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
No "pops, ticks and random outs" with the Zero One in the 5 months I have owned it.
No pops and ticks with my USB Wavefront Cosecant or Squeezeboxes running on Ethernet
Chris, I run wireless to my Sonos and no issues. FYI Sonos runs on a proprietary wireless network that seems to be more robust than my wifi (Linksys). I have not had any issues with drop outs or any other strange sounds. One thing to keep in mind when thinking about what approach you want to use when setting up a music server is the user interface. How easy will it be for you to access your library? The Sonos comes with a nice handheld wireless controller with a large color screen and Ipod like scroll wheel that makes accessing the library very easy.
Chrisla - the review you mention is an old one, using a USB driver from M-Audio, ASIO and SRC upsampling. This really taxes any computer. I think there might have been a bit of user error here also.

With newer Windows drivers and the USB firmware I implemented (very costly) this does not happen anymore.

If you have a really old laptop with a slow processor and .5Gbytes of memory, it may still happen with any USB converter or DAC. All USB interfaces have this potential. This is why I recommend fast CPU and 1-2GBytes of memory.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Tboooe - I also have a Sonos and controller. Great user interface, but the jitter from the stock ZP80 is quite bad, much worse than a typical transport. IMO, if you want something decent stock, the SB3 is it.

Steve N.