audiophile music servers the latest products, info

The Naim HDX looks pretty good eh?

If you don't want to wait for a lot of good one-box solutions to appear, you can go the PC (or Mac) audio route.

If you want more info on computer audio I suggest you check out the PC Audio forum here on Audigon. Most of the hundreds of threads Lush mentioned in his post are on that forum. You will find a great number of very worthwhile "prescriptive" solutions (such as the one Rbstehno just posted here), and you will also find a great deal of helpful background information.

Like good CDPs or good transports, computers (PC, Mac or Linux) can very good "PCM data handling machines" and as such are the least important part of a good digital audio system. As others have said, its the equipment upstream that is most important. IMO if you put enough research and money into those upstream components, you will have unrivaled sound quality.

The Memory Player by Nova Physics Group is your answer!

The Qsonics has a phenomonal touch screen and great user interface; plus has high quality audio sound. Check out their webpage...easy and fun to use; can get with 500Gb or more hard drive; and it connects to the Musicgiant on line store for easy downloads....qsonix.com

I use the QSonix with a Benchmark DAC1. The user interface is absolutely fantastic - search the threads for "QSonix" and you'll find my detailed description.

Sonically, IME you will hear the sound of the DAC with little character imparted by the server vs. a high end transport. I have used my DAC1 with my Cary 303 as a transport - and the dig outs of my Bel Canto and Sony SACD-1 CDPs as well - for comprison purposes. The Cary has adjustable OS rates (and a non OS setting) as well as user selectable tube and ss output stages. The DAC1 sounds a bit different than any setting on the Cary.

The Bel Canto, Sony, Cary and the QSonix sounded damn near identical (to my ear) when used a a transport with the DAC1. It's always possible that YMMV, but I would expect that most listeners (even the lunatic fringe) will be satisfied with the sonic performance of the QSonix as a transport.

2 other quick notes:

The analog outs are pretty decent, but unlikely to make you happy - you will very likely want to use the unit as a transport.

My model is the (older) 100 and gets quite noisy from time to time. Th e newer 110 is reportedly quieter, but reconditioned 100s are available at pretty steep discounts. If you can isolate the drive chasis (as I can), IMHO the 100 -though not cheap - is a pretty compelling value in touch screen servers.

In sum - find a DAC you like and the QSonix will sound great and the interface will change your listening habits forever. I coud never go back to a CD player (or even a text based server) after living with the QSonix.

Good Luck

Marty

I still don't get computer audio for the audiophile. The only true benefit is that you don't have to get your butt off the couch to change songs. People are talking about dumping $10k for a sonoos thing and then running it into a $1k benchmark DAC for "good" sound. Why on earth would anyone spend all that money for a sound that is not nearly as good as a $4k cd player just to sit on the couch and surf. Sorry, but these are my opinions and no matter how you slice it it is just convenience, which costs a lot of money all to hook it up to a mediocre DAC. Once you start hooking up expensive DACs then the whole thing is lost even more.

Then there are downloads. To get the best sound you need to buy the CD anyway then rip it. Sure there are hi-rez downloads....about 20 of them in weird genres. So for arguments sake let's say everything is downloadable in hi-rez. Then what, you are faced with backing up drives and media......CDs can last forever (at least as long as the average human lives)....hard drives have been lasting for about 5 years.... I have CDs that are almost 30 years old and play with no problem....I have had 4 computers in the last 10 years........So now you download all this stuff and every 5 years or so you need to copy it to a new hard drive somewhere.

Sorry folks, I am not seeing it. I am sure I will get hammered for this post but I couldnt take it anymore. It is downright silly to invest in something like a Sooloos thing to me.