Best standalone music server?

@mahler Very sorry. It was never my intent to start a debate. I am new to forums of any kind and will have to be more attuned to what I post. I very much want to get digital music in my system and I was thrilled to hear, that the Vault sounded so good and most of all, I feel I might be able to learn how to use it. Yes, I love vinyl, but it is a pain. Digital music is much easier and lets you enjoy it without the record ending, getting up, cleaning it, and putting  it away. All I know is Bluetooth to my AV receiver and it does not sound that good. Maybe I should have asked to compare the sound to MP3 or Bluetooth to get a comparison.

I do agree that the 20 minutes and get up to change the vinyl can get old, it is still just  a very different experience that sometimes it is worth it.
@juke4u,
yes the sound quality over bluetooth will be vastly inferior, it is definitely a convenience medium and not a hifi medium.
Both mp3 and bluetooth are vastly inferior in sound quality.
I do have a few odd mp3 files I transfered to the vault and you can really tell the difference between them and flac files. Very compressed, boxy, nasal sound.
@randyhat 
yes there are plenty of great sounding cdp with dig ins and outs at about the same cost of the Vault. And IMHO the rca out of the Vault were definitely a lot weaker performing than when run though its dig out, may just be my system but it was very bass heavy, over heavy, boomy. This totally changed when run through its dig out to a very clean ,as good if not better than original cd state.

Interesting thread because we are all playing at different levels of cost.  It's just so obvious.  The OP wanted an all in one unit or system that was affordable. He got what is one of the few on the market that has it all and that includes the streaming he wants and MQA (not sure if it's core or all the way).  Folks are still trying to talk him out of it, which is kind of funny.

I've seen someone post that Aurender is the best.....no it's not.  What is best is what we listen to vs others and like the best in our system.  Digital is funny in that what sounds great in one system may not be the best in the other one in the same house.  It's more dependent on the other digital feeds that analog amps are I think. I could be wrong, but it sure seems that way.  So much we are learning about digital sound still.  I think we still have miles to go with it and we will in time.

Personally, I've heard Melco vs Aurender in many many shops and also in my own system and I prefer the Melco (the N1A not the N1ZH).  Melco is coming out with new units in the next few months so I'll wait to see what they have, but Aurender just sounds differently. It's a great unit and I"d happily have one, but I will get what's best in my own system.  It's audio and there is no best in any category.  Just isn't and cant' be as we all hear  differently.  

I too like the Antipodes gear and always have.  Nothing not to like about it.  Nice distributor also.  I may have gotten one, but my rebuilt Mac mini still sound better than even their new TOL ref unit.  Steven Nugent used it for his shows (he builds the high end Empirical Audio DAC's of which I owned until Ayre came out with theirs).  He sold me one of his two servers and went with Antipodes, but he eventually went back to his as it just sounded better.  HE wanted a one box solution (the mac has a huge Paul Hynes LPS), but needs the best sound to sell his 14k DAC's.

I read about guys wanting to get rid of their mac's, but if optimized and using the top LPS you can get and changing the drives to the best sounding (not most expensive) SSD's and changing some other components you can have as good a server as a W20 Aurender or Antipodes ref or any other out there.  Just not always the prettiest or the easiest to use maybe.  

For the price point OP is at, it's the perfect solution of him as the sound is nice and he doesn't want a second box for an external DAC.  He's have to upgrade to a Codex or higher (DAC alone will cost much more than this full set up now) to get better sound.  JMHO

I have been using a friends Wadia 321 DAC mostly as a learning experience. I sent an email to Aurender about compatibility and got the attach response. If I read correctly, it looks like I would never use DSD as the music offered it nothing I would listen to. Is my thinking correct or is there something I am missing? The more I research the more the Vault looks appealing. My only concern is I would have to use the RCA outs or buy a CD player with DAC. 

Response from Aurender:"The Wadia 321 should be compatible with the USB output of the Aurender N100H and N10 in terms of working, however the Wadia 321 DAC is limited to 24-bit and 192kHz sampling rate. This means it cannot decode DSD or other high resolution files above 24/192. All Aurender music servers can reproduce digital files up to DSD128. If an N10 was used the SPDIF outputs could be used to connect, but then again, you are limited to 24/192 by both server and DAC. If playing these kinds of files is something you want to do, then perhaps you should consider the A10 and it will also give you full MQA decode. MQA files and Tidal streaming of MQA files sound exceptionally good."

@ctsooner
As always your posts are refreshing and well thought out and always of interest to myself.
I would say that on this venture I limited myself on how much I wanted to spend on the music server as it was my first foray, just like my very first amp cost a whole $25...lol.
I am sure like the rest of the components that in time I will get the urge to explore and go higher both in quality and price, not that they always go hand in hand!
But yes for now I have EXACTLY what I asked for and sound quality of ripped files and Tidal have surpassed my admitedly fairly low expectations. Only previous experience of digital was my daughters itunes and Pandora played through the smarttv connected by optical digital connection.

And yes Juke, in my system I definitely noticed a huge difference going dig out of the vault instead of rca so if you did go with a vault I would not judge it entirely by its rca performance until you had opportunity to try the digital outputs. As of yet I have not tried the usb out bar for backing up the hard drive so no idea what the sound quality is like over the usb port.