Let me clarify because there is an important distinction to be made and I want to make sure you and others understand my earlier post.
My question is regarding SERVERS. The Taiko Extreme is both Server and Renderer.
My position, is that the RENDERING functionality is the greater differentiator.
Mike, given my clarification, is your position the same or does it change?
It is something I will eventually test, however the current time frame for my ongoing audition will not allow for it. Should I purchase the unit I’m evaluating, I will be able to do so.
Here is a straightforward "definition" provided on the Antipodes website:
"SERVER – The Server organises your music, and displays your library, streaming services and radio stations on the Remote Control’s screen. When told to play a file, the Server pushes the music file to a Renderer.
RENDERER – The Renderer turns the music file into a digital audio signal to send to your DAC."
Here are ’denser’ definitions (of Server and Renderer) from the Absolute Sound:
"Some companies refer to their products as a “server” (or “music server” or “media server”). The term comes from computer science. A server is half of a so-called “client-server architecture.” This architecture partitions tasks between a server and a client, which typically communicate over a network. A server does nothing until it receives a request from a client to perform a service. NAS is a familiar example of a server. It receives requests from other devices on the network to provide the contents of files that it stores. Only a few of the products in Table 2 called servers are actually servers. A network bridge or network player is actually a client. Neither a direct bridge nor a direct player is a server because they do not respond to requests for samples; they simply present a stream of samples to a DAC (either internal or external) and assume that the DAC can digest them.
“Media renderer” is a term from the UPnP AV protocol, which specifies how devices connected to a LAN can cooperate to play a media file stored on one device (a “media server”) on another device (a “media renderer”). Although we are dealing with architectures in which devices are connected directly as well as ones in which they are connected over a network, it might have made sense to extend terminology meant for the network scenario if the terminology were brilliant. Unfortunately, it is not. “Rendering” is a term borrowed from computer graphics, where it refers to the process of generating an image from a model (e.g., a wireframe sketch). The samples that we want to convey to the DAC to produce the desired analog output are not a model of an analog signal; they are a digital representation of the signal. “Media converter” would have been a better description of the device. Note that this defect applies to video as well, so even in the context of UPnP, “renderer” was a bad choice. The term is also very techy, or as Neil Gader said in a recent review [TAS 248], “just a bit too Black Ops creepy.”"
https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/understanding-digital-music-systems-1/?page=2
[Note: Mike, are you using your MSB Select II with a rendering module? Taiko as server only or MSB as DAC only? Thanks]