Upgrading Blodgett Theater Music Streamer ~ No More Windows 17Aug24

I repurposed a Mele Quieter 3Q Win11 fanless PC from the Nest to Blodgett. At the Nest it was to control the Dolby DP564 as a remote but I removed the Dolby box from the theater so no need for that. I made the Q3Q into an Ubuntu Jammy Jellyfish based music streamer to replace the ancient Windows Lenovo nettop running there previously ~ it was slow and none too responsive. The new streamer is blazing fast with basically just JRiver MC32 on it. The Mele fanless PCs are amazing. With the shift, we have no more Windows machines running @ Blodgett or the Nest ~ such machines are just bloated and unsafe advertising machines. I used Ubuntu as JRiver is known to best run on that variant of Linux... and Ubuntu has a GUI for times when I can't recall command lines. MC32 built a local library from an Archlinux SMB server hosting 1/2TB of digital flac, mp3, aac, and dsf files ~ I don't have JRiver on the server for remote library access so the library build over SMB access took 2 days (yeah... I have all the lyrics & images too).

The new Blodgett Theater streamer is spitting bits up to 24bit/196KHz through USB to optical connection to my Integra Research RDC-7.1 AV controller and UI to the TV via HDMI to 25pin d-shell. I added a Logitech K400 wireless keyboard to better talk to MC32 but I also allowed my universal Harmony remote to control stuff there too by adding a Flirc USB dongle to the Mele. It converts IR to keystrokes for the Mele. Believe me, it is not easy to get JRiver MC on Ubuntu to accept Harmony remote commands as keystrokes via the Flirc USB to allow non-keyboard control over my music streaming ~ but I persevered. I rue the day when Logitech shuts down the Harmony servers; they've already discontinued the hardware. I have 4 of these clever and cost effective remotes, and I know many others who prefer them, and I'm buying some used backups now on eBay.

The Blodgett theater is now up to speed for digital music playback... I've been listening a little more down there these days as it is much cooler than on the main level in COS. Too, after noticing some lower bass emphasis than expected, I remeasured the Blodgett Theater and did some sub reintegration ~ I bumped the gain a bit. I still have a bit of a dip around 70-80Hz and some emphasis 80Hz-200Hz ~ it's fine, I'm not going to address these. I also compared some different DSP settings, the main ones I use are Unplugged and PLIIx Music... both are good. Distortion is fine but there is a smidge in the subwoofer region.