Need help putting togather a computer jukebox

Z

zoey

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A friend approached me in the bar the other night and asked if I would make him a juke box computer for his new game room. I said sure. It is ONLY going to be used for music nothing else. I would like to know what hardware and software I should use. Thanks
 
well if it were just a MP3 box, i would suggest a low grade processor, like an old PIII 600-700MHz if you are running XP. If you are running any 9x operating systems, then use a processor between 400-500. As for the motherobard you can find the really cheap online, just make sure that they match. For ram 128MB should be fine. then sound, invest money in an audigy 2 plat. tell me if you like. (I just made a download ***** :D)
 
Probably win xp home. Speakers are going to be the Key to system. We'll be putting the wires in the wall, since it's new construction.
 
You probably don't want to go with a creative sound card. Some better choices are:

Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Phillips Sonic Edge 5.1
Hercules Game Theater XP
Delta
Terratec
M-Audio
 
and make sure he has a crap load of ram for loading the songs and what not... and lots and lots of hard drive space as well..

cd/dvd players are a must :)

the older cpu's don't load the songs fast enough.. trust me I upgraded from a 450mhz processor... go for around a 1 ghz rig..

win2k/winxp should be fine... even win 98se should be perfectly all right...

don't need a vid card really so anything generic or even shared onboard should be perfectly fine..

sound cards... I like audigy's what can I say... but I also have a turtle beach santa cruz (put it in my bro's rig) and it is just as good...

speakers he doesn't need to get.. all he really needs to do is plug his existing home speakers if he has any.. to the set up.. and voila :)

software.. there are a bunch out there and I will let people who use it a fair amount tell you of the different media players/jukeboxes...
 
Allright. Hi there!

Now for a juke box PC: I wish to say the following; I think that a 700MHZ processor isn't aquadate; because songs don't load fast enough; especially long playlists.

I would go for no less then 1GHZ.

RAM issues. I say no less then 256. Preferable 512. Especially with newer apps like Winamp 3; which take up a nice amount of RAM and CPU usage. Keep in mind that if you honestly want to make it look like a jukebox; you may want to get Windows XP; and download Style XP; and make your music interface pretty.

Now; one major thing for Mp3's; hard disk room!

Go for a BIG harddisk; and a 7200RPM one. I say two 120 gigabyes on a RAID array; so that if one fails; you will not loose your stuff.

120GB should take a while to fill up. Now; as to what kind to get;

I really really reccomend IBM's 120GXP Series 120GB drive. New and revised drive; no visible flaws what so ever; I have it for some time now.

Graphics card; any one should do; unless you want to run AVS or visualzations; I suggest a card that can run a fairly high rez.

Internet connections; if you want to download music, cable internet is the way to go.

Speakers and sound card! Any Phillips or Turtle Beach Card should do great. I say go with Turtle Beach! Awsome card!

Speakers...Logitec speakers rock; I think can be compared to Kliscp or whatever. My ex has Promedia's 5.1's and I went to the WIZ and showed her this

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm?p...ID=2&CONTENTID=5048&countryid=19&languageid=1

That sounds and looks so much better! Costs less too! Just comes with crappy speaker wire; but that can be easily replace for high quality ones. Get those! You will LOVE them!

I hope I didn't miss out on anything

Good Luck!

Nick
 
I keep hearing alot about the Santa Cruz card. What are the advantages and disadvantage of having this card? Because I am in the market to buy a new card and the Audigy and Santa Cruz card were the most appealing to me.
 
Posted by Nick M
Allright. Hi there!

Now for a juke box PC: I wish to say the following; I think that a 700MHZ processor isn't aquadate; because songs don't load fast enough; especially long playlists.

I would go for no less then 1GHZ.

RAM issues. I say no less then 256. Preferable 512. Especially with newer apps like Winamp 3; which take up a nice amount of RAM and CPU usage. Keep in mind that if you honestly want to make it look like a jukebox; you may want to get Windows XP; and download Style XP; and make your music interface pretty.

Now; one major thing for Mp3's; hard disk room!

