Music Servers

If you want great support from the designer/dealer talk to Neal van Berg from Music Vault. If you have any concerns about your ability to install/configure/maintain your server, he will set it up so that he can access and trouble shoot it remotely. I'm a satisfied customer, I've heard the Antipodes and it also sounded great, but that was not at home in my system, so I really can't compare.

My first MV was purchased before there were any purpose-built servers available so I can't claim to be prescient on the issue of future repairability, but since the MV is basically a music-optimized window pc/server, so any failure of the hardware components should be easily fixable, and it's set up to auto-duplicate onto a back-up HD, so you should be good there, as well.

Don't know the answers to all of your questions, but give Neal at Sound Science a call. I'm sure he'll quickly walk you through them. Here's my (admittedly only somewhat confident) answers:

Will it completely replace your MAC Book Pro- Yes.

How do I rip CDs to my external drive- Just designate it as the location where the files are to be stored, if it can be connected with a USB cable.

Can I connect my 3 TB USB hard drive- Don't see why not. Mine has about 10 USB ports.

Can I stream anything I want from the internet? Sure, if you have internet access.

How do I control it- Easily enough with a mouse. I'm told there is remote software although I do not know how it works.

Neal can also set you up with ethernet over AC wiring adapters so you can overcome the limited wi-fi access problem. My MV is virtually silent unless it's ripping a CD.