Primer on Music Servers?

I did some checking and found that I purchased my first digital camera four years and two months ago. At that time, you got a 16MB (notice the "M") flash card with the camera. The largest available at the computer store was a massive 128MB card that cost $125. I'd suspect that if I had checked on the Internet at the time, I could've found a 512MB card for a lot of dough.

So, in four years we've seen flash memory do a 32-fold increase. I see no reason to think we won't get at least the same multiple in the next four years, which would mean cheap 128GB cards in 2011 and expensive 512GB cards.

At the very least, that's a lot of room to back up your data, wouldn't you say?

High quality computer music servers are hear now, no need to wait. Having your music organized on a server is a patently superior method of accessing one's music collection, assuming one has more than 50 CD's. There are the stand alone units (McIntosh, Yamaha, Sonos, Cambridge, SlimDevices, etc.) or you can construct your own music server with a PC of some sort.

IMHO the keys to audiophile grade sound in these implementations are: 1) lossless encoding of music files, and 2) careful attention to USB - S/PDIF conversion (and this is only an issue for those who are NOT using WIFI).

Once you have those elements sorted out though, the rest of the issues are those you would face when assembling any hifi system: amplification, D/A conversion, speakers, room acoustics, etc..

Computer music servers are the future of the digital front end (IMHO).

Thanks for your response. After I posted this, I saw your excellent posting, "Today's Transport War: Significant Differences?" At some point I'll probably post there with more questions. I was really impressed by your knowledge.

Thanks, Pluck. I am an amatuer, at best. Good luck in your journey. The threads here are a good place to get started. You can also learn a lot about computer audio from two websites: Empirical Audio and Wavelength Audio. Each has dedicated content on the subject. True experts behind these sites.

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.