Best standalone music server?

@randyhat 
in all honesty the rca outputs of the vault are a little soso, i thought the bass was overcooked
however using the digital coax out i think i prefer the sound to the original cd played through my esoteric sa50!
and yes prior to the vault i was using the esoteric to stream simple stuff like pandora and spotify through and it did sound good, but the vault sounds a lot better.
of course there are pc based systems that will sound better but i am very satisfied with the results
so much so that i have put my esoteric up for sale right here on agon!
mostly listening to tidal right now...yes you lot were right!

@uberwaltz let me say sir you are very graceful in defeat! :-) Seriously glad to hear you're enjoying Tidal it is a really amazing service! Happy listening!

@jond
Bit of a dinosaur at times I am afraid but when I checked and saw a free 30 day trial, what was there to lose!
Now I have been listening to stuff from my youth I would most likely never buy but nice to have an option to stream it!
Stuff like Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Rick Wakeman, Wishbone Ash etc.
I really do like the fact that Tidal can be run inside the Bluos app as I did see that the standalone Tidal app on my droid phone was quite a bit of a memory hog, nearly as bad as Farcebook....both of which have now been forced into stop mode...lol.

I have a Bluesound Vault 2.  I'm happy with it.  It does everything I want it to do, rip CDs, catalog them, play them. There are CDs that do not have their information and picture on the Grace Note internet database, so you have to use Mp3Tag to add the song/artist information to the ripped files, but it's not that often I have to do that.  And I think that would be the same for any ripping device or software. The Vault 2 also streams from the online sources, and it has a full internet radio capability which is nice if you want to hear different music at time.  It also gets the local streaming radio stations, so I don't need a tuner.  I don't think that, for the money, you would be unhappy with it.

Thank you ubewaltz for starting this post. Years ago I worked & owned audio stores. I have been out of audio for 30+ years. My bucket list included getting back into music, now that I have the time to enjoy it. I have gotten a pretty good system for vinyl and have been trying to educate myself on digital. I am fine, when it comes to vinyl, but digital is a different store. I remember the first time we got a CD in the store and a player. We hoked it up to our Ref. system (Mags MG2s, Mac C28, Mac 275 and a B&O linear TT ) and quickly realized that the cassette tape sounded just as good as the CD and compared to vinyl the CD was a joke. That being said, an Edison phonograph compared to what we have today, you have to start somewhere.
I have been debating getting a good CD player with a DAC, seeing as I have 500+ CDs and all the CDs are on my computer. After reading all the outstanding comments in this post, I am forced to rethink the CD player. I was looking at the Esoteric, Ayon, and the ARC players costing $5000+ on average. The idea of a streamer sounds fantastic on the surface, but I am far from a geek. In fact I spent as much time looking up what computer terms meant, as I did reading the post.
I don't want to start up an old battle, but in reading all your comments as to the sound quality of the Vault, I was wondering if you had ever compared a CD, tidal, or streaming to Vinyl? I have been listening to music from my Ipad, phone, or bluetooth MP3 in my car and to my AV system. The other night, I finally got the system I have been putting together to play vinyl and played a record. I must say I was blown away. I had to just sit an enjoy the music. Can't believe I was away from it for so long. 
I just wanted to put my 2 cents worth regarding coping CDs to the computer. I am sure I have purchased the same music over and over thru the years. I have purchased my favorite music on 45 rpm, 8 tracks, cassettes, LPs, CDs, buying off the internet, and now with say Tidal, I have to pay per month to listen to the same music I purchased many times before. No wonder the records companies make so much money. Than goodness for the internet, so anyone can get there music to the public without the record companies.