Music Server Recommendation

IMO, the typical music servers that are talked about in this thread,  are based on old technology. IMO, if you have to connect something using a USB cable to an external dac, it’s old technology. The new technology involves using a “bridge”. I have been using the PS Audio DS with network bridge II and it sounds much better than the music servers I have had or auditioned for the last 12 years. Read the review of the DCS network bridge in Stereophile from last Nov. when I purchased the PS Audio piece, I was happy to sell my external music server and the AQ Diamond USB cable

Call me an ignoramus if you like but I do have a little trouble understanding this.

Lets take Tidal and Deezer 16/44 red book quality streaming.
How does any higher end music server make this sound better than from my Bluesound Vault2?

I mean they cannot extract any more information than is there so is the reasoning that say the vault2 is not extracting all of the information bit perfect?

What am i missing in my comprehension?
And I am ONLY referring to streaming services that are currently available, discounting Tidal MQA for now.

I have been considering a change but having a hard time understanding what more I could get with streaming.

I presently send the data from the vault2 to my Lyngdorf2170 via digital coax

Rbstehno, your comments are totally odd. A network bridge is doing exactly the same thing a server is doing. A per USB being somehow inferior it all depends on implimentation of the cable, the dac and the server.

The Audioquest Diamond is not state of the art in any way, we started with the Diamond as it was really the first high end USB Cable, and then we graduated to the Wireworld Platinum which was even better sounding, then we moved to the Enklein pure silver, which was better still than the Wireworld and then we found the Light Harmonic cable Lightspeed, which has a Femto reclocker built into the cable and this is the most remarkable USB cable we have yet tested.

A Network bridge is taking packeted audio from the Network and then in the case of the DCS then outputing to the Dac via AES or SPDIF or USB.

If you are looking to do the highest sampling frequencies of Quad Rate DSD a standard AES or SPDIF cable will not pass those frequencies nor will the DCS bridge.

Now it also depends on which servers you were using before the DCS bridge, the Innuous sounds way better tha the Aurender we sell both.

You may have had decent but not a state of the art server before you moved to the DCS piece.

You are also missing the user experience which Roon brings which makes listening to music a much more exploratory experience.

Uberwaltz, you are missing the concept of upconversion or cross conversion. By emploing a server which allows you to change or cross convert you can create a psuedo high resolution data stream from a 16 bit 44k sample. The actually difference between a true high resolution sample and a reprocessed one may be completely undiscernable.

We routinely take Tidal data stream, upconvert through our Innous server to our Light Harmonic Davinci and listen to all music at Quad Rate DSD and the sound is glorious.

Server with Roon, and the ability to upconvert or crossconvert can dramatically create a much more analog like sound even with a standard Redbook digital data stream.

Labtec the difference between reference servers is hardly neglibile we heard major differences between the Innuous Zenith, the Baetis Reference x, and the Memory Player.

The difference is a combination of hardware, software and implimention of all of the different factors. As per packing a good cardboard box can be very effective, if you don’t think you aren’t paying extra for the fancy flight case that you will never use again you got another thing comming.

We are really looking forward to our new Innuous Statement which employs a totally custom designed motherboard, a state of the art USB output board, a temperature controlled clock, custom software. This will be the best sounding sever on the market, save your pennies at $13k it will not be cheap, but it should set a new reference for a digital front end.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

@audiotroy Maybe I am missing something but it is hard to believe a $400-$800 NAS (which based on other opinions is inherently noisy) would be better than a well designed server with onboard storage.  You also seem to contradict your packet philosophy ("In the world of digital the packeted music going into the server may actually sound better than the onboard music via the ssd") by touting a USB connection from the Inuous to your DAC. Why wouldn't you go via Ethernet to stay all packet transmission?
I am open to the NAS approach if I can be convinced. 

I do have Ethernet at my rack however I do not have home runs from my router but rather MAC>Cable Modem/Router>2 floors to Netgear Switch>1 floor up to 2nd Netgear switch near rack>DAC. I know that is not ideal. Adding a NAS (since I would not put it near my rack) will go down a similar path. Have no idea how to make that better currently.

@rbstehno The Inuous/Melco/Antipodes can connect via Ethernet to a DAC so I'm not sure that is old tech. I have the PS Audio DSJr with the Bridge II card as well but I am looking to improve how I feed my library to that

@labtec interesting unit but over my budget at $8k 

Good discussion. Thanks all

@audiotroy

Still not clear on what I could do and what is required to improve my sq. But I am not going to clog up the OPS thread, I will contact you directly for advice.
Thank you