In the same boat a couple of years ago, although I didn't have more than a handful of SACDs. I am still very happy with the decision I made to go to a server. computeraudiophile had much helpful info from those who seem most informed on the topic. I went with a Synology NAS, while a number of others are also happy with QNAP servers. Err on the high side as far as #bays and overall size. Be sure to research backup options and my sure what you want to do before you chose RAID option during initial setup because it's a huge hassle or impossible to change it later.
For hard disks I went with the WD Red drives which seem to be the far most popular and reliable at a reasonable cost.
For network player I got a Sonore microRendu which presents a tremendous value and offers very high flexibility to use it with streaming apps like Tidal, and a variety of control apps. I use Lumin player app on my iPad to select my music. I suggest reading Chris Connaker's two part review on the microRendu to get the whole story enthusiastically, but accurately reviewed. There are many posts on this product here and elsewhere. FWIW, the Sonore guys are amazingly quick with inquiries about setup options and support.
I've been told by many who regularly listen to much more expensive setups that mine is right up there in sound quality and user experience. Pretty affordable and well within your budget, even if you need to buy an iPad.
Ripping CDs to store them is a tedious one time process, but well worth it. Ripping SACDs is another story and only a few ways to do it. There's much already written on it, I'd spend plenty of time ready what's already here and on computeraudiophile if you need to do that.
Listening to Beck's Morning Phase on it as I type :-) Cheers,
Spencer
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@shadowcat At that budget, you can do both. My suggestion would be the Bluesound Node2 as a Network Player, and then I would look for a SACD/CD player that has a DAC (I don’t think you mentioned a DAC in your setup) which can be accessed by other digital sources. Until a few months ago the latter would have meant Oppo, but they have ceased making players. I believe that Marantz still makes good CD/SACD players in the $1000 range, but I’m not sure if their DACs can be accessed. Also, you didn’t mention if Multichannel is a consideration.
Another way to go would be to get the Sony Universal Player for around $400, the Node2 (also $400) and spend the remainder on a DAC. There are some very good DACs in the $1000 range. Both the Node2 and the Sony have DACs but they are nothing special and at your budget you can really improve things with a good DAC.
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Thanks for the advice folks.
I do not currently have a stand alone DAC. The units I'm initially considering would be the Marantz S14s1 CDP or the Marantz NA11s1 network player. The S14s1 does allow stand alone DAC usuage. Both can currently be had within my budget................I'm not a gear junkie..can't afford to be, so I like to get the best I can and keep it for as long as I can..............I'll do some research on your recommendations and any others that come in before I pull the trigger............Thanks much!! |
Was was looking at Music Direct catalogue. Denon DCD 1600 NE SACD player $1100 and Marantz NA 6005 DAC streamer for $400 (demo, normally $600).
I had the previous models of both of these. The Denon was built like a tank and had a very smooth sound. The Marantz was a fine DAC—I still use it in a bbedroom system for that—but a terrible streamer because it was buggy as hell with a terrible App. However, that was about 3 years ago, which is a long time in Digital, and they may have improved it—read reviews if you are interested.
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I have been wondering about doing this as well. I have an older onkyo player that does sacd and has always sounded great to me but it's about 8 years old. I have been looking at the Cocktail Audio x45. You can rip cd's and it has a phono stage so you can attach your TT and rip those to it as well. Only problem it cost $3000 though I have seen the previous model the x40 for $2000. Of course like everything some say don't use a single device but use network storage and stream from that because it'S easier to upgrade but like you I look for long term solutions as long as something doesn't go belly up and the idea of a single device which looks fairly simple to use appeals to me. Can't say how it performs maybe some with knowledge of a device like this will chime in.
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You can do both :buy stand alone DAC if I had your system I would buy Bryston DAC and a CD transport of Cambridge CXC cheap and reliable option. |
+1 sbank . RIP silver disc. For $2K an uRendu + RAID NAS is the way forward. |
been reading lots of reviews.....my eyes are watering...still can't decide what to do. I could get a great DAC for the money and use the outputs from my CDP.......the 8001 isn't dead yet, just beginning to get flakey...and if it dies, which all things do, I could, as suggested, pick up a very reasonable used player that had digital outputs and get on with my day..............also use it ......I think....to play downloaded music files......I'm a pretty smart guy, but kind of a babe as far as downloading music, streamers, players, NAS, etc..never got into that before, stuck with one box solutions...........Music Direct has the Marantz SA14s1 on sale for 1999 and the DAC can be accessed separately............can you download music files to your PC and then to your DAC?......I did say I was an idiot about these things!! LOL............Is that a "better" option than going with a network player?...............Sorry, I know a fair amount about audio but this is virgin turf for me....duh..........I'm always behind the curve, didn't get a CDP until the 90's, so I'm always playing catch up. |
With the SA14s1 you can't download your music to the player it doesn't have an internal hard drive. You can connect a computer to it. You can use usb sticks and external hard drives but it looks like it would be a pain to use those since it plays files by date so you would need to basically fast forward through them to find what you wanted. You would need another device to stream from your network to attach to it. Download the manual from marantz it explains what it can do. |
I see that Marantz still makes the 805 SACD/CD player and that it goes for under $1000. I had an earlier iteration of this player, the 803, which would only play digital inputs as MP3, and wound up selling it for the Oppo 105, which also served as my DAC for a while. The Marantz 805 can be used as a full DAC. If I could spend the OPs money I would buy the Marantz 805 and the Bluesound Node2 or if the OP wanted to have the CD ripper and storage then the Bluesound Vault2 and still be within budget.
