Music Server - The Search Begins

@snackeyp did you end up finding a server that works best for the digital side with your Lyngdorf? Curious as I am in the same place as you - current streaming from my PS Audio Directstream and just got a Lyngdorf 3400 as well. 

@soundsrealaudio- which Melco model do you have ? 

I'm seriously considering the Melco N1A Mk2, for around $2500. 
The amount of detail they put into the engineering to reduce noise is admirable. Any glitches with using outside Apps like Tidal ? or JRiver? 

But the Melco does have not have all the features of the
 Cocktailv50, that thing is loaded with options. I just wonder if the
 audio signal might suffer due to trying to do so many things at once. 

Hi,

We do have a demo Zenith mk2, with 1Tb, that's currently looking for a new home :) Contact us for pricing, etc.
If you need more storage, the mk3 now comes in up to 4Tb capacity. 
We can also put together a simple NAS for you, if your collection is fairly large or you'd just rather keep the files elsewhere. 

cheers,
Alex
(alex@almaaudio.com)

I changed my mind about the Cocktail Audio server.  
I'm going to continue researching this.
in the mean time, I just ordered a RAID array to create a storage and back up system for my music and photos.  Since my Lyngdorf amp has a media player built in, I plan to try either J River or Roon to play music from the RAID and see if I like it.  From there I will have a clearer idea which direction I want to go.  

Good luck with the Cocktail x50

Hope you are happy with it but I have to tell you I ordered a X30 for my daughter and ended up returning it as it just did not sound good at all.
Hard to describe but my opinion was that is was more "lifestyle" than "audiophile".Think that is why there is a paucity of reviews to be had.

I would have warned you away from Cocktail but you did not give much indication you would be even considering that option seriously.

And truly, 2tb of storage is massive, 2500cds and I am only 17% storage used and that is wav files.

Keep us informed as I am intrigued.

Well, after much consideration I've decided to order the Cocktail Audio X50D.  I chose it for several reasons that I won't fully elaborate on right now, but one of the biggest motivators was it's versatility, with emphasis on storage capacity.  It has two bays for hard drive or SSD and can be configured as a RAID with up to 16TB storage, which is pretty cool.  I don't envision needing that much, but who really knows?  I just didn't want to settle for something with a max of 2TB where I can easily see myself hitting that limit and having to work toward another solution. 
The price for this unit seems like a bargain considering its feature set, but considering that there are no serious reviews available I feel a bit like I'm jumping in and will just have to accept the bad with the good.  I'm hoping it will be just what I have been looking for. 
Peter 

Godmorning from Denmark,

Just a small kick-in, the Lyngdorf Tdai 3400 and 2170 do not use Dac, they are digital amplifiers that use pcm in the signal processing and pwm in the amplifier, the pwm signal is also digital (a sort of Digital) and drives the speaker: https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA00Z0000019OkFSAU
"In Lyngdorf Audio’s totally digital processing, a digital input is processed and subsequently transformed into a pulse width modulated code (PWM) based on the patented Equibit™ technology originally developed for the Lyngdorf Audio Millennium amplifier.  Without any analog signal processing"

You would do well to check out the server from Mojo Audio. I have one of his servers of which I'm very happy. Ben provides excellent customer service and will spend a lot of phone time with you. He offers a 30 or 40 day refurn policy. Mojoaudio.com.

You would do well to check out the server from Mojo Audio. I have one of his servers of which I'm very happy. Ben provides excellent customer service and will spend a lot of phone time with you. He offers a 30 or 40 day refurn policy. Mojoaudio.com.

without hawing read it all, buy  a Nuc i7 install Roon Rock and enjoy.
use your pc. for Ripping, put it to a storrage and forget about it  :-)

I’m a fan of separating my storage from my Dac and my renderer / player - that way - the individual components can be upgraded or replaced if needed.   

I’m very happy with a dedicated QNAP server networked in another room - many size choices - you can never have too much storage space - I have 32 tb with raid 6 running fine for the past 3 years - with LMS and Roon both running on their server - I just rip CD’s on my PC and store them on the networked server.  I use a special built fanless Linux PC as a player / endpoint ( Lampizator Komputer) - running into a Lampizator Big 7 Dac -  the system has been bullet proof for me for many years and I like the fact that there are no hard drives or fans spinning in my listening room and the qnap also serves my movies and recorded TV throughout the house -  roughly 20k albums and 2k movies and I’ve still got plenty of HD space and the ability to expand with external hard drive usb 3 ports on the server - I can serve the content to plex players, chrome cast, airplay, LMS touch and squeezebox radios throughout the house - all controlled with a phone, tablet, laptop or PC -  everything just works perfectly -  I avoid wireless transmission wherever possible - just to ensure good solid communication throughout the house 

