70 – £250 (Depending on the storage capabilities and RAID protection) The key benefits    The streaming of media isn’t dependant on your PC being switched on A cost effective solution to storing large amounts of data NAS drives are quiet and energy efficient Please Note – When purchasing a NAS drive we strongly advise a RAID protected unit which automatically backs-up your music files. 3. Network Switch A switch will help to ensure your network runs fast and reliably. It also makes browsing music on the n-remote even quicker. NETGEAR FS108 Prosafe switch Price: Around £30 - £50 (Depending on the number of ports) The key benefits –    Results in faster browsing on your n-remote Greater bandwidth for uncompressed file streaming Results in the fastest and most stable connection between your networked audio devices. 4. Connecting your peripherals Ethernet Cable – Ethernet or Powerline NETGEAR AV200 Powerline Where possible we recommend a wired ethernet connection due to its added speed and reliability. However, if the routing of ethernet cables cannot be easily achieved we highly recommend homeplug ethernet over mains adaptors, particularly the NETGEAR Powerline Series (£70 - £150). Powerline adapters eliminate the problem of your router being upstairs and your hifi being downstairs. This is a stable and great solution. Please Note – Cyrus do not sell any networking peripherals however all of the above can be easily sourced from all good IT outlets. Recommended Network Setup The below shows our recommended network setup so that you can enjoy fast and reliable access to your high quality music library. Often Installed New streaming network In the diagram above you can see how simple it is to setup your home network for streaming. Assuming you already have your computer and router set up, we recommend connecting an ethernet switch to the router to which the NAS and Cyrus streaming product can be connected. This allows the streamer to have the fastest possible access to the NAS drive irrespective of existing network traffic. How to rip your CDs for the highest quality The performance of your streaming system is very much dependant on the quality of music being streamed, if this isn’t of a high quality your streaming experience becomes compromised. We recommend the use of a downloadable piece of software called ‘DBpoweramp’ which allows you to effortlessly rip your CDs in a lossless format. Once downloaded, you can easily setup the software to rip your CDs to .FLAC with zero compression and set the saving destination as your NAS drive. Once you have specified these settings you will never have to alter them again and CDs can be ripped time after time with no loss in sound quality. DBpoweramp is available from http://www.dbpoweramp.com/ and is free for one month and requires a one-off payment of approximately £35. Additional Information In addition to the streaming of high quality music from your NAS drive, your streamer can also play music from a number of other sources such as USB sticks, External HDDs, iPods, iPhones and iPads. Your streamer also features a number of auxiliary inputs for devices such as your Skybox, Bluray player & TV (for example). For further information or support Should you require any further information please consult our FAQs section. If your query remains unanswered please contact your local retailer, which can be found by following the link below. http://www.cyrusaudio.com/cyrus-audio-nearest-retailer