Art,

Thanks for that info. I have a tower now in my home office, so I'd be getting a PC primarily for music serving, but also as a backup for my tower if it fails. Thanks for the pointers.

Charlie

An FYI: I use an Auralic Aries to stream my own digital music/hires files as well as Tidal. Sound quality is amazingly good with both methods and no problems here with gapless playback.

Thank you all for your responses to my question.

Is there a simple, one box solution for gapless streaming, internet radio and file storing? It looks to me as if the music file storage has to be on a laptop or computer, separate hard drive or separate CD ripper. I'd really like to cut down on boxes and I'm not sure I want to add another computer to the mix. (But maybe that's the best way.)

Rackon wrote: Thank you all for your responses to my question.

Is there a simple, one box solution for gapless streaming, internet radio and file storing? It looks to me as if the music file storage has to be on a laptop or computer, separate hard drive or separate CD ripper. I'd really like to cut down on boxes and I'm not sure I want to add another computer to the mix. (But maybe that's the best way.)

Click here: Auralic Altair

@ Rackon - I know it is two pieces but could consider a Bluenode 2 for the streaming/internet radio plus it can scan any hard drive on your network to index and play back that content (NAS, etc.). Or if you don't have a drive, can get their Vault unit as a 'single' box, which has a 2TB drive built in plus the same streaming capabilities:
www.bluesound.com/en-us/products/node-2/
www.bluesound.com/en-us/products/vault-2/

I am thinking of getting the Node 2 to play Tidal MQA and also index and play all the FLAC files I ripped years ago...I did not like my old interface for doing that (JRiver on my old computer), supposedly the BlueOS is decently easy to use. I understand that I should be able to listen to all the music on my old Synology NAS unit plus make playlists that mixes my ripped content with internet/Tidal music in the same playlist, that sounds neat. And these units can 'unfold' the highest quality "Masters' MQA files from Tidal, at higher than CD quality (supposedly). iF you want to use an external DAC it can pass through the digital signal to an outside DAC or you can also leave it to handle the DAC conversion. These units are available from crutchfield and Best Buy etc. so you could return them if you didn't like them. For $500 the node is a decent product (but you need the external hard drive/ripping yourself), the Vault is $1200 but is an 'all-in-one'.

I should add that the vault has a CD drive to rip your music to FLAC. Also both of them do not have Pandora (?) but seem to have nearly every other source - Spotify Tidal Deezer Qoboz Slacker etc etc.

GDHAL wrote:

WayneWilmeth wrote: Good comments Gdhal,
Many of us here will agree with you on how important speakers are!!!
But after that, I too believe the source of the music is super important!!!!
And many feel the ladder type DAC to be the way to go.
So, we will look forward to hearing how that works out for you? Schiit is a well respected name in the industry these days.
Let us know, please,
Happy listening,
God Bless,
Wayne

Thank you, Wayne. Sure, I'll report back once I have it hooked in, broken it and auditioned for a while. That could be two months or so as the current status is Schiit isn't shipping until after 9/14 (and their dates only move further out, not in )

Something else I'd like to add regarding my rationale for buying the Yggdrasil is that the focus of the unit is LPCM. I couldn't care less for DSD or MQA, nor does the Yggy. So many other DACs try/need to do it all (and is part of the reason they can be more expensive). Also, I like the appearance of the Yggy. I despise the look of the Chord Dave, albeit I wouldn't mind having one

My Yggdrasil has shipped!!! I expect to receive it late this coming week, and would have it hooked up in my system next (10/14) weekend.

I have just finished provisioning (three digital output cables run, Oppo relegated to RCA out, shelf dusted off, etc.) my system to welcome it

Will report back after I have had a chance to listen, etc.