Help picking out FLAC/MP3 player for home stereo Options

[valnar]

I have a large collection of FLAC and MP3 files on my home Windows server that I ripped. Almost all the FLAC files are entire album files with embedded CUE sheets. I have WiFi and CAT6 connectivity to my home theater/stereo/TV setup upstairs if necessary.

I am looking for a device or small Linux distro that will play FLAC and MP3 files through my existing Pioneer Elite receiver with the use of a remote. Integration into my TV is a must so I can see and select the song or album I want to play. It has to stream or play the files from my server - I am not interested in an internal HDD.

I believe several hardware options exist for something like this, but there is a kicker. I would prefer something that either downloads, or displays my own cover art with each album. Something in the way Windows Media Center works.

Any suggestions?

[yourlord]

I don't use cue sheets so I don't know if it will handle them or not. My assumption is not. It does not handle gapless playback. It does support Ogg Vorbis even through it's not mentioned anywhere in the literature.

I run XBMC on a raspberry pi and use that as my media center on that receiver personally. The support in the receiver is nice if I just want to listen to a certain song real quick and happen to have the remote for the receiver in my hand or don't want to dig out my phone to control XBMC.

[garym]

I use for about 5 years several hardware squeezeboxes fed by a single headless server (linux based) with about 70,000 mostly FLAC files. Can control it all from my laptop, my iphone, my ipad, etc. Using Logitech Media Server (LMS) as the database. Deals with Flac, Ogg, mp3, m4a, ALAC, wav, and others. Does gapless and handles replaygain tags. Does a lot that a DLNA system can't do without lots of add-on custom programing. The squeezeboxes can be WIFI or ethernet connected. I can perfectly sync music (my own or internet radio, etc.) to multiple players or play different things to each player, all from single server source.

Of course squeezebox has discontinued this line, but there is a pretty good DIY group. New ones are still floating around and used ones (ebay, etc.). Lots of roll-your-own hardware replacement discussions at:

forums.slimdevices.com

And also see this:
http://vortexbox.org/content/149-Logitech-...nt-for-under-30

This post has been edited by garym: Jan 16 2013, 00:12