Music Server vs Computer?

I guess it depends mostly on how much time you are willing to spend experimenting. A PC gives you so much flexibility, both hardware and software. The music server is convenient and simplicity.

Check out computeraudiophile/music servers or jplay forum/computer audio forums for some ideas.

A real can of worms and opinions abound. You definitely should head over to computer audio nerd central at computeraudiophile dot com as previous poster mentioned.

Thanks for the suggestion. Not familiar w/Computeraudiophile.com but will certainly see what those folks have to say.

The problem with most servers is that they force you into using FLAC, they don't import .wav files etc.. Lack of flexibility. They are mostly compromised for SQ due to either poor ripping software, poor playback software or both.

There are some exceptions however:

The Antipodes server from New Zealand has none of these limitations and is the only server I have found that sounds identical playing FLAC and wav files.

The Bryston server is also excellent and has few limitations.

I have heard both or had them in my room at trade shows.

I personally use a tweaked Oct 2009 Mac Mini powered with a Hynes supply with Amarra playback software. This is world-class.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

I am a fan of the Baetis Audio Revelation II (baetisaudio.com) server; just purchased it and love it. It buys its chassis from the same Australian company that Antipodes does but the design and build quality blows the Antipode away. Do not assume they are the same internally because they look the same. Baetis has done much research on the sound of different mother boards and tested several through a Wilson system and could hear the differences. It is the first server to take the sound right from the board via BNC. They started with the mother board and built enough computer around it for software etc. 8 USB ports for external Hard drives and Toslink, BNC out, etc., all galvanically isolated. An internal 128G solid state memory; 16G of RAM. Check it out. Extremely quiet; compact and powerful. You will hear more about this unit after the review forthcoming the beginning of next year! Reviewers and computer audio fans will finally realize just hooking up any computer doesn't produce the best computer audio has to offer.