i read the reviews in TAS on music servers and the $6k and $12k music servers reviewed don't offer any more than my mac setup (except the touch screen), and my mac setup does much more and it is thousands cheaper. IMO, i haven't heard a music server that sounds decent, they all need an external dac to improve the sound. Even in the TAS review, they indicated that these needed an external dac. a mac with itunes 7 using cover flow, hooked up directly to an external dac using the toslink cable, with a raid 5 disk setup with terabytes of data, multiple airport express units for whole house audio capabilities, an ipod touch or iphone to remotely control itunes from another part of the house, and you have a system that offers more than the reviewed servers and is still thousands less than the $6k model that was reviewed. if you want to spend a little more money, you can buy used mac mini's to substitute for the airport express and you can share the itunes library from 1 central source and have multi-source, multi zone music, plus you get web access from each location the mini is setup.
Music Server vs. PC vs. Transport vs. ?
I don;t really want to add another rack in my living room. If I do, I may end up sleeping on one of the couches. Ideally, I would like to do the following:
1. Either use a pc or a server to store discs and have them accessable.
2. Have a way for the kids/wife to hook up their ipods
3. Have a way to get digital radio (xm, sirius or even computer streaming, doesn;t matter)
4. Do all of this WITHOUT degrading the sound quality ( i know, the ipod, by definition will do this)
My understanding of most high end DACs is that they do not have USB ports, but that is the ideal port to use to negate jitter. As I was researching this, I got the latest issue of the absolute sound, and they address some of this a bit. My feeling seems to be that one pays a HUGE premium for a server, that both their DACs and PCs DACs suck, and one has to get a USB to AES or other adapter, and still use an external DAC. It also seems that if one is willing to use a lossless system, that the universal opinion is that a hard drive rivals or beats any transports.
So my initial thought would be to get a pc with an ipod dock, run lossless, get an additional adapter say from Wavelength, and use the current dac. That adds at least two pieces, maybe three.
Help?????
Thanks,
Chris
Help??????
Thanks,
Chris
1. Either use a pc or a server to store discs and have them accessable.
2. Have a way for the kids/wife to hook up their ipods
3. Have a way to get digital radio (xm, sirius or even computer streaming, doesn;t matter)
4. Do all of this WITHOUT degrading the sound quality ( i know, the ipod, by definition will do this)
My understanding of most high end DACs is that they do not have USB ports, but that is the ideal port to use to negate jitter. As I was researching this, I got the latest issue of the absolute sound, and they address some of this a bit. My feeling seems to be that one pays a HUGE premium for a server, that both their DACs and PCs DACs suck, and one has to get a USB to AES or other adapter, and still use an external DAC. It also seems that if one is willing to use a lossless system, that the universal opinion is that a hard drive rivals or beats any transports.
So my initial thought would be to get a pc with an ipod dock, run lossless, get an additional adapter say from Wavelength, and use the current dac. That adds at least two pieces, maybe three.
Help?????
Thanks,
Chris
Help??????
Thanks,
Chris
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- 102 posts total
- 102 posts total