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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
128x128chrisla
tboooe's avatar
tboooe
1,009 posts
 
Chris, my new gear will be arriving by mid of next week. Any time after that you are more than welcomed to cruise over. Looking forward to it! Just promise me no talk about vinyl...I cant afford to go down that path!!! My wife would kill me!
rbstehno
916 posts
 
it is easy to hook up a toslink cable from a mac or an airport express device to an external dac. it is also very easy to build a whole house distributed music system or a dedicated audio setup using a mac computer. you first have to determine what you want: single room setup or whole house distributed system, how much money do you want to spend, and what kind of sound quality do you want to have.
personally, i wouldn't use a macbook or any mac laptop as a music server. IMO, they are not built to be left on 24x7x365 days a year like a powermac or a newer mac pro. i have been looking on the internet for a used g5 powermac that can be used as my music server. i use a macbook to remotely control my mini from another room/floor to play itunes to other locations using either cat 5e cable or wireless.
if you use an apple tv device or a mac mini in each room where you want music, you can use front row with its remote to control itunes.
as for disk, a NAS device with RAID options is the way to go but costs more $$$$,
bigamp
216 posts
 
Chris, no problem. This is fun stuff.
ait
480 posts
 
An alternative view: I have the Zero One Mercury music server, and for $2600 I dare anyone to best its sound with a PC. It uses a 24-bit internal DAC (or any DAC you care to plug into it) and my version has a 750GB hard drive that can store about 1200 CDs as bit-for-bit copies, copied at 4X speed (i.e. 10 minutes for a 40 minute CD). The sound is outstanding (see the recent 6 Moons review) and operation is as easy as plugging it in, loading some CDs and off you go. You can choose upsampling/oversampling rates, filters (brickwall to gentle slope to none), and dither types (not needed with the 24-bit internal DAC). I love it. Just my humble opinion, though.
chrisla's avatar
chrisla OP
116 posts
 
What a great thread for me. I really want to thank ALL of you for your input. It seems everybody has found an ideal solution for what is important to them, and everybody is more than helpful. I have met so many great people on the 'gon, and looking over some of my old threads, what fantastic help. I was pretty apprehensive about posting this thread, as I am, after all an acoustic, vibration and microwave measurement specialist and should probably know more about this than I do, but you all have been beyond gracious and helpful. Keep those cards and letters coming!

Best,
Chris
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