Wolf Audio music servers

Please forgive me if this post becomes long but people do not seem to realise that "a computer is a computer is a computer" should be swept out with the trash as it has no relevance now in the 21st Century.There is a whole diversity in computers today and what they are suitable for . The hobbyist who wants to build his own can make a system that will sonically blow away ANY laptop or desktop off the shelf. First of all one must be prepared to use a separate Dac to go with your PC as Dacs and sound cards that are integrated in even the most high end motherboards are ridden with noise and jitter. I always advocate a separate computer for music production as then you can get rid of windows programs and apps that do nothing but slow down your pc and cause lots of jitter. Lets take as an as example of my PC which is for music 90% of the time but I also have another hard drive that I boot up for excursions on to Photoshop and the web. My PC for web when only on idle has if I look in the task manager 1630 threads on average active on idle and twice that when programs are running. On the computer I use for music the typical thread value when I am working with Magix Sequoia and rendering music files are 475. These numbers may not seem important to many of you but they are vital in the fight to keep jitter down as I have found over many years of computer music that a computer with very little jitter is a whole lot better sounding than one that has a lot in it and I'm sorry to say that most laptops fall into that category. If you would like more information on jitter reduction then there are programs available to really combat it. I have a lot of those programs on my PC but I won't discuss that at the moment in case some of you feel I am trying to win sales for a certain company. All I will say is that the information is out there if you care to look for it, and a new bespoke computer will really open your eyes and ears when you hear one for the first time.

Hey guys, this is Joe Parvey from Wolf… What a great surprise to find this! I knew that @lwin had started a thread, but it’s been busy here, and I just found it again… This is really gratifying, and to be honest I am humbled by what I’m reading, if someone had told me 4 years ago that my products were being discussed on Audiogon, I might not have believed it. However, a little less than four years ago, my father wanted something pretty cool and very expensive (and a huge lack of features, by our judgement), and I said, ‘a computer is a computer, we’ll build you something at a fraction of the cost.’ I couldn’t have been more wrong - that audition of our first system was an eye opener. It was our sixth system – after several pilgrimages and many phone calls to industry heavyweights, combined with an insane amount of research – that our efforts began to bear fruit. It was a further 3 more system builds before we sold our first Wolf. The fact of the matter is, EVERYTHING matters... there is no silver bullet to achieving Hi-Fi results, the hardware, the software, the case, the vibration dampening, RFI/EMI, etc. all matter. And after that, it must be intuitive and easy to use, and you must be ready to support people from all walks of life, some with no computer experience at all, but desirous of a machine that helps you do whatever you want. Our mission, our team, take all of these must have matters into account, and we are really lucky to have such a smart group of people working towards the same goal.

I didn’t mean to write a book, but I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce myself and our company to you. Please ask any questions you’d like here in the thread, and I’ll check in every few days. Please also go to the footer of our site to sign up for our newsletter, we are working on our newest one this week.

Thanks!

• joe

Welcome, Joe!

HI Joe it is great to see your posting here. I am going to give you a cream puff question but I am interested in your answer. Without naming names what is different in your servers compared to the competition? 


PS: I have no affiliation with Wolf Audio outside of purchasing one of their  products.

Well, one of the first things I would point out is cost. I was shocked at some of the price points where certain features became available, and I found that highly detrimental to the consumer. When I started the project that would become Wolf, I too was simply a consumer, though with a pretty big tech budget at my day-job. So, I understood Hifi markups, but also the costs and markups in the larger technology field, and thought that the two should meet somewhere in the middle. That is how Wolf has been going up against competitors twice our cost - and winning.
Another difference is the R&D we do before releasing a feature. I really want to include AES & BNC output to our Wolf's - I have two customers waiting to pull the trigger for those outputs - but as it stands, the implementations currently out there in the world today are not consistent, and wont work exactly the same across the various DACs out there. Once we can get them to behave, they'll become available on new systems and as an upgrade to existing Wolfs.
Another benefit of coming from the tech industry is the knowledge and ability to do Wolf IT. Our music backup service is launching this month, allowing customers (and civilians too) to store their music, in the cloud, by the TB. We are working on the pricing structure, wanting to be competitive with the big guys, but without the headaches they give you in what you can and can't do with your own music.
I'll stop here, because I can think of ten other things but don't want to put you guys to sleep. @lwin you know and can speak to the support we offer, our willingness to teach and generally spend time helping our customers understand just what they've got in their Wolf.