Music Server/DAC in Same Box

The difficulty with one-box music servers is that the designers sometimes make poor choices for music rippers and playback software. They often exclude the use of individual tracks or certain formats. All of these things can add up to lack of choice and resulting poor performance IME.

IMO, you are better off to stay with something you know sounds good, like iTunes and Pure Music etc.. Rippers like dbpoweramp and XLD. Just put your efforts into making the computer itself sound better, like external DC supply, SSD and USB outboard interfaces.

There are some interesting examples on this month's Absolute Sound, hosted on avguide dot com.

* micromega-400-integrated-amplifier-wireless-dac. It has it's own wifi network (!) and only works with iTunes.

* Electrocompaniet PD-1 USB DAC and ECI 3 Integrated Amplifier.

thanks for the replies.

David, no I have not compared the Mach2Music to the basic Mac Mini.

Markemark, I check out the Micromega 400. Interesting indeed, but the amp may be the weak link and I am not willing to compromise in that important part of the chain.

if you don't have to store the music on the same machine you should look into a Windows Home Server running Squeezebox software and pickup a Touch or Transporter. The Transporter has a very good DAC section stock and there are many folks who have modded the Touch with good results.

What is your budget?