Sonic differences between servers

Though it doesn’t intuitively make sense, my own experience is that servers do sound different.  Of course, there are plenty of forum participants who claim otherwise, so YMMV.  Like Fuzztone noted, they’re not big differences, but better systems will definitely be rewarded.

What do I hear as those differences? In A/B comparisons of units I own(ed), the better units offer more spatial information - i.e. depth and width.  Others talk about a lower noise floor and more musical detail.  

Fyi: I own the Auralic Aries G2.  During home audition, I compared it against an Aurender N100H which I owned and a Bluesound Node.   I’ve also directly compared the Auralic feeding a Simaudio 390 Preamp/DAC with a built in MiND streaming function. That audition was quite revealing as I was able to run both streamers parallel and merely switch inputs on the preamp w/ the remote. I was impressed with the Sim 390’s preamp and DAC for the price - it’s quite good.  However, the Auralic server easily bested the MiND server built into the Sim unit.

Then again - regardless of what I or others say - the only way for you to really know is to audition a unit (a fully broken in unit) in your system. 

Let us know how it goes.   

I switched from a Synology server when something happened to it a Melco N100. The Melco is also a player.  I had been running the Synology with a Bryston player, and the Melco sounds very different than the Synology/Bryston combination.  I have two other mid fi , HT systems in the home.  Using the Melco as a NAS only, and playing the files through an Oppo 203 and a Bluesound Node2, I can’t detect much of a difference from the Synology server.  Not a perfect experiment, but I would have to conclude that the player makes the bigger difference sonically than the server

However, the Auralic server easily bested the MiND server built into the Sim unit.

It seems the term "server" is being misused here.

What @mgrif104  compared was two different software player/renderers and how they handle a buffered audio stream, from a server somewhere else. The Sim Audio does not have a server, nor do the Auralic products. The above statement is simply not true.

In an attempt to clarify for the OP - the term "server" refers to the computing device that the file you are streaming originates from, as well as the software component necessary for the hardware to provide the file to an endpoint using some such or another protocol.

The reasons servers can vary in terms of sound quality can be due to many different things, however in a nutshell the less processing/manipulation of the data happening in the server's software-based component typically has the largest impact.

In other words, your question is about the affect the "server" has on the SQ, not the player or endpoint, and so the differences between the two should be clarified.

My mistake in the use of the term server instead of streamer. That said, the OP was asking about variations in sound between Innuos, Antipodes, etc - which I believe are streamers.  And, so the question was posed about the differences in sound quality between such units and I was attempting to be helpful by sharing my direct experience.

A server’s quality depends on noise elimination
- from the ethernet in (RFI/EMI galvanic and filteror through optical)
- from USB out (ground noise and RFI/EFI from power supply, vibration)

Again, the confusion between the player/endpoint and the server here needs to be cleared up. A device with a USB output to a DAC is a renderer/player/endpoint, not a music server. It may be a component shared within the same chassis as a server, and is typically a simple piece of software on a relatively simple architecture.

Also the idea that the quality of a server is only based on elimination of noise is a highly flawed viewpoint. The software component of the server is likely just as (if not more) important than the hardware in terms of SQ.