Are there any stand alone servers, that do NOT have a streaming function?


All of my music is stored on .wav files and I run them to my preamp from my PC via a Xonar Essence STX sound card. 

I would like to find a decent server without all the different streaming corporations embedded into the product. I really don't appreciate the sound of my fans in my PC competing for the "black space" between instruments and vocals.

I know I'm a bit old school (even had someone laugh when I told them I still listen to CD's), but I'm very happy with my system now and I'm just wanting to eliminate the fan noise. 

I thought about building my own dedicated server, but I don't know how to code or program, so I'm a bit lost. Every search I do for a music server always results in a ton of streamers. That is not what I need. Before Roon, Qobuz, etc. were there any plain old SSD or HDD servers?

bigdoghoss

Showing 1 response by ghdprentice

OK, sorry about this:

Fifteen or twenty years ago, stand alone servers were built. Then on-line streaming sources became available and got included with built in storage. For the last few years the amount of on line storage has been declining because it no longer has much use. The use of stored files is in the decline. Streaming services will sound as good or better than locally stored files. 

Having a PC in the audio chain seriously degrades the sound quality, so having a streamer is good thing. You will likely get the ability to connect to major streaming services regardless of the streamer you pick. You really want it. Sooner or later you will discover why everyone has moved to streaming. Basically $15 / month access to millions of equal or better sound quality albums. Your library becomes nearly infinite and at equal or better sound quality. 

You can get decent streamers from $350 (like Bluesound) to those like mine an Aurender N100 ($3K) and for my main system an Aurender W20SE ($20K). I have experience at all levels. Yes, they are worth it. It is best to match the level of your stream to your system. A good place to start is to look at streamers that cost about the same as your amp, or preamp. If your system is good enough I highly recommend looking at an Aurrender... used would be great... they will typically contain a 1 tb or more of internal storage. So, even if you don’t use a streaming service at first you are going to get incredible sound quality. 

On very inexpensive streamers, you can put your files on a USB stick or pocket drive and connect to the back of the streamer.