It’s fun to spend other people’s money, isn’t it? Now I understand the appeal of working in Government
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OP—reading your last post I see that you have a little confusion here and djones51 addressed it well. At the risk of being pedantic, what you are seeking is:
1) A CD/SACD player that can also be used as a DAC.
2) a server, which takes files stored elsewhere and plays them back.
3) A CD ripper to creates these files from your CDs
4) a hard drive to store these files.
All of these can be purchased separately, but several of these features can be combined., potentially even in 1 box solution
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mahler + djones
Thanks folks, it's getting clearer. The hobby was so much easier when everything was simpler, must be getting old..........OK, I guess that's a given. LOL
Yes, it truly is fun to spend other peoples money. Spent my career working for defense contractors. What the GOV spends on electronics makes all but the most stratospheric audio gear seem like pocket change.
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Just for information purposes the aforementioned Cocktail Audio x40 or x45 is a one box solution. You can rip cd's or LP's to it's internal storage and play them back. You can stream audio over the internet. You can hook an external cd or phono player to it and play from those since it has digital and phono input to it's dac. You can hook it to an external large screen to view your library, it has an FM tuner for local station playback. My familiarity with this is from my own resaerch in looking to move to storage and streaming. I am not recommending this unit I have no direct knowledge of it only using it as a reference there are other players that do the same things. Going the route of ripping with your computer and using network storage and a seperate player to attach to your dac is a good way and preferable by some especially if you have a good existing wired home network not sure how well wireless would handle hi res playback. The main reason I look more at the 1 box solutions is ease of use and I can't extend wired ethernet where my stereo resides. Whichever way you go try and read as much as possible about the different approaches and find one you would be comfortable with use, sound quality and economic wise.
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djones
Thanks, I will take a look at the CA x40-x45.................I'm sure that I COULD solve the puzzle of several devices interconnected and jump through the required hoops to make it work................but really, I'd just rather spend my time enjoying the music. LOL..............I have read that ripping red book to WAV actually makes them sound better.........not sure why that would be or SHOULD be, but I haven't done it, so I'll have to give them the benefit of the doubt,.......can we just spin a record and get on with life!! LOL........thanks |
The thing about going the storage route that appeals to me is being able to access the music by looking through my library on my tablet or tv screen instead of search through all my discs. You can create your own playlists of say favorite songs from one artist or have it play random like a radio station. Then again there is something about handling the disc as listening to the whole ablum which is why I would like to keep my player
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Thanks Mr Jones
Looking more like I'm going to go with a good DAC and feed it via PC and external drive for downloaded files.........can't be THAT much of a PITA. LOL I guess once it's up and running it should be fairly simple on a day to day.......I have a new Win 10 PC that's not really doing much. I can figure out how to make that a server or storage or whatever and feed an external DAC............Looking at the Schiit Yggdrasil.........seems to be something special, BUT it doesn't do DSD or hi-rez files, strictly SOTA redbook.........From what I've read so far, it's "different" in a good way and the equal of near anything else, regardless of price........A bit more $$$ than I had planned on, but at this point in life I probably won't be worried about buying another one down the road :) |
Looks like a good plan. Win 10 has a built in dlna server not sure if it's used much anymore there is probably better third party media server software. |
My vote would go to a network streamer. I recently purchased a Lumin D2 and stream Tidal through it. I'm finding that I rarely use my CD player anymore because it's so much more convenient to just play the selection through the D2.
