The idea is that i permanently plg into the receiver via the analog mini-RCA plug from an old smartphone - as it happens I have an old Galaxy S around the place. I'll load that up with 8GB of Music and then use it as a dedicated player, hopefuly. I haven't done this yet - I am waiting for the next rainy day. I won't get FLAC but it will take MP3 at high quality and that will do for now and allow the business purpose to be realised - the moving of the CDs out of the lounge.
Clearly this is the coming thing and I will keep my pennies in the bank for now and run with the above. It would be $730 to buy today but by the end of the year there might be some solid competition even perhaps with an internal hard drive and the price will crash. It's such a shame that Samsung have buggered up their Homesynch - it would have been ideal as a poor mans version of this.
So for now I will call it quits. Thanks everyone for your responses, it was really interesting even if the end point is quite different from what I expected.
Looks like some people had problems with FLAC playback on the S back in the day. Seemed to be confined to certain regional ports of android. Your phone might be OK. It "can" support FLAC. Give it a try. Nice cheap and effective solution if it works. Install es file explorer and you can access files from a PC share via your WiFi as well.
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler
I use an Old-er Laptop as my home server/theatre/hi-fi source.
Plays everything you ask of it. Does everything you can think of.
For your set up it will need a USB-DAC for best effect otherwise cheap laptop DACs have high noise:signal ratio (low signal:noise ratio) and will have hiss
I too have struggled with this issue. I own a WDTV Live and can confirm it's a nifty little device that will play almost anything (not alac files though)and is a great streaming media centre.
You could hook it up to a large capacity portable hdd (USB powered) and be away laughing, providing you're happy to shuttle it to your PC and back everytime you want to add files. I'd probably connect your amp to the TV directly with optical and benefit from all your media's audio getting the Pioneer treatment.
However: The WDTV may require the TV screen to be on to steer it, the android app I remember was just a simple remote in essence. There may be new apps on the store with greater functionality since I last looked (2 years ago if I'm honest), so do check for them.
Tiny LCD screen aside, your expensive Pioneer streamer should allow you to control your files with the only glass involved being your phone.
"Should" because it depends wholly on Pioneer having an android app for their streamer; not a given as many companies focus on iOS. You must research this or you might find yourself requiring a thousand dollar iPhone on top of things.
Keep on working through it; you have a good amp with a solid DAC, and just need a device to suck glorious flac files off an hdd and blast them down an optical cable (which the WDTV will do well and cheaply if you can find an app that will suit your needs).
Do PM me if you have any more questions about this sort of thing and I'd be happy to help.
I just thought I would update people that due to the crummy weather I have installed Dock and Share and despite a bit of strangeness in the UI (it seems to force a retry of the share every time) it's wonderful and does exactly what I wanted. The app is so good that I'm going to buy it even though I am not streaming with it - I'll buy it just to support the author. The only issue is that it only stores 5 gig of music so that will only be about half of the cd collection - still that is one draw down and at no cost whatsoever.
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