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RE: Playing 24/96 and 24/192 FLAC files. What to use?

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In Reply to: RE: Playing 24/96 and 24/192 FLAC files. What to use? posted by Freo-1 on May 09, 2020 at 10:04:22

I also recommend the Sony UPD X1100ES and simply use the analog outputs to your preamp. I have used mine via Ethernet to a NAS (network addressable storage) drive. It's simple enough to just go to the drive in the Sony's input list, then select the file on the drive (in your case FLAC) and it just plays. I use non-compressed WAV files, but it's the same principle. I use my NAS drive for all my storage backup for my various computers to store files. But it works equally well as a media server.
Now I'm using a WD My Cloud Pro Series 32TB PR4100 4-Bay NAS Server, which is huge and expensive at about $1500. I use that because it has multiple uses (not just audio and movies) since I also do computer graphics and professional audio, so I need that level of storage across many different applications. However, you could get a NAS drives/servers for much much less. Such as the WD My Cloud Home 3TB 1-Bay Personal Cloud NAS Server, which sell for about $150 USD. Of course, it all depends on how much storage you need for all your files. Nice thing about these is they exist as just another node on your home network. Connect to your router and go.
As far as up-coverting CD's to higher sampling ... Not better. The source is still 16/44.1 and oversampling does not bring back what is lost when the CD was mastered down to 16/44.1 in the first place, that's a misconception. It's just 16/44 quality re-sampled after the fact. It's still the same quality. How can the upsampler know what was lost at mastering? It can't. Your better off listening to CD at their original sampling and eliminate the extra conversion processing.

Edits: 06/14/20 06/14/20 06/14/20

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