Music Servers VS Excellent Transports?

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.

Dcstep,

We have a few Olive's a Ultrafi and they are convenient pieces. With a good digital cable into a good DAC, the sound is nice but not fantastic. Much better sound can be had by many high end CD players or transports.

As for the sound quality of higher res formats like SACD and DVD-A, I have never heard either come close to the best vinyl playback. Unlike many others, I find SACD particularly disappointing in the high frequencies- enough to where I often prefer red book CDs played on the best CD players. I guess it doesn't really matter anyway given that SACD is barely a viable format these days.

If you are doing vinyl in preference to CDs, and that is what you like to listen to, keep doing it. No one is trying to convert you.

If you are doing CDs, many of us have found that a PC transport with a DAC is a better way:

1) cost of entry is lower for the same or superior results. You have to spend thousands on traditional gear to better these results

2) ease of use is huge

3) tremendous flexibility