Servers: Are we there yet?

For the last 18 months or so I've had an MMS-5A media server from Autonomic Controls.  It needs to be connected via a wired ethernet connection to the home network.  It also has an iPad/Android app to use content.  But it also has a Windows app, that can be used instead of the iPad/Android app.
I use iTunes to manage my library of digital content (AIFF files), and Autonomic has an app you can install on your Windows machine to "automagically" sync content to the server. It also connects to all my streaming services (Tidal, Spotify & Tunein).  It also has a wonderful app that "automagically" backs up the content to my Google Drive account.
I've been very happy with the unit.  The iPad app is not great, but it gets the job done.
The unit has a built in DAC, which I have never used, as I have an external DAC, using the coax connection (my Windows laptop uses the USB input on the DAC).

I am replacing my Mac mini. The Aurender N100H was nice but the N10 was amazingly better, IMO, with a larger soundstage and natural bass. I am interested to know if anyone has compared the Aurender N10 to the Melco?

@almarg
After I wrote my post re connections from the internet (and you replied) ...I should add that there is a simple and reasonable approach to mitigate the concerns I raised: Stand up a separate and independent wireless or ethernet network for "foreign" devices.

By example, in my home I have a Verizon wireless router which essentially provides connectivity to the Internet. This router can be configured in several interesting and useful ways by the owner.

One important way is to create two or more separate networks that only pass traffic through the router and NOT to each other. If you trust a couple of your devices, then put those on your "trusted" sub-net; likewise, if you don;t know what the heck a device is really doing (or where it’s networking software came from ...China?), then limit it’s internet access to the other "UNTRUSTED" sub-net.

This is very effective, and easy to do with almost all ISP provided routers, if your ISP router can’t do this then buy an additional router (or firewall etc) that can and stick it in-between the ISP router and all your devices.

This strategy of "isolation" or network "segmentation" has an additional benefit and that is traffic management. High-bandwidth devices should send their traffic as directly to the ISPs router as possible, otherwise it adds to internal home-network congestion. So, in my house I have several separate and isolated networks, each has one or more wireless access points. The traffic from these separate networks can not cross network segments, it can only get directly to the ISP router. This alone makes my other segments unaffected by the congestion.

@drdkey,  I have not heard about Melco. Before settling with any streamer, be sure to check out the user interface.  From my experience, Aurender has one of the best iOS app compare to any standalone streamer available today.  

I am sure owners of Lumin and Auralic may disagree :-)

I own N10 and IMHO, it's an amazing player.  Pair it with a tube output DAC and you will realize it's full potential. 

Hello again everyone,

It appears this thread has basically died, but tomcy6 did request that after I had listened to my PK100 setup for awhile to post my impressions.  Well, I am still very happy.  It remains difficult to compare to my Meridian G08 cd player because in order to A/B the two players I either have to listen to  the Meridian on my W4S dac or use the cd player without the W4S dac.  With the dac in the picture, the cd player MIGHT be a tad more resolving.  But I am really splitting hairs here.  As always the software has more to do with sound quality than the hardware.  What I mean by that is great recordings sound great either way I play them and lesser recordings sound, well, less good.  I am happy to have a server and do not see myself going back to a stand alone cd player anytime soon.  That being said, I have no plans to get rid of the Meridian, I just play it much less.  Thanks for reading.

                       jrun