What is Best...streamer or standalone CD?

[enatai252]

Anyone reading my posts in this section will see that I have gone "neck deep" into media servers. I chose to use Naim and have a HDX at each house, 4 Qutes and a ND5 XS...for distributing the sound. Each HDX SSD plays into a stand alone DAC( ARC Dac 8 in one setup and NDAC/555 in the other)

When not listening to vinyl, these have been primary sources...

Ripped music w/Naim's iPad app is a joy to use and I have over 90 high rez recordings. Over the last year I have not however spent a lot of time comparing whether 16/44 on standalone CD player tops a servers performance. Well yesterday I made a deal to get a new Naim CD555 and trade in my CDS3. There is no real good argument other than the 555 is discern ably better than CDS3. I plan to pit the new server revolution against the "lowly CD player" on 16/44 material...will post results here.

[Jerome W]

My Logitech Squeez Box Touch with standard power supply connected in WiFi ( all the things we "audiophiles" are not supposed to do ), connected in coax to my MDA 1000 dac sounds EXACTLY the same as my Linn Ikemi used as a drive and connected to the MDA 1000 by a WireWorld AES cable.

[1KW]

Just buy a sonos and a good dac.

[esteban]

Originally Posted by C220MC275

My Logitech Squeez Box Touch with standard power supply connected in WiFi ( all the things we "audiophiles" are not supposed to do ), connected in coax to my MDA 1000 dac sounds EXACTLY the same as my Linn Ikemi used as a drive and connected to the MDA 1000 by a WireWorld AES cable.

+1. I have my $275 Squeezebox Touch also connected via its "wall wart" power supply to my PS Audio Duet conditioner. "Server" is a $300 Acer netbook with 4GB of RAM, 500 GB of hard-drive space, and pretty much no software installed on it, and an $80 Netgear dual band Router (which is not connected to the internet), which in turn is connected to a $140 2TB Western Digital drive for additional space. The connection between the router and the netbook is via Audioquest's new ethernet cable (for $30, too cheap not to give it a try!). And since the router is literally a few feet away from the Squeezebox, I opted for a wireless connection for that final step.

Result: for around $800, I have a 2.5TB, 24/96 capable server with terrific interface options (I use my wife's iPhone as remote), unmatched user-friendliness, upgrade and expansion flexibility, FLAC and ALAC support, and, more importantly, one that runs fine and sounds great!

Next step: an external DAC...