Music Servers VS Excellent Transports?

Linn has just come out with two interesting pieces, the Klimax DS and Akurate DS, both of which are D/A converters that have nothing but an Ethernet input. Your music is streamed to the DS from your computer or NAS. Sound quality is said to be better than Linn's Sondek CD12. I haven't heard one yet, so we'll see if they are really that good.

A couple of disagreements:

1. No CD playback can equal the sound of the best vinyl.

2. It is very difficult to equal the sound of the best CD transports/players with a computer/hard drive/server as the source- harder than some make it sound in this thread.

Ckorody, thank you for your in depth and informative answer to my question. I think I get it now.

Audioengr, thanks for the schedule and layout for these setups at CES/THE Show. I will be seeing you in your room as well as the others.

Splaskin, thanks for your additional insight on the wavlength Crimson.

Davemitchell, thanks for the heads up on Linn. I will make it a point to see them as well. Do you know where there will be shoing this technology?

Davemitchell said:

"A couple of disagreements:

1. No CD playback can equal the sound of the best vinyl."

Agreed, but digital can be get extremely close, particularly DVD-A and SACD. Olive has a higer rez Music Server, but, unfortunately the onboard input device is limited to CD-quality. You can use wireless to load hi rez files off you computer. I'm thinking of buying their Opus No. 5, but a little bummed by the limitation to a CD reader/writer rather than CD/DVD RW.

Oh well, you can't have evrerything.

Dave

Assuming you have SOTA transport and DAC, what reason would there be to go to a computer-based storage device other than a better (?) approach to archiving, selecting, and finding music within your collection? That, by the way might be reason enough, but maybe not if you have great T/D and a very large collection of CDs. I imagine that is where many Audiogoners are at.

Sydsrig,

Unfortunately, Linn is only doing private demos off site. I don't think you can tell much at a show demo anyway. I'm scheduled to get a unit to play with when I get back. Check with me a couple of weeks after CES and I will fill you in.