Another reason I'm suggesting a streamer is because I think we're moving in the direction of not owning physical media as much as we used to and most people are just streaming more. I used to buy CD's and DVD's and now I can't tell you the last time I bought a disc. other people have told me the same thing too. |
r-66........thanks, I’ll consider that one TOO!! LOL.....I really appreciate all the help and experience in this......Seems like I still have some reading to do before I break out the plastic :).........I guess the set up issue is what has me intimidated............It shouldn’t, I spent a career in electronics, but computers were only a tool to help with my job, never bothered getting far beyond what I needed to know to get through the day. There was always somebody more computer savvy than me nearby if I had issues.......I guess there still is.......on line and thanks be for THAT........I can fix damn near anything electronic, but I can also get lost in a PC in about......that fast :)
I was slow to adopt CD, having only recently purchased a very nice TT rig at the time...........Guess this won't be any different. |
It’s a pity about Oppo because they were essentially a one box solution, combining streaming, DAC and disc spinning in one great sounding piece of gear
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Yeah, they have an excellent rep. Haven't read the details for their demise, but I assume it was a corporate thing.......You can still pick pick up the gear, but without support, I'd be wary. |
@shadowcat2016 ,
A couple of things:
Schiit Yggydrasil certainly DOES play hi-rez. So do most of their lower priced models. Correct, it doesn't play DSD. Because they don't believe DSD sounds better.
I can tell you that ripping SACDs to a server is a huge PITA and can only be done w/a few players such as old Sony Playstations and a couple of Oppos. If SACD( which are DSD discs if you didn't realize) is a big part of your collection or plans then get a cheap SACD player like a Marantz for spinning them.
But the majority of most people's listening is 1) red book CDs, ripped from PC/Mac into a hard drive(hopefully a network hard drive(aka NAS - Network Attached Storage), 2) hi-res files in all the other file types(collectively known as PCM file types e.g. 24/96, 24/192 even 24/48) downloaded or copied from another drive and 3) streamed files from the you play from subscription services like Tidal, Roon, Spotify etc.
Granted one box solutions are appealing for their simplicity. The same way receivers are vs. separate preamps, phono stages & power amps. If you seek the best sound quality for the dollars at almost any price point, then separates are the way to go more so with digital audio than almost anything else. Why? Because digital signals are very susceptible to electrical noise and interference. Spinning discs and their power supplies add noise. Storing the files on a NAS drive in another room makes it quieter. If you can't wire ethernet cable into the audio room, you can easily use wifi adapters that turn all the copper wiring in your home into wiring to pass the signal from your router & NAS in one room and your dac and audio gear in another.
The other problem w/one box solutions is that if(when) the transport goes, you lose the investment in the whole thing. 2 years from now and every 2 years later, when dacs are better/cheaper than before, you might decide to upgrade. Many of the recommended dacs and others are upgradeable just by changing out a small board.
FYI many of the devices use USB, which inherently carries power on one leg and signal on another. Many companies have made great strides in recent years to separate the signal from power to reduce electrical noise. If you don't pay attention to this aspect, and get a network player, cabling & dac that deal w/that issue better than most, you probably won't be satisfied musically.
For the same reason(electrical noise) a network streamer built with a tiny board and small power supply sounds better in 95% of the cases than a windows or mac operating system computer running tons of processes un-audio-related, with a large power supply that let's noise into that tiny fragile power leg of your usb cable.
If you invest a bit more time to learn about the pros and cons to some of these recommendations you will get amazing sound a far price. I evolved from:
A) Mac with attached hard drive running special audio software(Audirvana+, and the other top packages) to
B) an Oppo player into a better dac, and then to
C) a mRendu network player in the listening room, a NAS in another room storing files, an iPad letting me control music without wires nor power supply interference.
The latter option is in a completely different league at about the same price. I download high res files using my macbook or pc, save the files directly to the NAS(it's just another letter drive), rip CDs from the library the and save them on the NAS the same way, and don't use the computer when I listen at all.
Other than for convenience, I haven't heard any one box player sound better than this approach (not just with my specific gear), and I haven't heard any arguments that logically explain why it would be better.
"I have x and it sounds great" isn't enough of a recommendation. If you haven't compared the approaches you need to read up to understand why almost the entire community on computeraudiophile prefers that route. Cheers,
Spencer
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shadowcat2016
Thanks! for your post. It is good to read another Bryston owner using a Marantz spinner. If you enjoy this combination, there are plenty of used/demo Marantz models on the secondary marketplace.
Happy Listening!
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mahler123
Thank You for sharing your experience w/ the Denon 1600 NE spinner.I would like to consider this player if ti is a sonic match w/ Bryston?This is a return-to-form for Denon, as the 1600 NE, is made in Japan.
Happy Listening!
