Music Server vs. PC vs. Transport vs. ?

So, I was at Tommie's yesterday and listened to his Sonos system on his main system. It has the advantage of being hidden, and I like the remote on it. The sound going into his dac was very very good, certainly good enough for background music. I really like my dac, and like Tommy will connect whatever I have directly to it. Also, from the listening chair, one cannot see any of the squeezebox devices although I know I can program a remote to work with it.

I still think I will wait to see what awaits at CES. Although I am almost done with the hardware part of my system, I still have to decide how much I want to invest in turntable ancilliaries, what tonearm cord to use, and start on room treatments and re-designing the fireplace... maybe a display that I can see from my listening chair? Maybe a dropdown heavy curtain that covers the fireplace for serious listening... how about designing the fireplace as a resonator in the first place? Ad nauseum.


This has been very very enjoyable reading all your posts, and I thank all of you, keep 'em coming. I feel quite confident that others have gained insite as well. I contacted MBL, and apparently there are no plans to have a USB input on their DAC. Shortsighted if you ask me, but there it is.

Also I have issues with my wireless already in my house, it is 4 levels, and the knucklehead made the connects in the basement, in the corner. I lose connection way too much as it is in other rooms.....grrrr.

Best,
Chris

Thanks for the kind comments, CK. I agree that it is a very cost-effective route, even when adding $2k for the pending ModWright tube output stage upgrade.

You are correct about still being able to use USB on a running computer. One of the advantages of my setup (IMHO), is that the computer does not need to be on (the network, yes, but not the computer)! It should also be noted that, while the computer is not needed to find and play music, I can use the computer to control/configure SlimServer on the NAS (e.g., make playlists, find obscure internet radio stations, etc.).

In regard to cost-effectiveness, I must confess to quickly backing out on an offer I made on David Shapiro's Crimson last month just prior to going the Transporter/NAS route (once again, David, my sincere apologies for my change-of-direction/heart). For slightly more than the $5.5k I was going to pay for the lightly-used Crimson, I was able to buy a new Transporter, will be able to get it modded by ModWright, AND paid for a new NAS with a huge amount of automatically backed-up storage. BTW - the best prices I found on the NAS were at aegis.com (great service too).

I'm not sure how the ModWright-modded Transporter stacks up against the Crimson sound-wise, but my guess is that any differences will not be perceptible to my ears. IMHO, the un-modded Transporter sounds very very good and I can't wait to see how it sounds with the ModWright mods. Unfortunately, I am not made of money and will not be purchasing another Transporter to compare to the ModWright-modded unit (I'll try to get one of my buddies to buy a Transporter, but all of them already shake their heads on what I spend on stereo equipment).

BTW, one thing I forgot to mention to the OP is that the Slim Devices also have firmware support for Apple Lossless as well as a couple other codecs. FWIW, a fellow audio enthusiast and computer-head buddy of mine and I are going to try and set up a VPN (Virtual Private Network) on my network so that he can stream FLAC files off my NAS over the internet to his SB3 and external high-end DAC. Talk about sharing the music!

Tboooe is correct and his recommendation on the Infrant (now NetGear) ReadyNAS NV+ is what I bought. Speaking of "business use", I also configured my NV+ with the more robust "enterprise" hard drives versus "consumer" models since the enterprise units have some ~1,200,000 hours MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) versus ~800,000 hours for the consumer models. For the $100 or so it costs to upgrade to enterprise drives, it is/was a no-brainer IMO.

Again, aegis.com has the best prices for the NV+ that I found and great service (ordered on a Monday and delivered Friday the same week!). They also have a lot of experience with NAS and are one of the only sellers to perform a 48 hour test burn-in. I also paid the extra $100 to bump the NV+'s memory to 1GB, which SlimServer reportedly needs/likes.

brontox, I also upgraded to the Seagate enterprise hard drives . I also recommend Aegis.com, which is where I purchased my NAS.

Chris, remember what I said about the Sonos, it acts as a repeater so as long as you have multiple zones throughout your house, you should have no problem with a weak signal. My router is upstairs in our office which is the front right edge of my home but i have issues with signal strength for my Sonos in my backyard or in the family room downstairs and towards the back of my home.

You are right, the ability to access your music library is important and I think this is where the Squeezebox has issues. The Sonos controller is just so useful and is in itself a wireless device so you can control any number of Sonos boxes from anywhere in your house.