audiophile music servers the latest products, info

I bought Exemplar musicserver after listening to many servers at CES and the RMAF. The closest competition for the Exemplar IMO was the Blue Smoke, but I feared that it was not going to come to market.

I have several Macs and have tried using them directly and through the USB port into a dac. I have not liked what I heard in comparison with and separate dedicated music server. I rip all cds into the .75 terrabit hard-drives and backup with fewest errors WAV files. Seldom do I see any errors, but some cds take as long as 45 minutes to get there. The normal time is 7 minutes or less.

One thing that continues to amaze me is that treated cds sound different than untreated cds even through this process. Untreated have better bass but less sense of soundstage. How this happens defies what I know about this process.

I have never found the PS Audio gear to be any good. I guess YMMV. I would also strongly suggest that any compression, including lossless, is not the route to good sound. I have also found that the cabling is critical to the sound you get.

Rbstehno, there is enormous convenience to some music servers, but it comes at a cost, as you say, in money but also in realism. I first heard a VRS server about seven years ago and it was awful, but about three years later it was very much improved and its convenience was evident.

Since then I have used my Macs with and without external dacs, typically USB connected. I have heard six different specifically music directed music servers RCA connection. Furthermore they minimize the processing within the processor. My only real complaint is that I still want to play sacds.

You paint with too broad a brush. There are music servers that are clearly better than computer based systems, but not all of them are.

I have listened to many music servers and found great variations. The only two that much interested me are the Exemplar and the Blue Smoke. I bought the Exemplar and still love it.

Dazzdax, is this commentary about the Wadia or the MBL?

Chris, does this not downplay the MBL?

Dazzdax, I know what that is like. I once owned the dCS stuff and the Teac Esoteric line. MBL is pretty stuff.