The Linear Canvas
This journal is about the wrongs and rights of the world, as I see them.

The Linear Canvas

My Netgear MP101 Music Server

December 29th, 2004 . by Alexander Fisher

I did some research recently on digital music servers with the intention of buying one that mostly just streamed audio as opposed to video and audio. Video would have been acceptable, but that would have been an extra bonus had I found one I liked that had it. Most models worked about the same. The music server acts as a go between for your computer which supplies the files a little at a time (streaming) to the music server over a computer network. The music server has the appropriate jacks, usually RCA connectors, to play the music it receives from the computer, over your stereo system.


I had tried using computers as music servers. Even though a perfectly good computer sitting behind my stereo not being used didn’t bother me, the noise from the power supply fans drove me crazy. I found a laptop could fill the roll quietly, but dedicating my laptop to the job of music server is not why I bought the laptop.

After reading a few articles and reviews, I began to price music servers. Some were hundreds of dollars. I found that Netgear’s MP101 did everything I needed and it was under $100 on the internet. The MP101 converses with the server over IP. There?s a program running on the PC that acts as a streaming server. It reads the Musicmatch playlists and library, so whichever of those you have created on the server computer, can be played on your stereo. They appear in lists on the MP101 display as artist, album title, genre, and created playlists. It takes about a minute to synchronize the info on the server with Musicmatch, and you can do it manually or automatically. I do it both ways. You can also build playlists with the music server software.

I am ripping most of my CD?s into Musicmatch and can now access most of my collection remotely. I have been ripping at 192kHz. I had been ripping CD?s using MP3pro, but it does not have the resolution of 192kHz regular MP3. Any higher resolution takes up too much space and does give much in return. I haven?t really experimented with variable bit rates. Not sure there is a need. Big hard drives are cheap.

When I first hooked it up, I had some problems. The ATI All-in-Wonder card I had in the server had created a network device in system manager when it was installed. The MP101 server software saw that device as another music server and made me choose from an identically named music server at startup on the MP101. The ATI device did not work because I had never set an IP address on it and never really ever needed to. I could select the working server and it would login and become operational. I assume the video network device had something to do with video streaming (?). As it was a video card, I?m not sure that it even mattered that it had no IP address.

Once I changed the video card, The MP101 would boot up without any intervention from me. In looking for the problem, I discovered you could not have a multi homed system either. That just created a third unusable music server. Either Netgear tech support was of no help or I had a very unique problem. The person I talked to was in India I?m sure, but actually didn?t seem any worse than American support. Never mind that he probably only makes $2.00 per hour.

The other thing that they could fix is the program does not seem to be able to run as a service that I can find. You have to be logged in as someone in order to run the music server software. Maybe I can force it to run as a service (?). It should be an option. I have the BIOS set to reboot on power outage and the Windows login is automatic using a ?user? profile. I can run the server software and log in with pcAnywhere and logout of that ?user? profile and into an administrator profile easily. There is little need for that now that it?s set up and working.

I recommend the MP101. It has a few glitches, but it performs as advertized.

Posted by alexfish at December 29, 2004 08:46 PM

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