When building your own server, you need to take a few things into consideration. Specifically, power usage and backup. A lot of folks re-task an old PC for server duty, set it up with linux and stick it in a closet: this can work really well. But if it runs 24/7, it surely consumes a lot of power when you're not actively using it.
Low power NAS units can be really green, but if you have a large song collection it can take a really long time to rescan your library, and response time might not be all you could want.
The other big issue is once you've ripped all your CD's to FLAC, you'll want to be able to back up your collection somewhere, preferably off-site (so when your apartment burns, you don't lose all your music). After ripping a couple thousand CD's you certainly won't want to go thru that again.
A couple other things. The coming trend is to high-res downloads, which means you'd like to have a player that will natively play higher bit rate, such as 192kbit recordings. If you look at Logitech, for instance, right now the Squeezebox won't do that, but the Transporter will. But it's a lot more bucks. If you run off your server or a Mac Mini, you'll need something like the Hagtech USB to digital converter, to convert the output to something you can feed into a high-quality DAC.
Lots of good info on the AA computer audio forum. You can also learn a lot by hanging out on the Logitech user forums.
Of course, you can purchase turnkey systems as well, and if you are not a computer geek, that might be a better solution.
HTH,
Frank
Low power NAS units can be really green, but if you have a large song collection it can take a really long time to rescan your library, and response time might not be all you could want.
The other big issue is once you've ripped all your CD's to FLAC, you'll want to be able to back up your collection somewhere, preferably off-site (so when your apartment burns, you don't lose all your music). After ripping a couple thousand CD's you certainly won't want to go thru that again.
A couple other things. The coming trend is to high-res downloads, which means you'd like to have a player that will natively play higher bit rate, such as 192kbit recordings. If you look at Logitech, for instance, right now the Squeezebox won't do that, but the Transporter will. But it's a lot more bucks. If you run off your server or a Mac Mini, you'll need something like the Hagtech USB to digital converter, to convert the output to something you can feed into a high-quality DAC.
Lots of good info on the AA computer audio forum. You can also learn a lot by hanging out on the Logitech user forums.
Of course, you can purchase turnkey systems as well, and if you are not a computer geek, that might be a better solution.
HTH,
Frank