Pre-made, one-box server discussion/comparison thread

Jeffkad

Jeffkad

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I think it would be helpful if there was a thread about purpose built servers from third parties, for those of us that have no interest or aptitude for building our own, and no interest in cobbling together systems with Mac minis and having to figure out optimizing OS, ripping and playback software, adding separate ripping and storage devices, etc. Someone like me.

I want to enter the world of highend computer-sourced music, however, I am at once too busy, lazy, and not at all computer savvy. I want an all-in-one solution that has everything I need built in and OS optimized, including ripping, storage and playback. I want it to sound as good as an excellent transport, or, in other words, I want it sound like a great CDP when it's connected to a great DAC. On the other hand, I don't want to overpay for what is essentially an upgraded PC. This is only a transport after all. Although i would prefer to buy from a reasonably stable company that might actually be here in another few years, it seems that the only option right now ( other than the expensive K-scope or Sooloos, or the restrictive Olive) lies with the proliferation of one man (or few men) shops that have sprung up as "expert" builders of music servers.

I for one have looked at servers from Baetis, Music Vault, Musica Pristina, Sonore, W4S, Olive, Antipodes, etc. I will put up comments later on what I've learned/what I think about them from a very laymen perspective, which I hope will be verified, challenged and/or corrected by our more expert members.

From a "technical" perspective, I have also learned that there are still various levels of debate about WAV vs FLAC, about spdif vs USB, about what kind of components make a good/best server.

Here is perhaps the most significant issue from my perspective: given that it appears that asynch USB has seemingly solved much of the server jitter issue, how else is noise within a server transmitted in a way that ISN'T jitter related? This goes to the heart of the cost issue: how much do you really have to do to a server to make it capable of passing a clean enough signal whereby the DAC will take care of the rest and be ultimately responsible for sound quality? Just look at the different components in the "budget" Musica Pristina Prodigy Library unit ($2700) and their more upscale Virtuoso Library unit ($4500). Are the added components really worth 1800 more? Will there be a noticeable improvement in SQ if jitter is taken care of by an asynchronous USB that is self-powered (not bus powered from PC, eliminating a noise source) and is galvanically isolated (which apparently also eliminates noise source)? At what point/price/parts level do we cross the threshold into unnecessary (or voodoo/snake oil)?

So, I would like to kick off this thread with a call to everyone who has a server or is researching a server option to put up their views, opinions, experiences, and/ or what they've learned through their own research. Again, this is for the layman who is not interested in building their own server. However, we can still learn from those who have built their own as to what has worked and what hasn't, as that will help decipher fact from fiction as respects the various server builds and their claims. (ie, linear vs switching PSU, sotm USB card, bus vs self-powered USB, etc).

Looking forward to a lively and informative discussion.
 
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Linn Akurate DS. Done.

Product Information

Linn_Akurate_DS_Large.jpg


What you will also need is a NAS (assuming you have a lot of CD's) like a Synology NAS and either a PC or Mac to rip your existing CD's and new CD's to the NAS. The Linn then reads from the NAS. It has an iPad app.

Another option is the Bryston BDA-2/BDP-2 + NAS. I think you will find it hard to get around the NAS.

If you care about DSD, then you are going to have to look at other options: Meitner MA-1 + CAPS 3.0 + NAS. There are of course less expensive options like the Mytek 192 DSD DAC.

But if you aren't concerned about DSD, then I would be narrowing it down between the Bryston Combo (two boxes) or the LINN Akurate DS (one box). Both require a NAS or external HD at a minimum.
 
Jeff
I know everyone has a different budget and defines expensive based on that, but at a MSRP of $4k I do not think that the MDMS aka SooLoos MC-200 is that unaffordable.

It has a very good interface especially when using the iPad app. It has decent DAC's but you can output to one of your choice or better yet to a Meridian endpoint at which time it competes with anything available.

Jim
 
Mike, you obviously did not read my post thoroughly :). I said a one box solution that includes ripping and storage. I get dizzy just reading George's signature line about his PC setup LOL.

