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Premium grade music server

219.76.15.6
Posted on July 9, 2017 at 17:47:49
Tube747
Audiophile

Posts: 419
Joined: May 11, 2004
 Hello!
Anyone can recommend a high end music server which is able to handle hi rez files as well as ripping CD with bit perfect?


Of course Ethernet and USB connection is a must. Also it should be capable 32 bits 192 kHz (or higher).

 

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RE: Premium grade music server, posted on July 9, 2017 at 21:27:12
John Elison
Audiophile

Posts: 23900
Location: Central Kentucky
Joined: December 20, 2000
Contributor
  Since: January 29, 2004
 I use Exact Audio Copy (EAC) on my computer to rip CDs. It's free software available at the link below.

For a music server, I have two. One is an Oppo BDP-105D universal network player, which has been replaced with the newer Oppo UDP-205 at the same price. My other music server is a TASCAM DA-3000 DSD recorder. It can playback digital files from a USB flash drive. It will play WAV files up to 24/192 PCM in addition to 2.8-MHz and 5.6-MHz DSD files. It will play these directly from a USB flash drive plugged into its front panel USB port. The Oppo will play WAV, FLAC, AIFF, etc. up to 24/192 PCM in addition to 2.8-MHz DSD files from USB hard drives and flash drives plugged directly into its three USB ports.

Best regards,
John Elison

 

RE: Premium grade music server, posted on July 10, 2017 at 11:03:08
PAR
 It depends slightly on what you mean by a music server. It could mean software installed on a computer (if done correctly this is most definitely high end). Alternatively it could mean a box devoted to ripping, storage and replay.

I use the first type of solution. The server software is JRiver MC22 (MC23 is waiting ). Bit perfect ripping is included in this solution although my preference is to use dbpoweramp for its accuracy, flexibilty and its metadata capabilities using its associated software PerfectTunes (comes as part of the package). You can store the music files on the computer, in a NAS set up or with direct attached storage using HDD or SSD.

The separate box idea has a couple of variations. One is a server box connected to your DAC having storage facilities itself, the other relying upon external storage ( NAS or DAS again). Many of these do not have ripping facilities and rely upon the ripping being done elswhere ( e.g on a PC or Mac) with the files then transferred to the storage. Some do have ripping facilites BUT I have found the abilty to correctly identify metadata ( both text and album artwork) with such components far less reliable than with dbpoweramp. The importance of this aspect will depend upon your attitude to metadata and, partly, to your favoured music genres. I have a "rip once and rip correctly" attitude as I don't want to have to go back and re-rip in a few years. If you like chart type music then that is the easiest to satisfy but if your tastes are in less popular areas then the inbuilt ripping software is less likely to be succesful in this respect. One main reason is that they usually only connect to a single database for track information. By way of example I was loaned a ripper/storage/streamer unit last month and it failed to find any data at all for over 60% of the classical albums I tried to load. It couldn't even find data for the new 50th anniversary Sgt. Pepper apparently because that was too new!

Anyway good all-in-one boxes in general are upper range Innuos or the Naim Uniti Core ( for the latter you insert your own preference for disk storage). However I would use external ripping instead of the inbuilt option for the above reasons. Good boxes without ripping are e.g. Melco or Aurender.

You also need to take account of the (remote) control software as some servers or streamers do not have their own e.g. Innuos or Melco and you need to use a general type such as Orange Squeeze for Innuos. Other control apps may be inadequate for e.g. classical music having no field for composer (e.g. Naim Uniti). You may need to use work arounds which again makes a case for ripping separately.

All of these solutions will deal with hi-rez formats.

 

RE: Premium grade music server, posted on July 10, 2017 at 12:44:29
bigshow
Audiophile

Posts: 472
Location: WI
Joined: December 3, 2012
 One word: Aurender.
bigshow

 

RE: Premium grade music server, posted on July 11, 2017 at 12:56:39
AbeCollins
Audiophile

Posts: 46280
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
Contributor
  Since: February 2, 2002
 Many music servers are basically just a PC (or a PC motherboard) in a nice chassis with operating system and software stripped down to limit it's capabilities and presumably make it easier for non-computer types to operate.

That being said, a decent $500 - $1500 PC or Mac will do exactly what you are asking for but you can spend thousands on a dedicated music server if you like.

The Aurender W20 is about $17,000 but they make more affordable models. I did confirm and post photos on the Asylum that the W20 is built upon a commodity mini-ITX PC motherboard. It's disk drives were housed in impressive looking massive chunks of machined aluminum so that must be worth something.



 

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