Music Server with no DAC?

"...Seems to me that a computer could likely be configured to provide similar functionality for a lot less money"

Yes, of course you can provide similar functionality with a computer, no question about it. The big question is how will you deal with very noisy environment - if your goal not functionality but musicality.

The "mortal" problem of NuForce music server, on my opinion, is that it cannot output signal with sampling rate greater then 96kHz. Since, even today there are recordings available in 176 kHz (Reference recording) and 192 kHz (Chesky) its already obsolete

All The Best
Rafael

Indeed!

I emailed one place and they said they didn't want to do that particular thing because because their device was based around ultimately what was a 24/96 DAC chip, and anything else gets uprezzed to 24/96 in a pre-processing step - apparently a lot of them work like this - so they would have to change out their main DAC pieces and re-engineer the whole things and uprez to 24/196 or whatever so just to say it takes a whole re-engineer to change out the master chips and go to the next level. And the company I had emailed said when there is more material available they will do it but as it is they are waiting for more material to be available.

And on that note NuForce has a history of relatively frequent upgrades compared to other companies, so perhaps they will do it sometime relatively soon.

"And on that note NuForce has a history of relatively frequent upgrades compared to other companies, so perhaps they will do it sometime relatively soon "

I have corresponded extensively with NuForce on this topic (i.e. output of 176 and 192 kHz signals) and they told me that they will develop their stand-alone DAC and something else but in their plans they will not change their music server. Its too bad because otherwise I would consider it...

Rafael

Why not use the Logitech Duet and output that into a high end DAC. That way you get the convenience of accessing all you music via the remote.

I'm settling on J River (program you add to your computer) with IPhone as remote. Although I do like Media Monkey as well. Basically free, and has same functionality as all of these $300 - $2000 devices.

After lots of poking at things and thinking about it, if you have a computer in a closet near the living room, or out in the open (and we do), I don't see what any of these programs offer over J River or Media Monkey. Total cost: $50 or so... Of course, you need NAS or DAS commodity storage, but that is soo cheap these days, 500 GB is $150 or less, and many of the 'devices' don't come with storage either (and I don't think they should as that limits expandability - or if they do, they should be expandable).

I actually just use my laptop, my laptop docking station has spdif out and my dac re-clocks, so it all works quite well. The NAS is attached to the docking station, so its all very simple and basically free. So I'm off the music server completely now...