Best standalone music server?

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.

The words are too kind, but also realize that I'm just one person.  Trust your ears, but when you learn to listen you can hear distortions that really do take away from the music.  Many never get there and it's fairly easy to see when reading some posts on boards.  NO big deal as long as they love their music  Heck, I can spend a day listening to crappy recordings of 80's rock and have my ears killing me.  Just love the music.  

What I may suggest to you eventually is to look into a Melco as a streamer/NAS and then get a nice DAC like a Codex or equivalent to your ears.  Then you can more easily upgrade as you grow.  You can then sell your Vault and only lose half, but half of that is less than half of an Aurender or Melco or whatever.  

One reason I like the Melco over the Aurender (other than I like the sound better) is because if you update your DAC to one that's say Roon end point and also a top streamer and headphone amp (Like the Ayre QX5 I just purchased), then you can still use the Melco as it's by far the best NAS I"ve heard and even Michael Lavorgna of Audiostream (I pray you are over there enjoying his writing) has said that and that's his job.  

Honestly, with what you have now, I wouldn't do anything else just yet. Get comfortable with it and learn to use it to it's fullest.  Listen at times critically and see what you enjoy about the sound of it.  You will soon notice trends in the sound on various cuts.  Then you can learn what you DON'T want next time in any piece you get in your system.  

To me audio is just like the second wife (or more)....you need to know what you DON'T want, as you never fully know what you do want.  Just think about that and take it for what it's worth.  You can and probably will do other upgrades in your system before doing more with the source. Oh, and don't bother with other cables or power cords or anything right now.  At the level you are at, it's so silly to spend even 100 for a power cord when you could spend that eventually in component upgrades that will make a much much bigger difference.  JMHO

I looked for an all in one solution that i could rip my 500 plus CD's into, had the ability to stream MQA from Tidal etc and that could be combined with 'Roon' software...I went for the Bluesound Vault and could not be happier, it also streams to multiple airplay system's set-up in different rooms of the house. Obviously the Airplay quality is not as good as hires/mqa but it's fine for background music when needed.