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Spencer
Thanks for the detailed response..much appreciated. Sound quality is my primary concern, within SANE budgetary constraints. LOL......As you can see, I don't have an "uber system", but it's pretty respectable and I'm quite happy with it. Recently picked up the 4BST used for a grand, just serviced from Bryston and I love it running bi-amp with the B-100 to my Vandy 3A's.
Always thought the Marantz was a good machine, but it's getting old and fussy, which is why I'm here.
The Schiit DAC's seem to be something special, especially at the price point. I do realize that in this hobby, EVERYODY has different opinions on EVERYTHING. My personal experience has been mostly limited to what I have or have had over the years.
Interconnecting everything seems to be an issue as far as what cabling, inputs/outputs are best, etc., but bit of research should help me sort that out.. Lot of negative comments on using USB as an audio interface, noise etc.........The newer thunderbolt interface, via USB C, looks interesting, but I don't know if it's an improvement sonically.
Don't see myself spending, what I'd consider absurd $$$ that I don't have, on cabling and interconnects. I'm not saying that it doesn't make an audible difference, but in the end, it's still wire. If done properly I think the money is better spent in other areas..........but that's just my opinion. That's a whole different can of worms that I'd rather not open, so please don't tell me that I have to spend a couple grand on interconnects. Can't afford it, ain't doing it.
NAS seems to be the way to go, controlled via PC vs another one box solution..............Most of my library is redbook with a handful of SACD's thrown in, and some vinyl of course.......Yes, I do understand DSD/SACD and the other hi-rez files..........Some seem to think it makes a huge difference..........personally I think it depends on the particular disc. Many of my redbooks sound great, some of my SACD's possibly sound better, although the best of one is pretty close the the other, at least to my ears on my system. Perhaps upgrading to the better DAC will show a wider difference.
Looking into the NAS setup right now. Any audible reason not to simply use the PC with something like Audivarna or Jriver as the controller with an external drive to the DAC, to the pre?...........Trying to keep this as simple and reasonable from a $$$ point as possible, without losing sound quality..........No interest in multi-channel or multi-room playback. I have a dedicated, two channel, audio room and that's where I spend my evenings.
Much appreciate the time and help folks. I'm a good tech and a life long audiophile, but the computer based system thing is new turf for me. I'm retired and getting too old to do it twice or wrong. Do it once, do it right and keep enough money to buy groceries when I'm done. LOL
As far as the Bryston gear............Always thought that it as close close to "uber" as I could afford and still eat :) Built like a tank, best warranty I've ever heard of and sounds great. That works for me. YMMV
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Bryston & Vandy is a great combo from two of the credible, most solid supportive companies in the game for the long haul. Smart, safe choices.
To address your questions in order, first, yes USB can be troublesome but in the last few years much progress has been made. One of the things I like about Sonore network players is that they come with a short(~2in.) USB hard connector included. The microRendu is about the size of a pack of cards or cigarettes. Place directly behind your dac input with just the long hard between player & dac. You can always upgrade later to a fancy little cable(e.g.4in. of silver wire) for ~$100 if it suits your fancy, but you probably won't ever feel the need. The approach minimizes USB trouble without spending extra on 2-headed cables, isolator boxes or other things that attack the same noise issue w/varying approaches.
The PC running A+ or Jriver is certainly viable and sounds pretty good. Why I left that setup (mac mini w/A+) is because my 3TB external drive was about full, no room to connect another. The power supplies for both mac & the external drive add noise that is connected directly to the dac by a longer USB cable. Not ideal, but okay.
Think of the spinning mechanical drive being in another room -advantage. Think of a tiny power supply vs. the bigger one for pc - advantage. Think of stripped down Linux operating system only running audio vs. WIN or MacO/S running a hundred processes to monitor everything from viruses to video to screen settings. - advantage. Think of freeing yourself from constant O/S security updates and planned O/S obsolescence - advantage. All reasons to consider dumping the computer for a single purpose lower power player that gets data from an expandable disc NAS located in another room.
You can always start w/the PC dac, start ripping your discs get started and switch to network player & NAS later with same dac. I wouldn't suggest that, but since you already have the PC it's a cheaper way to get started. Maybe you can find a local w/ NAS/networkplayer and bring your pc over there and listen to the difference. I did that and it helped me decide to dump the mac. Cheers,
Spencer
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Good Morning
Thanks again Spencer for a detailed and informative response. How did we ever get by before the WEB???....So many helpful people with varying experiences and so much info right in your living room, or at the moment sitting on my porch with a cup of coffee watching the sun come up :)
Great point concerning PC/MAC and the myriad of non-related crap that would be running in the background. Neither of which is optimal from an electrical noise standpoint.........Convenient yes, optimal no.
Time for some more research while I drink my coffee and get ready for the day.
Thanks folks :) |