Go for a BIG harddisk; and a 7200RPM one. I say two 120 gigabyes on a RAID array; so that if one fails; you will not loose your stuff.

120GB should take a while to fill up. Now; as to what kind to get;

I really really reccomend IBM's 120GXP Series 120GB drive. New and revised drive; no visible flaws what so ever; I have it for some time now.

Graphics card; any one should do; unless you want to run AVS or visualzations; I suggest a card that can run a fairly high rez.

Internet connections; if you want to download music, cable internet is the way to go.

Speakers and sound card! Any Phillips or Turtle Beach Card should do great. I say go with Turtle Beach! Awsome card!

Speakers...Logitec speakers rock; I think can be compared to Kliscp or whatever. My ex has Promedia's 5.1's and I went to the WIZ and showed her this

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm?p...ID=2&CONTENTID=5048&countryid=19&languageid=1

That sounds and looks so much better! Costs less too! Just comes with crappy speaker wire; but that can be easily replace for high quality ones. Get those! You will LOVE them!

I hope I didn't miss out on anything

Good Luck!

Nick

U got it all figured out....I love the speakers
 
ok i am a professional dj (hehe i get payed 100usd an hour) and i dj with this POS. [os] Windows XP Professional 5.1.2600 [cpu] 1 Intel Pentium @ 233.3 MHz [memory] 90/112mb [80.36%] [IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII----] [display] 800x600x32bpp - 60Hz [hdd] [C: 4,806.18mb (3,108.26mb free)] [D: 1,392.58mb (1,084.02mb free)] [F: 1,222.56mb (719.26mb free)]
Of course i have huge ass speakers, and my sound card is some old 16 bit PCI128 or somthin, got it 5 years ago for christmas.
I use winamp 2.81 and it works great, songs never skip while loading, never had a prob, so this stuff about a 1 gig processor.....nahhhh :)
 
dont get ibms they suck get either maxtor or Western digital and go for a amd duron or xp their really cheap like 35 dollars for a duron and like 56 for a xp, mobo i would go asus or soyo their very good. soundcard a nice creativelabs. and SpeaKers get some nice creatives as well i have teh 4.1 spekas n i can shake my whole house so a nice 5.1 + audigy platinum
 
Brando read my other post in hardware about my secondary IDE not working, any ideas?
 
IBM's don't suck. That's a generalization and your opinion. For instance; I had over 6 WD's die on me, but other people have them work excellent. Same with IBM.

Sorry; had to let that out :p
 
for just a machine to play music you all are going way too much into money. Get a 450-500(more if you plan to encode and so forth) machine running win98se with 256mb PC100 ram and you should be fine. Go for the audigy 2 plat and the optical outputs to the speakers, you will be blown away, trust me optical makes a difference. If you are going to do something else with the machine then upgrade, but i doubt you need a 1ghz machine to run winamp.

if it is just a jutebox you don't want to be paying 500+ to play your MP3s do you? as for speakers, you might want to go with something that has an optical. i would suggest: http://www.midiland.com/products.asp?category=Home Theater
any one of those with the recievers. I currently have the 7100 Plus with the optical and they blow my house apart with no sound loss at high volume. Just thoughts for you, trying to save you some money. Storage depends on how much you have, again if just MP3s you should go with something 60-80 and rpms don't matter here, no hard load and write times. This is not going to be a speed machine.
 
ya, that's one of the main things u want, no noise from fans...!! so if u know how to, use water cooling or something.. or underclock a processor so it doesn't need a fan (is that possible??) but then.... ui'll still have the fan from the power, so that's a problem, my suggestion, is......

ferget about a PC, use this:

http://www6.tomshardware.com/network/01q4/011220/index.html

it's basically.... a device that hooks up to your network, and plays mp3
 
But that's not what he wants...what his friend wants is a jukebox PC :)

Oh and...I can read your mind about those speakers :p
 
Posted by Nick M
But that's not what he wants...what his friend wants is a jukebox PC :)

Oh and...I can read your mind about those speakers :p

U got that right, but its fun to listen to everyones comments.
 
that's really true. comments rock.

especially ones on pictures!

hint: Xp-erience photo album... :hint
 

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