Are music servers the future?

Well spoken Tbg! Besides, Empirical Audio, MSB and Request Audio, just to mention those who I have heard extensively, can most certainly show up sonic differences between the older and newer formats if your system is sufficiently up to it. Some of it comes stunningly close to the real thing, that is live music in real space. I could not care a damn, which format does what. All I want is for my sound to come as close as possible to what subjectively for my ears and my ears only comes as close as possible to the "absolute sound" of real live music.

Detlof, thanks. I hasten to say that my server is from Empirical Audio Legacy which is distinct from Empirical Audio, although they used to be together.

I hate when people say bits are bits. How many times have I heard amazing differences when others say it is impossible as "bits are bits."

I am now hearing digital that makes me want to yell "bravo!" after so many cuts that my wife might have be put in a home.

One important thing to realize about the latest generation of music servers is that they have made considerable progress in enriching ones listening experience with information (referred to as "metadata"), similar to how it used to be with vinyl, where a nice album cover and package made the overall experience more enjoyable.

That aspect of things took a dive with CD packaging for obvious reasons, and is probably still teh biggest practical drawback to CD format.

Take a look at the latest PLEX music server for example. Once music files are tagged with basic artist and album information to identify it correctly, PLEX is the first solution I have seen that may cross the inforamtion threshold that vinyl packaging used to provide, and deliver an even better and more extended and enriched listening experience, not just in one's home, but mobile out and about as well.

I feel like things are finally moving forward to some extent now with music servers, and that a lot of teh wheel spinning with the technology that naturally occurs early on is now a thing of the past.

Tbg, I espressively meant Steve Nugent's gear, which of course does not upsample as your Legacy does, because it made me hear Red Book in a completely new way.

Actually to be clear, multimedia servers (which includes music server functionality and other forms of media) is the wave of both present and future to ride I would say.

Music servers alone have limited appeal for most compared to multimedia. Multimedia servers like PLEX for example provide excellent support for high quality digital sound/music from a variety of A/V formats and sources, some of which are music specific, like FLAC, and other more proprietary formats.