I posted this on the general hydrogenaudio forum, but thought that perhaps my issue would be best addressed here. What I am looking for is a device which could be connected to my receiver (preferably digitally) which would allow me to stream via foobar from my pc music to my receiver. I would want this device to take the pure digital stream from my PC via foobar and send it to the digital input on the receiver so as to allow the receiver to decode the signal to analog. This would allow me to export digital music data from my PC bit perfect to my receiver. Anyone have any suggestions for such a device that works well with foobar?

There are lots of solutions for this, and it depends on how much you want to spend. One product I've been looking at is this one: http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2006/10/31/s...view/index.html
It seems to be getting pretty good reviews, and it has optical output, but it's a bit more expensive than some others. Apparently it send audio losslessly, plus it works as a virtual sound card so it would work with any software, file formats, etc.

I like it a lot. The only problem I see is some audio dropout issues with its apparantly proprietary buffering technology. Are there others that avoid this issue?

I've heard good things about these guys:

http://www.slimdevices.com/

c32

I have a Squeezebox 3 from slimdevices. It is a very nice setup, and fairly inexpensive when you consider the alternatives. I use foobar for my local machine and notebook to do the heavy lifting (modifying tags, renaming, creating/moving directories), then use the open source slimserver software to manage for the whole house. The SB3 is connected to my stereo system, and I have an Adcom switch to route music to various zones. The slimserver software comes with java players that you can install on pc's, so the various PC's in rooms that are not zoned can make their own selection from the shared music and play what they want thru their PC. The SB3 plays many formats {see this page SB3 formats for formats supported}.

One issues is that SlimDevices have just been bought by Logitech in the last month or two. In summary, I would say that foobar2000 is very very good at what it does, and I spend most of my time there. But, for whole house distribution, and connection to the stereo, the SB3 and up, in conjunction with the SlimServer software is very very good at what IT does as well. The only issue in having both? Two databases. Not really an issue for me considering how I use them both.

I appreciate this information, but I want to use foobar as my player for all purposes. As such, this device does not seem optimum for me.

I can't help you with the wireless part, but....

The option I have gone with is a usb/firewire sound card. I assume you are looking for an audiophile-quality transfer and will be dealing with lossless files. If you are looking to use lossy codecs, then you are putting too much effort into the signal transfer, the quality will be limited by the original files regardless of what method you use.

If you are using a destop, the setup is pretty straightforward, There are several reasonably priced 24/96 cards that will do the digital/analog conversion for you and then you can send that to your receiver.

I have run several incarnations of M Audio 24/96 cards and the sound is dead on with high end CD players. I have a modest setup in my studio running a MAudio Audiophile 24/96 currently thru an Adcom Preamp/Amp and some Mirage speakers and love it. i wanted to do something for my living room, which I wanted to be much more compact (as transparent as possible)

My new setup is running off a laptop thru a USB card into a HK Prea Amp/Receiver into BA 100s. As long as you have the processing power to ensure smooth playback, the sound is as good as it gets. The only "wiring" to deal with is a usb cable going from the laptop to the card which sits on top of my preamp/receiver.

The "kink" in the laptop setup is the disk space required for lossless files. But, I've been thru this a thousand ways and this is the simplest solution I have found that satisfies my ear and my budget.

I had considered an ICube with stackable external HDs, but the price point went thru the roof. I considered building a "micro" tower, but I diodn't want to add another piece of furniture to my living room (LOL).

So, the plan of ripping 1100+ CDS and 400 LPS losslessly and having all the tracks at my finger tips is still a bit of a fantasy, but at least I have a few hundred Gigs of music in my Foobar playing on both levels of my house :-)

Sounds like a wicked setup. Unfortunately, for my needs, wireless is real important. I am buying a new home, and the configuration of the space really screams for such an approach. I want to maintain wireless connectivity while trying to avoid sacraficing sound quality.

The Sondigo mentioned above has some decent reviews and seems to be a snap to run (it piggybacks on your wireless router.)

I don't know how bad the "drops" are, but that may be the price you have to pay.

The other option to consider, if you are moving into a new house, is to take some time and put in a "wired" network.

It will get around any performance loss due to the wireless connections and all you will have to concentrate on is a setup that will send the digital signal thru a network.

I've been listening to my library through a wireless connection for several months and I never experienced audio quality drop of any kind. AFAIK wireless 802.11b throughput in practice is about 6000 Kbit/s which is more than enough for any media format, even lossless since it hardly reach 1000 kbps.

Well, it looks likes I am going to take a crack at the Sondingo device. I won't impliment for about 60 days or so, but I will post my findings. Thanks for the help.