I guess I knew but did not know that if you get my drift..lol.
Yes I use a Mytek Brooklyn and I do not think any NAD dac would better that anyway so maybe a moot point

Uber
NAD, one of the parent companies for Bluesound, has some expensive (around 4K) streamers that use the same BluOS app.  I suspect that they view Bluesound as the budget line and their Master Series as the HE alternative.  I haven’t heard the Master Series, but my sneaking suspicion is that the big improvement over Bluesound would be included DAC.  For those of us that have DACs with the Bluesound—I use the Mytek Manhatten—this would be a useless and costly feature.  At any rate, I don’t see them upgrading Bluesound because it would be to the detriment of the Master Series

Mahler123

I believe you could be right on it having been a bug that has subsequently been resolved. I am also fairly sure I tried both Usb ports early on( purchased in Dec 2016) and neither worked for playback. Add this to the fact that the help article I viewed today was dated Feb 2018.

Additional there is an excellent help article for setting up shared folders on win10 os that even I could follow by Bluesound too.

All in all outstanding customer support IMHO.

Now it will be interesting to see if they bring to the market a more upscale product maybe with a ssd drive and usb output to a DAC.

I would be interested based on present experience.

Uber

Holy crap!  I just did the same thing with a usb stick and am playing it through the Vault.  I could have sworn that I had tried that USB port back when I purchased it and that it didn’t work.  Do you think it’s possible that they had a bug that they fixed with a firmware update?
  Glad to see that you could transfer the Vault files, as I have done (I had an IT pro help me, with Bluesound support on speakerphone).
  Do you listen to Internet Radio?  I really like the way that the Bluesound app organizes the choices.  It blows the Tune  In app on Apple away.
  I haven’t figured out how to rip from the Vault and have the files end up directly on the NAS.  The Bluesound tech support wasn’t too keen on helping with that.
  For the money, Bluesound really is a terrific option

There are many reasons the Bluesound system was right for me. First it is, for the most part, budget audio gear. I paid $499 for my Node 2 and it has punched way above my expectations. Secondly, it is very versatile allowing me to listen to my digital library on a NAS or stream music like Tidal, Tidal MQA, Spotify or other services ( I think the Vault 2 would allow the user to play the Vault internal library of music or another external library as an option as well) Third, the customer service has been truly top rate and have helped me with some setup issues. Fourth, Lenbrook and NAD have an experienced team in digital audio and you could go with the higher end NAD systems later. Lastly, my impression is that even though there are many other platform choices at different price points from various high end manufacturers of audio, Bluesound (Lenbrook) have invested alot into making their system work and improve upon it. They seem to work for me, but good luck with the OP’s choice...whichever ecosystem he goes with.

I really like my Melco. Very easy to use. You will need a $160 Buffalo Burner which is fast. The nice thing about that is if the burner burns out you don't lose your server. 

Uber
  The USB port on the Vault2 is for playback into a usb DAC not for attaching HDs.  I had also tried initially attaching a HD to it.
  I have added a NAS to my system and both my Vault2 and Node2 recognizes it.  I use the Bluesound app to play files from it.  It shows up as a separate folder in the Libraries section of the app.  With a little fiddling you can also transfer the contents of the Vault to the NAS, so all my music shows up on one folder.

After perusing the Bluesound help files and actually trying it I can confirm the Vault 2 does indeed recognise and playback music from a local USB drive inserted into the back of the unit. You have to connect it to the second port down not the top USB port. It then shows up under your navigation drawer as usb, click it and you can access the music contained via the folders option.

Between this and accessing NAS ( which I have also now cracked, Win10 setup being the issue) it makes the Bluesound Vault 2 a very powerful and versatile option for the grand sum of $1000 to $1200 depending on what deal you can find.

I have had it 18 months and only just now figured out it can do a lot more than I ever did with it....doh!

I auditioned one of the very expensive Green Computer servers. Also experimented with dedicated solutions like the Roon Nuc. I'm pretty good with computers and found I could build a PC with the proper hardware and software for MUCH less than any of the boxed solutions that sounded significantly superior. And BTW, it feeds a 2170 via OMG!! USB. I played with the Ethernet solutions, very expensive Ethernet solutions, and ran away from those too to USB. I know, blaspheme. The money wasn't an issue. All decisions were made on perceived performance.

@honeybee2012 I'm hoping to see the Innuos within two weeks. I did preorder, however, so my guess is general release will not be until October or so.

