Music Server for feeding Theta Gen VIII DAC


I've been away from audio for a number of years after putting together a system* that I was mostly satisfied with.  I took the system apart for a couple years for a living room remodel, then shortly after I set it up, my SOny ES CD player I was using as a transport died.  I now realize that I no longer know how to play music.  I would like to use some sort of computer server rather than a disc spinner for the convenience, but am overwhelmed by the choices available.  I want something simple with excellent sound quality.  Right now, I mainly want to rip my CDs to a hard drive.  I recognize that at some point in the future, I may want to use some sort of streaming, but right now, I'm not interested.  Having been to a few shops, candidates include the Cambridge CXN V2, Aurender N100C, and Naim Uniti Core.  The Aurender seems hobbled by a new change that sacrifices sound quality of non-MQA files, the Naim seems like it can't accept files downloaded from the internet.  The Cambridge seems to not have any identified problems, but I wonder if it's possible for a machine that is so affordable to provide sound quality on par with the others (although if it can, that would be great).  I have no idea what to do.
*Theta Gen VIII s3 DAC/Pre, AtmaSphere MA1 amps, Ascendo ZF3 speakers, Kubala-Sosna EMotion interconnects, Entec LF-20 subwoofers.
honest1

Showing 2 responses by grey9hound

If you are pretty computer literate , you can build a Music Sever running JRiver media center .It is hard to beat . The software is like under $50.You can rip your cds to the drive in the PC.
Get a Server type of pc ,like the Dell Precsion T5400 or higher. You can use the internal drives as well as a Nice big USB harddrive hooked to the PC. Personally i would rip into .wav format from your Cds. people will tell you that they hear no difference in lossless vs The Full original "whats on the cd format" That original format on the cd is .wav. I have tried it . You can hear a difference. It really depends on how resolute and detailed your audio equipment is. I also use the ROKU Ultra Device . I can get Pandora from there and Netflix as well as a lot of other stuff. Pandora Plus sound really good.
https://jriver.com/
Good Luck in which ever direction you go.
Oh BTW .There is a lot of streaming available through JRiver these days and you can use the pc like a normal PC ..to do anything you can do with a normal PC or get from the internet.These other servers from the guy above are running proprietary software that i am pretty sure does not let you use the server as a Pc .All of this for like $400-900 bucks depending on the PC that you buy

Download and use the free Glary Utilities, free for home use. and run it once a week. I am not affiliated in any way. This is the only program of this type that i use... nothing else. You can trust it .
Kim Komando recommends it.