Digital Audio
The Squeezebox is a Hi-Fi device that can stream digital music and Internet radio to your stereo. It has built in wireless network so you can place it anywhere. You can connect multiple Squeezeboxes to one SlimServer - one per room if you like! And then either have them all play their own thing, or synchronize any or all of them together. You set a max bit rate to stream to individually Squeezeboxes so if you have one at remote location connected over the Internet, it can still play your favorite musc collection from your home server, even it is saved in an uncompressed or lossless format.
There is even a free open source software version of the Squeezebox called SoftSqueeze. If you install that you can play your music on any PC connected to your network, or listen to your favorite music from work.
SlimServer is a free open source streaming audio server created by Slim Devices. This is where you store the music you want to play on a Squeezebox. It supports MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, WAV and more! If you want to try for yourself and experience what a Squeezebox can do download and install it. It has a web based interface so it can be controlled from any PC. It includes the SoftSqueeze player you can install from your SlimServers Home page (in the Help section).
SlimServer support plugins, and a lot users have written plugins for almost everything like: Selecting what music to play, Games, Skins for the SlimServer web interface, Remote controls.
The best way to store your music collection is FLAC. FLAC is a free open source codec that is lossless. This means that you don't loose any quality but still saves a lot of space.
The best tool for converting your CD collection to files that can be played on your Squeezeboz is EAC (Exact Audio Copy). When you play a CD, the CD or DVD drive will not try very hard (there isen't time enough, if someone listens to it) to read a damaged area on the CD. Instead it will try try to compensate for the error and continue playing. EAC can read your CD's even the scratched ones without letting the CD drive do automatic error correction. It can take a bit longer, but the result is an exact copy off what was on the CD. EAC is free for non-commercial purposes.