What do I need to set up digital music server?

What DAC are you planning to use?

My preference would be to just get a CAPS 3.0 build, and run JRiver and Jremote on iDevice for remote control. (Discaimer: I hate Mac)

You can buy them prebuild at smallgreencomputer, for around $1200.

If you want to spend more down the line you can run Dirac Live on the CAPS, and you can get external battery power.

i recommend
#1 a Dac , (I bought a Musical Fidelity M1 clic) on sale $499
#2 A usb to Spdif ConVerter (I purcahsed a Musical Fidelity V-Link2 ) open box for $79.00). Output to pre-amp or Ht receiver
#3 a pc with 500 gig to 2 Terabytes (you can get used or Refurbished for 100-500 depending on the parameters
#4 software such as Jrivermedia $49.00 to rip and play music. you can buy the jriver remote.
you can use Windows media player and buy a remote for it
-you can output video to your tv if it accepts pc input.
you can get good dacs for 200-5000
Pc for 100 and up
usb "a" to "b" cable and an optical or digital cable and you are set .
you can get all of this for less than $500 if you want ... just to start

DAC =$200
Usb to Spdif converter= $50+
PC =+100+
Window media Player =free
Cables $25+

"4) good USB cable to go to a USB DAC or USB converter - $450"

Steve,

Why so much for the USB cable? You don't have to sell me on the benefits of using good cables, but $450 seems a bit high when looking at the cost of the other components you recommend.

Winggo, yes you are getting closer! Be advised though that you should not have all your digital audio files in only one place. Keeping two copies in two different places is highly recommended by everyone. When I use my laptop's internal CD drive to rip a CD using dBpoweramp, I rip a FLAC copy to my laptop's harddrive as well as a WAV copy to an external USB drive. This gives me a backup of everything if one or the other of these drives should fail.

As for the DAC, you don't want to rely on the DAC built into your laptop's soundcard (quality just not good enough) so you are correct to be thinking in terms of needing some other DAC as part of your solution.

As for the "digital music player" you just need to be sure that you have a workable way (be it USB cable, Ethernet cable, or WiFi) for the device that performs the playback function to access your audio files from wherever you've stored those files. And as you've already gleaned your solution also needs some kind of visual interface (often an iPad) that allows you to browse your audio files wherever you've stored them and select the ones that you want the "digital music player" component to play.

Right now I am using a Musical Fidelity V dac II. I am using my laptop as the source which is connected to the dac with a long USB cable running across the floor. I would like to get rid of all the clutter, and as I said, the PC leaves something to be desired as far as sound quality goes.

Sonos has a neat little unit that has a remote with a screen. I like the idea but I don't think the Sonos will handle HD files. Logitech also has the Sqeezebox Touch, but again not sure of the sound quality. Any opinions on these two products?

My laptop has a wireless connection to our modem. Is it possible for a server to also be wireless or does it neccessarily have to be hardwired for internet access? I would like the server to be able to access things like Pandora and also to be able to download music files direct from the internet.

Could someone explain more about this "clock" thing? It sounds like it is the heart of a digital system. Will a good DAC provide the "clock" or is it in the server?

I'm learning a little more everyday.