Jim, yes, price point is always individual-specific, but I personally don't see the benefit of paying big bucks for what I want, which is basically a ripping and storing transport, with some kind of good software like JRiver, etc. The Sooloos is supposed to be outstanding in features and software, but at it's heart, for me, it's still a transport, and I dont need all the fanciness. Also, i do not think you are correct about the 4k price. The Core is but one of the components you need to put together a complete Sooloos, no? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Don't mean to side-track this, but here goes a quick question relating to "pre-made" servers.
...I had assumed that most of these run a Linux-like core OS, then, some proprietary Music Player/Interface software.

Do any of these run generic Music Player software, i.e JRiver or the like.

Only reason I ask is that I've built-my-own now for going on 3 years, using MediaMonkey etc. and finally JRiver.
 
Rayooo said:
Don't mean to side-track this, but here goes a quick question relating to "pre-made" servers.
...I had assumed that most of these run a Linux-like core OS, then, some proprietary Music Player/Interface software.

Do any of these run generic Music Player software, i.e JRiver or the like.

Only reason I ask is that I've built-my-own now for going on 3 years, using MediaMonkey etc. and finally JRiver.
Click to expand...

I believe the Linn has its own software, including iPad app. I'm sure the higher end Sooloos and DCS stacks due too. For me, JRiver is outstanding. It works better than iTunes for NAS purposes - unless you use Apple Home Sharing. JRiver syncs better when you rip a new CD and you want to access it across multiple environments. I am now running JRiver for Mac on my downstairs system. It works, but it is beta and still buggy and missing some key features, but it has the potential (when it's finally a fully baked product) to be a superior interface to iTunes.
 
Mike said:
I believe the Linn has its own software, including iPad app. I'm sure the higher end Sooloos and DCS stacks due too. For me, JRiver is outstanding. It works better than iTunes for NAS purposes - unless you use Apple Home Sharing. JRiver syncs better when you rip a new CD and you want to access it across multiple environments. I am now running JRiver for Mac on my downstairs system. It works, but it is beta and still buggy and missing some key features, but it has the potential (when it's finally a fully baked product) to be a superior interface to iTunes.
Click to expand...

+1 on the JRiver... it hit me when seeing this thread that should I ever consider purchasing a pre-built player, I'd almost insist that it use JRiver, or a very close clone of same.
 
Jeffkad said:
Mike, you obviously did not read my post thoroughly :). I said a one box solution that includes ripping and storage. I get dizzy just reading George's signature line about his PC setup LOL.

Jim, yes, price point is always individual-specific, but I personally don't see the benefit of paying big bucks for what I want, which is basically a ripping and storing transport, with some kind of good software like JRiver, etc. The Sooloos is supposed to be outstanding in features and software, but at it's heart, for me, it's still a transport, and I dont need all the fanciness. Also, i do not think you are correct about the 4k price. The Core is but one of the components you need to put together a complete Sooloos, no? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Click to expand...

To some extent you are correct. You need a way to either burn discs to or drag and drop files to the MC-200. In my case that is my MacBook Air. Once you have your media on the unit all you require is a iPad to play the unit. Now you can use the same laptop to control the MC-200 and that works well too, but the iPad is the best solution.

Meridian does offer other storage and core solutions but the MC-200 with 1TB of storage is all I will ever require. I dump music that I do not regularly play. With well over 500 discs loaded I still have over 70% of space availabe.
 
Rayooo said:
Don't mean to side-track this, but here goes a quick question relating to "pre-made" servers.
...I had assumed that most of these run a Linux-like core OS, then, some proprietary Music Player/Interface software.

Do any of these run generic Music Player software, i.e JRiver or the like.

Only reason I ask is that I've built-my-own now for going on 3 years, using MediaMonkey etc. and finally JRiver.
Click to expand...

Not side-tracking at all. Great question. Linux or Windows OS is a key consideration in that a Windows OS allows rippers/players like DBpoweramp, Foobar, JRiver, etc. To answer your question, yes, there are several one-box servers that offer this, including Baetis, Music Vault, and Musica Pristina, and I'm much more inclined to go that way given all the great things I've read about JRiver, etc. Linux based servers include W4S, Sonore, sotm, Antipodes. Olive is a closed system of it's own design I believe, and further, you can't easily backup or access files in the Olive (someone can clarify this).
 
