Best music server for the money

Doggiehowser, did you not read the post? I bought mine from endpcnoise. If you had a zalman I am guessing you had a problem with the power supply which is no longer available. My server came to me built with all soft wear installed. All I did was download jrivers follow instruction and install my large digital library. Up in going in literally minutes. I know the basics in using a computer that's what I call not tech savy. I will tell you ALL music severs are computers. You need to learn as you go a little but as I said not rocket science.

That's why I recommended getting from companies such as silentpc or smallgreencomputers unless you are computer savvy enough to install. I guess you and I have different yardsticks :)

FWIW The Zalman FX100 needed a super long screw driver that could reach beyond the heatsink to secure the huge contraption to the motherboard. I am using a Seasonic fanless PSU.

SmallGreenComputers provide a way to use linear mode power supplies. Again these aren't stuff you can just pick up from your local computer store.

And as for running Windows - yes, it doesn't take a lot of effort to get it working - but understanding back ups, maintenance/patches etc can be quite frustrating for newbies.

Do not agree. As I said I am NOT a computer geek. You should check out endpcnoise as well. They make it easy. Takes a little patients. More importantly all these other servers are computers as well. Just paying more for the memory and the hard drives. Also if any issues arise you are at their mercy. Endpcnoise knows what they are doing. It is all they do. They do not sell sotm or dac's or any other non computer items. We live in the computer age and if you have issues using their server chance are you will have issues with any of the other ones. As far as your special screw driver you would have probably have to send back one of these other units to the manufacture. Also you have to use their library soft wear. Nothing I have seen beats jrivers. And, they are constantly improving on it. I am a vinyl guy who loves his digital music server. Do as you wish but for your own sake check it out. If you decide to get one you can contact me through audiogon for any info you may need. I am not in anyway connected with endpcnoise just a happy customer. My final impute on the issue.

Most computers are not built for sound and surely not high audio quality sound. The Baetis is the first to built with sound in mind first. The Baetis team listened to the sound of different mother boards and decided which to use first. There is not sound card in the Baetis like a computer. The sound comes directly off the mother board to a BNC out connection. The Baetis has a fan inside, but again, they chose carefully which to use and you can't hear it unless you are a foot away. They measured the sound decibels from the unit to be sure it would not be distracting from the listening seat like some computers are. On the back you have toslink, USB and BNC outs from the unit. Computers don't have these unless you install them custom. The Baetis does have a solid state internal drive but has 6 USB connections on the back and 2 on the front with six being 3.0. There is also WiFi capability if you want or an ethernet if you want a hard internet connection. I put my Baetis against my friend's computer audio systems anytime and think I will have the better sounding unit since its goal is good sound first and a good computer second.

Yes I readyour post. But it wasn't immediately clear if you bought the components and assembled it yourself or got the seller to build it.

If it is the former, it's IMHO not something I'd recommend a non computer savvy person to embark on. If it is the latter, then it is no different from my original recommendation - to buy it from a company that specialises in building and selling optimised music server PCs.