Want to buy Ayre C-5xeMP but...

Relentless,

even though I have a very good music server and it doesnt make any disturbing detectable noise since its situated away from the DAC/Player the CD drive still sounds better. If I had to choose between the music server and the CD I would choose the CD. If you have the space to store the music physically its always nice to have something in your hand that you can touch and feel and notes that you can read while you listen to a record.

Distortion in the time domain still keeps CD's sounding better than servers. Don''t get me wrong, I do like my Squeezebox coaxed into the DAV of my Cambridge Audio 840c, but CD playback is still much better.

I could ask: "What is your gut telling you?". But you plainly said that you don't want to let it go.

So my suggestion is to look in the mirror and ask yourself why you want the Ayre, and then keep it.

I heard Charles Hanson saying on the Audio Asylum forum that the new Ayre QB-9 USB DAC is neck and neck with the CX-5 in sound quality.

I have a mac mini and western digital 2TB hard drive and it's really quiet. You can hear it when it's ripping music but for playback it's really quiet. I wouldn't say that it makes absolutely no noise but it's really low. I know what you are talking about on the DVR noise, I can't stand it either. Unless you are listening to the quietest music and are making a point of trying to listen for it and let it bug you it seems unlikely that it would be a problem. At that you could just put the computer in another location if needed.

Personally I would not choose a CD player over the server. I have 5000 CDs and it's just to many to keep track of and dig out when I want to hear them, plus it's pretty fun to let it all shuffle sometimes and you get to randomly hear something that you might not have.

If you wanted you can always listen to the music on the server and look at the CD while you play it if you like doing that sort of thing.