Music Servers VS Excellent Transports?


Well here you go people? A question for my upgrade.
Should I go with an Excellent transport or a good Music server with a digital out. Sophisticated transport VS NO MOVING PARTS?

Considering the Opus Music Server or any of similar calibre.
My ripping and transfer skills are good so its going to be Lossless files with pretty much no compression of data right into my favourite DAC. All are welcome for this topic.
Please do stay withing the realm of the question, appreciate it :) Merry Christmas and happy holidays
rapogee
Askat1988 - a Digital source, whether it is a transport or WiFi source is the same exact data. The only thing left is the jitter. Both can be reduced to inaudible levels with reclocking. A shootout is unneccessary IMO.

The differences come with implementation and levels of jitter. If the same reclocker were used with both, they would be identical. The EMM labs evidently does a level of reclocking, so this should make it identical.

I cannot imagine that Alex would argue this.

Steve N.
Pubul57 - Ive invited Alex to bring his CD source to my room at THE Show in the past. He didn't show.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Is there an issue with how much work a reclocker has to do? That is, is one feed of digital data cleaner, easier to "clock" and then feed to the DAC. I fear this stuff is too technical for me to get right.
I also am using The Slimdevices Transporter with my Audio Aero Capitole doing the processing via AES. I store the CDs on my Apple G5 using lossless

I am very happy with this system.

There is a slight difference between the Transporter DAC and the Audio Aero. The Transporter is perhaps more analytic while the Audio Aero is a bit warmer which I do prefer.

Another advantage is that I can serve one room with my Audio Aero and another using the Transporter's DAC with its internal volumn control.

CDs do sound better when played on the Audio Aero compared to this system as I think the Audio Aero was designed first to use its own transport. The difference, however is only apparent when I switch back-and-forth to the same recording.
12-20-07: Audioengr said:
"... Digital is better than most people's experience, actually capable of surpassing the best in vinyl. Did you have vinyl before, or still?"

Steve, I just wanted chime and say I think you're right. I think we're on the cusp of some really great consumer digital reproduction and distribution systems.

I'm heavy into vinyl, new and old, and I've started archiving my D2D and rarer records to 1-bit 5.6MHz on my Korg MR1000. That little thing is incredible. A couple of problems with the Korg are it''s relatively small 40GB HD (can't believe I said that). That's a fine size for live recording, but really limited as an archive at these huge file sizes. Of course, that could be resolved if the Korg were able to "see" an external HD and be used as a player.

Having heard the digital potential, I'm reluctant to archive at lower levels. I do make lossless files to take to the office and put on my iPhone. (The 8G seemed like a lot a few days ago, but at least I have relatively good listening no matter where I am).

Do you think we'll start seeing servers that'll handle SACD/DVD-A levels of rez within the next year or two? Alternatively, will there be high quality universal players that'll be able to "see" HDs?

Dave