Best standalone music server?

Hick, in the beginning of the thread he said that was out of his budget.  That's why he went with the Bluesound Vault.  As for the W20 and N10, the difference in sound is only if you use the balanced output of the W, otherwise the N10 will sound virtually the same based on my auditions.  He also wanted an all in one so most of the higher end units didn't work for him.  Nice units though, that's for sure.

@juke4u
I may have gone one better in comparisons...lol
I actually own two genuine cd discs of one of my favourite bands( counting crows).
So i was able to compare both my cd players (mcintosh and esoteric) vs tidal AND the vault rips, makes it easy to instantly switch between them, not just rely on memory of what a track sounded like 5 minutes ago.
My preference order, and this is just my opinion

1/ vault
2/ mcintosh
3/ esoteric
4/ tidal

now tbh they are ALL really close and 3 and 4 are probably more a tie
we are talking points of a percent apart really

I still buy odd cd,s ( still some stuff not available on tidal yet) but the first thing i do is rip them to the vault and listen to them from there!

I see Pandora is starting up their full streaming service next week for just $9.99 a month, hopefully as a present Pandora user they will offer a free trial as well. Be a nice comparo to Tidal

For those of you concerned that the Bluesound Vault 2 may not be high end enough for you, I suggest that if you already have a DAC that you like, play it through the DAC and call it a day

It's not that Bluesound is not "high end enough" for me.  From what I've heard the DAC is good and the digital output connection is good.  Unfortunately I have neither a separate DAC nor do I have a preamp with digital inputs.  I would have to use the RCA outputs to my preamp...which may be the weak spot.  In any case I am curious enough about it to give it a try.  It shouldn't take me too long to determine the sound quality vs CD.  I do like the built in disc drive/ripper.  It's not that it is difficult at all to rip CDs to my computer...I just dread the chore more doing it this way than just popping them in the drive and letting it do it for me.  The other product I've considered is the Aurender A10.  It has everyone in one box except the CD ripper....and is considerable more expensive than the Bluesound. Another option would be to upgrade my CD player to a model that has a good DAC and then have the best of both worlds.

Uninteresting that the Vault sounds the best. I would have guessed the Esoteric would be on top but it could also be the DAC making a difference. Is the Mac a tube DAC?  Have you ever compared vinyl or is that a bad word, when we have obvious peolple posting, that are probably digital only. I have all my old LP's and all are in mint condition and also have many CD's that have newer artist not available on vinyl.

I saw "hickbones" earlier post about the Aurender where you auditioned both players and got the N10. At this point I do not have a DAC, Streamer, or CD player. I can play a CD but with a Sony blue ray player.(yes a $49 dvd player) I have read as much as possible about streamers and the Aurender and Lumins seem to be the best. Uberwaltz's experience with the Vault has got me thinking in a hole new direction. If it sounds better than the high dollar CD players that's amazing. Maybe they will come out with a new Vault with Balanced outputs.