Music Server vs. PC vs. Transport vs. ?

Hi - glad to be of help.

Don't use AIFF - you need the metadata

As far as getting a digital signal out of the Mac Toslink, DAC, WiFi and Ethernet are all options. And who knows what Steve will have for us next week.

About SPDIF., Everyone is amazed at how a humble hard drive bests a fancy CDP. Why. Well reason number one is that a hard drive is not subject to the same kinds of jitter and other distortions inherent in a complex electro-optical-mechanical system designed in the 70s.

Beyond the transport which is clearly the primary culprit, the secondary culprit and source of jitter is SPDIF. SPDIF implementation is extremely problematic and often poorly done. A premium SPDIF cable is expensive and rarely longer then 2m. BTW Toslink was Toshibas answer to SPDIF and can be equally problematic. The best Toslink cables are less expensive then SPDIF cables and come in longer lengths. Toslink is often looked down upon by audiophiles but 6 moons (among others) ran some tests and it was pretty much a tossup. Remember that fiber decouples the PC and the DAC which a SPDIF cannot do.

If you have a SPDIF you would be better off looking at something like the Hagerman or Blue Circle USB to SPDIF devices.

Start with what comes free with your Mac - FrontRow is a pretty cool remote that might meet your needs. There are a lot of fine alternatives if you need them.

Put the room on the Ethernet now and be done with it. One thing to consider is where you will be doing your ripping. That Mac needs to be connected to the Internet in order to populate the metadata. (Of course you can use Airport for that as well)

Keep us posted and have fun!

Hdomke - there are differences in wireless networks. 802.11a is actually better for streaming data because of its 5ghz freq range rather than 802.11g. your 802.11n router has to communicate with your airport express at 54mb, which is 802.11g speed. When using wireless technology to stream data, you need a very good signal from the source to your destination or you run the risk of lost packets, packet retransmissions, latency issues, delays, etc.. which could degrade the signal or at least cause dropouts. Another way to improve network transmission is to get network devices that support QOS.

you asked about wired or wireless. if you have cat 5e or better cable to your locations in the house, by all means use a wired connection. I have this cable and my whole house uses 1 gb switches so each wired connection is able to communicate with the other macs/file servers at 1gb speed.. File sharing and mac sharing has never been faster. also, i just read that apple is supporting blu ray. if/when they come up with a hi def audio that macs can play, you will need the extra bandwidth.

You mentioned why not purchase a complete system from a vendor. My reply is that they don't have any better sound than what you can build for quite a bit less $$$. If you have read TAS lately, they reviewed a couple of media servers that cost $$$$'s. They still had to hook them up to an external dac to get them to sound their best. look at the latest review of the mcintosh media server for $6000. the reviewer indicated for thousands less, you can create your own server that would sound just as good or better than the mcintosh unit.

there are a couple ways to create a whole house audio distribution system IMO using macs. on the cheap side, use wired or wireless airport express devices in each room that you have an amp/speakers. you will be able to play 1 source to all devices or you can turn a room off. in each of the rooms, you can either connect the airport express straight to your receiver/preamp or you can hook it up to an external dac. to control itunes from each location, you can use leopards screen sharing to control the main itunes from a remote mac or use the itouch or iphone devices to remotely control the mac server.

The more expensive route (better quality, more flexible) is to use intelligent devices in each room to handle the network traffic better and to allow multiple itunes sources so you have different music in each room. I would deploy a used mac mini at each location where you have a audio system that is either hooked up wired or wireless. all these mac mini's would share the common itunes repository off the media server directly, no need to remote control the server. each mac mini would be hooked up to a monitor or tv to produce the screen to control everything. if no screen is available, you can still control the mini from another mac or itouch/iphone.
good luck

Still lurking and learning. This is a very useful thread. Wish I were able to contribute something. And I hope it's the right thread for this question.

Ive seen some two channel receivers with USB input (Bel Canto, Outlaw 2150, Music Hall Mambo). Is any equipment with an internal USB DAC worth considering?

Any general or specific comments, or referral to another post or source of info would be appreciated

This has been very informative and helpful for deciding how to start down the music-server path. I have a related, but different question.

In addition to serving the music up to a Squeezbox and external DAC, I want to run a digital cable from the same PC to and adjacent HT receiver. I could go toslink or digital coax. What's the better method?

If I'm only going to use a digital out, is it worth spending more $$ for a high-end soundcard or will any soundcard that provides a digital out do?

Practically speaking you can go a lot further for less money using Toslink. In my experience the premium Wireworld Super Nova was every bit as good as a SPDIF - difference being I got 5 meters for less then the price of one meter of good (not great) SPDIF.

As for the soundcard, more is probably more but why not start with what you got and if it makes you nuts buy up.