2. misc-audio
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Offline Music Storage & Playback Recommendations

Really a 2 Question Post. Hoping for some good advise....and hoping I placed this in the right category...

I live in a very rural area, cell phone coverage is spotty, and my Wi-Fi is bleak (very bleak as in 2-4 mbps) when it works, so I have built a dedicated audio room (20' by 30') and have a nice "mid-fi" system. I have a Tidal account and have 5-6000 tracks downloaded to my phone which I can play in "offline" mode through my system as well as a large CD collection I often enjoy. So my system and listening environment is basically an offline system. (photos / gear all listed in my profile) 

Question 1) Recommendations for a very nice Music Storage component that I could burn all my CD's into which does not require wi-fi  to operate. Something like the Naim Uniti Core Music Server? It would be OK to have something that operated through an app?, but lack of wi-fi is the issue. 

Question 2) Currently I play a lot of music from my Tidal downloads on my phone, and I simply Bluetooth from my phone to my Marantz 8006 source then from the digital coax out through my Pontus II and out to the Luxman 509X My question is if I would see a significant SQ improvement running from my phone through a nice USB cable (Audioquest Coffee?) and going directly into the DAC vs Bluetooth??

Any Advise is appreciated!

carzmaguy88
ghdprentice
7,494 posts
 

Very nice looking system. I highly recommend Aurender. I have tried lots of streaming solutions… Mac and PC based… none were good until I purchased a Aurlic Aries G2… then I found Aurender.

 

I own two an N100 and W20SE. I stream 95% of the time… and the Aurender is spectacular at making up for wifi deficiencies… but completely understand your situation. Most Aurender streamers have plenty of internal storage. You can just transfer your files to the internal storage. I cannot detect a difference between a red book CD, playing a file and streaming… well unless the streaming is of higher quality… very common on Qobuz.

spenav
444 posts
 

@carzmaguy88 
In response to your first question, the choices are almost unlimited. Only your budget will dictate what you pick. There are a lot of very good music servers out there from Melco to Aurender to Innuous-zenith to Antelope etc.  They all can be controlled by an app on your phone or iPad. Your internet speed will not be an issue since that communication will be local to your network. You will be able to transfer all of your music to the server hard drive and with a decent tagging software, you will be able to access your music very conveniently and with great fidelity. Good luck. 

mahler123
3,467 posts
 

Go Wired, since WiFi is such an issue.  Use an App that can be used from a computer as opposed to a mobile device

leadcrew's avatar
leadcrew
45 posts
 

When I start building my system, I'm going to go to Baetis Audio:

 

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 

@carzmaguy88 , When you have access to a computer, perhaps at work visit www.hdtracks.com. You can download high res (CD and better) files. The ones on your phone are mp3 files and through a big system they are not going to sound very good. If you download the files at work you can transfer them to a thumb drive and take them home.

I personally think Music servers are not the best way to approach digital music reproduction. I use an Apple Mini, Channel D's Pure Music program and an 8 TB hard drive with a backup drive. This is much more powerful than a server. You need a USB DAC also. 

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