Jeffkad said:
Not side-tracking at all. Great question. Linux or Windows OS is a key consideration in that a Windows OS allows rippers/players like DBpoweramp, Foobar, JRiver, etc. To answer your question, yes, there are several one-box servers that offer this, including Baetis, Music Vault, and Musica Pristina, and I'm much more inclined to go that way given all the great things I've read about JRiver, etc. Linux based servers include W4S, Sonore, sotm, Antipodes. Olive is a closed system of it's own design I believe, and further, you can't easily backup or access files in the Olive (someone can clarify this).
Click to expand...

I owned the Olive 4HD from the get go until I acquired the MC-200. It was a excellent one box all in one solution with decent DAC's. The original unit would have been easy to back-up if I desired but I believe that is a complete waste of time.
 
Jeff - my concern about a one box solution (and I did read your entire post :)) is that if something fails - typically the HD - then you are hooped. A NAS in a proper RAID configuration can save a lot of headaches down the road. It also gives you a LOT more choices and options for a DAC/PLAYER or DAC and Player. You are seeing fewer and fewer companies offer HD's in their player/DAC combo for this reason. Plus, you are often limited in disk space. Setting up the NAS is relatively straight forward and the instructions I received with my Synology NAS were excellent.

A proper NAS can also double as a device for backup and storage of non-music files (pictures, data, files, etc.) - FWIW.

A Bryston BDA-2 and BDP-2 (or Linn Akurate DS) and a 3 bay Synology NAS is about as simple as you can get and still gives you protection from a HD failure, more storage space and accessibility to backup your files from other computers in your house.

If you go with a one box solution (which includes the HD), it isn't a matter of "if" that hard drive will fail, but "when". With a NAS, when a HD fails, you pop out the bad HD, pop in a new one, it rebuilds the RAID and Bob's your Uncle, Fanny's your Aunt, you're done!

27788480.jpg


Just my two cents...

Mike
 
Mike said:
Jeff - my concern about a one box solution (and I did read your entire post :)) is that if something fails - typically the HD - then you are hooped. A NAS in a proper RAID configuration can save a lot of headaches down the road. It also gives you a LOT more choices and options for a DAC/PLAYER or DAC and Player. You are seeing fewer and fewer companies offer HD's in their player/DAC combo for this reason. Plus, you are often limited in disk space. Setting up the NAS is relatively straight forward and the instructions I received with my Synology NAS were excellent.

A proper NAS can also double as a device for backup and storage of non-music files (pictures, data, files, etc.) - FWIW.

A Bryston BDA-2 and BDP-2 (or Linn Akurate DS) and a 3 bay Synology NAS is about as simple as you can get and still gives you protection from a HD failure, more storage space and accessibility to backup your files from other computers in your house.

If you go with a one box solution (which includes the HD), it isn't a matter of "if" that hard drive will fail, but "when". With a NAS, when a HD fails, you pop out the bad HD, pop in a new one, it rebuilds the RAID and Bob's your Uncle, Fanny's your Aunt, you're done!

27788480.jpg


Just my two cents...

Mike
Click to expand...

Sorry Mike, that is a bunch of hogwash. I have owned or used personal computers and laptops since the early 80's. I can't count the number I have owned and have never ever had a hard drive fail. Do they fail, I am sure they do, but that doesn't mean it will fail.
 
Mike, spoken like a true tech guy, lol! You are a techie, so this stuff is second nature for you, but it's not so easy for the layman. So in your solution, it's multi box, it still needs ripping box and optimized ripping software, and the Bryston is Linux based, limiting playback OS options. BTW, I stand corrected, the Olive does allow backup via USB, although the 4HD no longer has a ripping drive, only the 5HD and 6HD. The Olive also has had some pretty significant QC issues based on commentary over at AVS forums. The Olive also has no USB out for an external USB-centric dac, and you are also paying for an internal dac in the 5 and 6 (and an amp in the 5HD). The Baetis, Musica Pristina and Music Vault I believe are all Windows based OS, which allows for upgrading ripping and playback software, backup to external NAS, realtively easy access to storage disks (HDD or SSD). In fact, the Music Vault servers have RAID config built-in for automatic internal backup.
 
still-one said:
Sorry Mike, that is a bunch of hogwash. I have owned or used personal computers and laptops since the early 80's. I can't count the number I have owned and have never ever had a hard drive fail. Do they fail, I am sure they do, but that doesn't mean it will fail.
Click to expand...

