Primer on Music Servers?


I've been watching as the price of digital storage falls like a rock. You can now get a 4GB compact flash card for $45. A 16GB compact flash card sells for $235. I clicked around and saw that Samsung is planning 64GB CF cards in the near future, which means that those 16GB cards will be 50 bucks before too long.

However you code it, that's a lot of music. I have a friend who ran his own software company, and a short while back he told me that people will soon be carrying the contents of their PC (operating system, apps and data) on compact flash cards, and soon after that on their credit cards.

I've got to think that we're at the dawn of an era where digital content is stored and retrieved without moving parts, and where storage is so vast that capacity is no longer an issue. All of this leads me to believe that the various spinning media are living on borrowed time, be they conventional hard drives or CD, SACD and DVD.

I've discussed this with my A/V system dealer and he points out that the music servers come from the PC makers. Those guys just don't get it when it comes to the various interconnection and other performance issues that audiophiles care about, he says.

Having interacted with my share of geeks I absolutely believe thus. Still, how hard is this? I'd think it's a matter of how to stream the data from storage. If the PC makers don't get it, what's keeping the audio equipment guys like, say, Linn, from going there? It must be that there are much more formidble technical challenges than I know.

Perhaps folks here can lay them out? I'm not particularly interested in various format wars (coding methods) unless there's something about a particular one of them that makes it especially difficult to move digital content off of a CD or DVD. What's the holdup to music servers that would equal the sound from the best spinning disc players?

I'm hoping I don't set off a religious war with my question. I don't own a music server right now, and I'm not going to get one until my dealer tells me they're ready. I'm just wondering what the holdup is.
pluck

Showing 3 responses by jc51373

Let me tell you a little something...People like to think HDD is not as good as Flash for some reason, and that the whole 'moving parts' theory is the reason why. This is somewhat true, but solid state storage (Flash) is not much better, and when it fails, which is statistically as often as HDD, whatever you had on there is gonzo. Good luck getting it back.

At least with a magnetic platter design you have the ability to recover the the bits.

I work for a premier IT market intelligence company, and I do lots of research on these. Flash has promise, but a long way to go before it becomes better than HDD. I wouldn't recommend sitting around for too long waiting for one to pan out over the other.
There is no hold up, they're here now. Problem isn't necessarily the ability to manufacture audiophile-grade USB equipment. Technology is out there.

The problem as I see it is very simple, and two-fold...The mass market is slow to adopt new technology, especially audiophile types. Second, alot of people have no idea how to use a computer well enough to set up a PC-based system. For example, most know little about digital compression, what it means, why it is important. Just those market conditions alone are enough to slow demand and ultimately r&d production. So at this point, there is little reason for the larger manufacturers to invest-but they undoubtedly will eventually. Although audiophile types may be the last to benefit of course.

Some of the stuff out there at the moment qualifies as just good, aforementioned McIntosh etc..All the Mac music server is is an Escient with a Mac faceplace-since Marantz owns both Mac and Escient. Sound was also very much sub-par out of this when I listened. Wireless is another approach, but you have to have big buffers for music that is streamed uncompressed, and there is just something about no wires that screams non-audiophile. Thats just me...

As far as formats etc...Don't waste your time worrying-Apple Lossles. And as far as storage, don't wait for SSD to advance to the point you can put all your 100's of gigs of music on it. HDD is excellent, and much more reliable these days than it once was. SSD is good, and I look forward to it, but I am not waiting around for advances out of it. It is very expensive to produce, when it fails there is NO recovering anything; so HDD will stick around for a while at reasonable prices per Gigabyte compared to SSD per gigabyte.

Like Paradales said, the time is now, and the two choices IMO are either Empirical or Wavelength, everything is a compromise at this point. Choice is limited for the level of gear you own, so you owe it to yourself to give either of those products a hard look before taking the plunge into server based audio.

Difference between Wavelength (WA) and Empirical (EA). EA is largely a modder, although more of his own stuff is being listed on his site..Everything form WA is custom designed from the ground up-no mods. EA tends to have more answers for the sPDIF inclined, whereas WA is largely pure USB Zero DACs, very little sPDIF, no I2S (native interface for alot of DAC chips). As far as sonic differences between the these two, can't speak for EA, and sonics really have to be tested in your own system.

I can say for my system, the Cosecant easily beat out a $12K Nagra player, among other very expensive players. Best digital I have ever heard.