I’ve tried a few combinations of computer, Apple PC and DAC and the best to date, both in sound quality and simplicity is storing all my music on a NAS drive with dual mirrored drives using RAID config and use a Blusesound Node 2 to stream content from the NAS and the internet
Why the NAS drive? - if a drive fails you simply replace it and the RAID takes care of copying everything from the old drive to the new drive - but you do need server quality drives for longevity. I tried using regular drives and one of the drives failed in 6 months - but the recovery was so simple - the server grade drives are like build like tanks
Why the Bluesound and not the MAC? - I got fed up with the software upgrades creating incompatibility. Also - the onboard DAC was better than my upgraded/tweaked Schiit Bifrost - much better!
I now have Bluesound Node 2 on my audio system, A Powernode 2 on my TV and a Pulse Mini for outdoor music
The Bluesound Interface is one of the easiest and most intuitive I have tried ( even my Wife can work it ) and their software updates always work.
Their support is top notch also - never failed to resolve a problem yet
Hope that helps - Steve
Why the NAS drive? - if a drive fails you simply replace it and the RAID takes care of copying everything from the old drive to the new drive - but you do need server quality drives for longevity. I tried using regular drives and one of the drives failed in 6 months - but the recovery was so simple - the server grade drives are like build like tanks
Why the Bluesound and not the MAC? - I got fed up with the software upgrades creating incompatibility. Also - the onboard DAC was better than my upgraded/tweaked Schiit Bifrost - much better!
I now have Bluesound Node 2 on my audio system, A Powernode 2 on my TV and a Pulse Mini for outdoor music
The Bluesound Interface is one of the easiest and most intuitive I have tried ( even my Wife can work it ) and their software updates always work.
Their support is top notch also - never failed to resolve a problem yet
Hope that helps - Steve