I run 19 servers across my 4 companies. I respectfully disagree. They will fail. It might me months or years. We deal with special server drives - much more expensive - they fail. We deal with desktop drives - they fail. We deal with SSD in my employees laptops - no issues - yet. It all depends on use and the drive itself. If you can back it up, all the better. Re ripping is no fun. The drive on my Mac mini failed only months after I ripped all my cd's (the first time).

Mike
 
I've had only 1 or 2 of what appeared to be actual hard drive failures over many years. Still though, in the vast majority of cases, a hard-drive failure was of little or no real concern as the relatively small amount of important data, was backed up.

When embarking on this digital audio thing, it hit me right off that no matter how reliable any storage medium is, when you've got upwards of a TB, or as many have well over a TB, losing it all in one swoop would not be a pretty sight. Whether by a real hard drive failure, controller, corruption, software glitch or whatever.

I now use two Synology RAIDS(Raid5 essentially) the Master backs up to the slave every night. I also keep a copy or two on individual hard drives via USB. So 3 copies on-site, which still puts me in violation of one of the storage rules, stating always have an off-site copy.

I work now and have worked for various Media Storage companies over the years, working with very large storage infrastructures. When you have hundreds or thousands or disks spinning, failures are an ongoing issue...and probably why I'm more superstitious than others regarding this.

Interesting press release: (DDN array with 20,000 disks, for ORNL Titan Supercomputer
DATADIRECT NETWORKS TO BUILD WORLD?S FASTEST STORAGE SYSTEM FOR TITAN, WORLD?S MOST POWERFUL SUPERCOMPUTER | DDN | DataDirect Networks
PS as an example, in most cases, these DDN systems are configured where each group of 10 disks, have two spinning parity drives, thus in a 20,000 drive array, 4,000 drives for backup!

So whether a pre-built system, or a roll your own, I'd suggest some form of backup strategy!
 
Jeffkad said:
Mike, spoken like a true tech guy, lol! You are a techie, so this stuff is second nature for you, but it's not so easy for the layman. So in your solution, it's multi box, it still needs ripping box and optimized ripping software, and the Bryston is Linux based, limiting playback OS options. BTW, I stand corrected, the Olive does allow backup via USB, although the 4HD no longer has a ripping drive, only the 5HD and 6HD. The Olive also has had some pretty significant QC issues based on commentary over at AVS forums. The Olive also has no USB out for an external USB-centric dac, and you are also paying for an internal dac in the 5 and 6 (and an amp in the 5HD). The Baetis, Musica Pristina and Music Vault I believe are all Windows based OS, which allows for upgrading ripping and playback software, backup to external NAS, realtively easy access to storage disks (HDD or SSD). In fact, the Music Vault servers have RAID config built-in for automatic internal backup.
Click to expand...

The music vault sounds great. If you want to buy a Mac mini, Apple SuperDrive and a external HD just to get started, I will help you. Even a lay person I will have you up and running in under 30 minutes. We will configure iTunes so that the second you pop a CD into the SuperDrive it immediately starts ripping it in lossless format for your hard drive. Once you're comfortable, we can always add a second external HD for backup (that runs automatically too).

But, I certainly understand the allure of the one box solution, I just find it someone limiting. Just my two cents.

Mike
 
Mike said:
The music vault sounds great. If you want to buy a Mac mini, Apple SuperDrive and a external HD just to get started, I will help you. Even a lay person I will have you up and running in under 30 minutes. We will configure iTunes so that the second you pop a CD into the SuperDrive it immediately starts ripping it in lossless format for your hard drive. Once you're comfortable, we can always add a second external HD for backup (that runs automatically too).

But, I certainly understand the allure of the one box solution, I just find it someone limiting. Just my two cents.

Mike
Click to expand...

Mike, thanks for the offer, but i would still prefer the one box solution with a windows OS and phone/logimen support from the manufacturer. In the end, if I can get a well-built machine with everything I want in it and great SQ between 2k-3k, thats a good value proposition for me.
 
Unless I'm mistaken, the music vault still requires a DAC and one of them even had a third box (SPDIF).
 
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