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In Reply to: Thanks...But posted by Frihed89 on October 25, 2006 at 23:53:35:
Are you sure you have a good handle on what a NAS is? Your question doesn't make sense to me. The idea of NAS is a network accessible file server. In other words, its generally a dumb box that makes storage available across a network. If you add "programmable features," then you are talking about a networked computer, not a file server. (Yes, I recognize that a file server incorporates a CPU, but its not intended as a device for end user computing).I suspect some of the one-box designs (e.g., Olive) may be networked, in which case I'd guess the drive they store stuff on is network accessible too. You might look that direction.
Or, you could simply build a cheap computer, put in a good audio card, a bunch of drives, and network it.
Follow Ups:
No, I don't and i see your point, but there is something nice about the idea of having a music server that does not contain a DAC, but the digital signal can be sent to the DAC by wireless and by more conventional AES/EBU, etc.Maybe i'm the only one who thinks this is a good idea.
All the music servers i know of have dacs in them, and i do not care for any of them.
Hmm... In my mind, PC audio involves four things--storage, computing, audio interface, and DAC. Going backwards, I agree with about the separate DAC part, but I think you need to be resigned to using a device w/a built-in DAC, even if you are only using coax digital out/AES EBU digital out. There might be some specialized audio cards that only do digital (and not analog) out, but not many. I think Empirical audio also has a USB external device that is can be spec'd w/AES EBU outputs and has no DAC in it. All the mass market (or even mass market+ devices, up to an including the Transporter) are probably going to include a DAC, because putting in a DAC substantially increases their potential buyers w/o adding a lot to the manufacturing costs.The remaining three parts can be packaged together--or not--in a multitude of ways. There is the NAS solution for storage, which completely isolates that component. Alternatively, you can combine storage and processing in something like a PC, or you can even combine storage, processing and audio interface in something like an Olive music server. Alternatively, you can separate computing and audio interface by using a thin client--like the roku or slim devices products--and a server running some software package. Or, you can combine computing and audio interface in something like the audiotrons that used to be available.
I like my NAS because it is accessible by any computer on my network and I can stick it in a closet far away from earshot. But, if you go the thin client route, you get to the same result, since any computer running the software pretty much has to be on all the time, and you can add big disks inside or outside that PC that can then be shared on the network. (I still favor NAS for this, just because I've had better reliability with RAID NAS than even internal drives, and certainly external USB drives).
But, this all gets back to the idea that there is no real reason, in my mind, for combining the storage and computing parts of a digital audio setup. You might get marginally faster write speeds with a drive directly wired to the PC using something like SATA, but I usually start the ripper and then do something else anyway.
Once you elect to separate the storage, you have a variety of options. I use, in some places in my house, slim boxes--SB3s--either wired to a DAC or to a stereo via analog out (some NAS boxes, like the Terastation, can actually run slimserver). I also have a legacy audiotron in my garage (laziness--anyone wanna buy three of them?) that works a bit differently. In my study, my main computing rig uses a soundcard w/digital out to feed a DAC. In my living room, I have a headless miniPC controlled by an airpanel that feeds a USB audio device (waveterminal U24) then a DAC.
So... You have lots of options and, depending upon your desires, can pretty much build/buy whatever collection of components you want...
Thank you.
There are a couple of vendors who make NAS boxes which also support the UPnP protocol.Then there are storage boxes that have analog audio and video out but not S/PDIF or AES/EBU.
The closest to your needs is probably a headless PC with a digital sound card and musicserver software installed...
Cheers
nt
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