I ordered mine through Tony Barnette at Ellington HiFi. I also bought my Lyngdorf through him and I've been really happy with his service and follow up. http://www.ellingtonhifi.com/

I just went to my friend ,you can go to any competent 
computer  and repair shop ,build you ur own .
for well under $2k you can get a much better setup with all name brand name top parts. I have 3 Western digital Solid state drives ,
spool disc drives which many still use, heat pipe cases which are under $350 N moving parts, no fans a built in ,seperate linearpower supply, or seperate dvd-cd 
drive or both DB power amp to rip your discs ,Excellent program and versitile ,Jrivers24 software to catalog your library,as well as now they offer many radio stations ,several such as                Radio Paradise ,and JRivers that have high quality 24/96 Flac files
for ,No extra money.  Getting back to building 
you get a Top Gifabyte or other great name brand  mother board, intel 5 or 7 processor, Corsair or other top names of memory.it sits on your rack  like an amp .there are Hirez capabilities. None of these $3k serves can even approach  this 
quality for build.  That’s just me ,like with most speakers,and electronic 
unless you have $$ to buy the best on average 25%of the cost 
at most goes into the product, the rest markup and overhead.
That is a fact .i owned and operated a Audiostore for a number 
of years and the stores get over 45% on average for markup.
when you have custom built 60% or more goes into the quality 
of the parts. This is just something to consider. I am convinced 
as in modding premium quality parts Do matter,if  you plan on keeping it . The Dac is seperate Anyway. 

Wolf Audio makes excellent servers at many performance levels.  My Luna is controllable from an iPad or the large monitor touchscreen attached to the unit.  Support and service is excellent. 
https://wolfaudiosystems.com/

I have been using the cocktail x50 for about 1 year now and I am very happy with it.  Excellent interface, up to 12 terabytes of storage, mqa rendering, support for Tidal and Spotify and excellent sound quality overall. I also have the Auralic Aries in another system and I use a NAS drive to communicate with the x50.  Excellent support. 

I have the 2TB Innous Zenith MK2.  It’s a great CD ripper; easy to setup and use; I control it using my iPad Pro or laptop.  Tidal masters and DSD music sounds fantastic.  You can rip to WAV or FLAC, I prefer FLAC.  

Instead of Roon, I use its Logitech Media Server because I have a number of Squeezebox, Raspberry PI DAC, and AirPlay active speaker end-points around the house.

I think you’d be very satisfied with a Zenith.  Since the MK3 is out, you might be able to get a used or demo MK2 at a good price.

@austinbob what delivery date did they give you for the MKIII?

Inuos makes a $999 unit and as several of us have mentioned Alma music in SanDiego

I also own a Lyngdorf 3400. I have a Innuos Zenith Mark III on order that has the functions you require. They make less expensive models too. Being able to control the server via IPad or IPhone is a must for me. The Innuos is also a Roon ready Core and Endpoint. If you’re not familiar with Roon, you should consider a free trial combined with Tidal. You might find you rip only those CDs not available in Tidal—it’s that good sonically. You can attach a portable HD to the Innuos for extra storage or go the NAS route as well. Ideally you attach via Ethernet IMO. The USB output usually allows for highest resolution files to be played, including DSD 

@rsure The TDAI-3400 is really good, and yes, the room correction really does work.  
I started a thread in the amps section that documents some of my experiences so far.  
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/lyngdorf-tdai-3400

It's still breaking in and keeps improving as it relaxes and opens up.  
It's one of those products that completely defies any conventional thinking about audio gear.  A digital amp is not supposed to sound this good.  FYI, I play mostly vinyl through my system and have only owned tube gear for the past 10 years.  The TDAI-3400 is better than anything I have owned.  Very impressive.

Thanks Mahler
Now at least I know I am not going crazy wondering whay it will not see the external hard drive that is connected via usb to the vault.
So with that part my initial thoughts were correct, it is for a hard drive to back files up to only.

As I have no further music files bar what is on my vault and pc it really does not worry me too much now but good to know for future reference and for potential new buyers.

mahler123
Thanks for the clarification on the Vault2. I had thought that maybe the USB connection was not intended for accessing external files on a HDD or NAS. I use the BluOs app on my tablet, phone and computer to get to the NAS folder to play external files, just as you do. It is worth noting that Bluesound has it’s own way to recognize a folder with music and metadata. Each folder must have the music files AND a jpg or png image of that (album) or artwork associated with the piece of music labeled cover.jpg. I had to make these folders myself since much of my library consisted of folders with artwork files Bluesound would not recognize. I am sure whatever file folders the Vault2 creates on it’s internal HDD when you rip a CD, it does it automatically. When using a Node 2 that does not automatically create these music files with the correct metadata like the Vault2, one must understand how Bluesound works with files.
https://support1.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/articles/200271926-Why-is-some-of-my-Album-Cover-Art-shown-a...It is good information for anyone thinking of buying a Vault2 that it does indeed allow for as much music you would want to use it for. It is not limited to the internal HDD storage.

