My head hurts....

I just started a music server by enabling media sharing in Windows Media Player in Vista on a laptop. IT works very nicely. The Windows Media Player interface for ripping CDs to disk is very fast . I ripped the 5 CD Ken Burns JAzz CD set yesterday in about 30 minutes.

Once the song is ripped it is categorized by artist, album, and genre. I can then select to play a specific song, album, or set of songs by an artist or in a genre using the Roku Soundbridge on my system.

Last night I had several dozen classic jazz tunes playing randomly on my system via Wifi conenction to my Vista PC for several hours. Sound quality is very good out of the can.

I do have a new outboard DAC coming though in order to try something different and maybe even better. But the sound as is is quite competitive already.

Sweet......

wow lot's of responses i'm glad i'm not into this dilemna alone
Thanks to all who have responded

You should be asking, "Leopard or Vista?" or any Windows for that matter. The choice is obvious.

" I've also found a stunning thing... each of the USB ports on the MacMini (four of them) sound a little different... one or two are much, much better than the others... go figure"

Ed (Istanbulu)

Can you tell us which particular physical USB port(s) sound the best.

Thanks,
Dave

An alternative to a stand-alone DAC is a one-box CD/SACD player like the Playback Designs MPS-5, with upsampling to DSD and digital inputs. Most importantly, the PD is a player that competes heads up with the best analog while providing support for other digital inputs, such as a server-based system.

I believe that you should select a player or DAC for their musicality first, then next look at versatility. Ideally you'll find excellent musicality combined with flexible digital I/O, hopefully with several sources possible.

Dave