Uber
  The USB port on the Vault2 is for playback into a usb DAC not for attaching HDs.  I had also tried initially attaching a HD to it.
  I have added a NAS to my system and both my Vault2 and Node2 recognizes it.  I use the Bluesound app to play files from it.  It shows up as a separate folder in the Libraries section of the app.  With a little fiddling you can also transfer the contents of the Vault to the NAS, so all my music shows up on one folder.
  

OP
The Bluesound App does work well, for everything except Classical Music.  For CM, it at least isn’t any worse than iTunes.  If you don’t listen to Classical or Jazz then the app should be fine , but a tablet or phone is absolutely necessary 

IMO, out of all servers mentioned here, I would pick the Auralic Aries over any 1 of them for many reasons.
When going this route, you need to look at:
SQ
functionality- support connected disks or access a NAS/server, integration of Tidal or other streaming services.
front end software - besides Roon, DS Lightning is fantastic

I have been using music servers for over 15 years and I went down the path of the Auralic Aries a few years ago and then went to a much different route for a much better SQ and a more enjoyable listening experience overall late last year. IMO:
never have any kind of server with spinning disks in your audio room and going the SSD route is a waste of money for music.
never use usb into a dac
use Roon for front end, best SQ and music integration of ripped/purchased music and Tidal.
get a dac with a bridge and use Ethernet to connect the dac to a real server.
use a pc/Mac to store to store your ripped/purchased music and keep this server far from your audio room. Set up a RAID over multiple disks for a more fault tolerant system and make sure this server has enough disk to backup your music every hour or every day.
Most music servers don’t allow setting up a RAID nor do they have a means to backup your data and especially, how do you restore the data when a disk fails or you screw up and delete music accidentally 

Fidata server plus Lumin U1 mini streamer. 

Contact Alex at Alma Music and Audio for the Innuos.

https://almaaudio.com/

Oops meant thanks! 

Hi snackeyp,

Can I ask what your experience has been with the Lyngdorf TDAI-3400? I am especially curious to understand if the room correction is very effective and can help one replace having to do room treatments?

thanks?

Innuous sounds interesting.  Any recommended U.S. sellers, online or other?  I'm in Minneapolis and do not believe there are any dealers here.

And this was extraordinary:

http://prairieaudiomancave.com/reviews--reports/is-it-live-or-is-ita-super-komputer

This is what I use to great effect:

http://http//ayllonmedia.com/blog-and-news/the-lampizator-dsd-komputer-an-audio-expo-in-your-living-room-or-not

And apparently you can just add files directly from your PC without needing to rip the CD.

No idea why I stated could not previously as I remember adding a load of my daughter's mp3 files to the library direct at PC.

But I still do not see a Usb drive when plugged in back of the vault so not sure what is going on there. 


https://support1.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/articles/200387457-Accessing-the-Bluesound-Vault-s-Internal-...

You should plan for DSD with an investment of this sort, you would want the door open to the future of digital streaming. 

This from Bluesound support pages.
Interesting.

https://support1.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/articles/201158077-How-USB-Storage-Differs-From-A-Local-Libr...

I wonder if it is only the Bluesound models that do NOT have a built in hard drive that can see external storage.
I cannot on my vault, at least not with it plugged into the usb port of the vault.

Any other Vault owners chime in? Could very well be I am missing something.

Not that I have any other files on any other drive bar an exact copy of what's on the vault but now I am very curious.

I recently bought a Bluesound Vault 2 and am pleasantly surprised how good it is.  Very easy to use once you get the hang of it and so many options for sourcing music.  It's the Squeezebox Touch of it's time, but with greater functionality and sound quality.  It's a steal for a little over $1,000 bucks!  

Alma Audio in SanDiego wants to move the demo, it is 1 TB
but you need a NAS anyway....
unless you feel charmed....... 

I did an exhaustive search for a music server, including many of the devices on your list.  Ended up purchasing the Innuos Zenith (2TB SSD).  Hands down was the best sounding and easiest to use.  This is real audiophile quality.   Might be able to get a good deal on a demo MKII as the MKIII is coming out any day.  You will not be disappointed.  Good luck with your search!

+1 for Innuos.  Very simple to rip cd’s and manage library.  I just started running Roon and love it.  Sound is excellent - and I just have the Zen.

Bluesound allows external NAS 
my generation one powernode can see and read my NAS with 2,800 CD on it....

i would suggest you get a 4 Bay NAS, start with 2 drives in a RAID and host ROON server on a 128 ssd drive in bay 3

or ROON Odyssey + box and a 2 Bay NAS

or Innouous that can run ROON core and rip

As I said, to my knowledge it does not.
I know when I have my external hard drive connected to it by Usb I cannot see it either via the app or PC.

Maybe there is a workaround?