Perfect Wave DAC and Bridge

So I'm a little confused. If I have a computer, I can get the Lynx soundcard that people often talk about with the Berekely DAC and computer music, then I could go from there via AES/EBU into the Perfect Wave Dac.

Now, assuming we are driving all of this from JRiver, how does that theoretically compare to the Bridge?

For the Bridge it says:

"The bridge contains all the CODECS (programs) to convert just about any format of audio into what the PerfectWave DAC wants for perfection, which is I2S. Once the Bridge gets a network music stream, it figures out what the native format is (FLAC, WAV, ALAC, MP3, etc.) and converts the format into a pure digital audio stream without any associated clocks. This is important because this data, once converted to its raw format, can then be placed into the 256 mB memory of the 'Digital Lens' and then output in I2S directly into the DAC."

If I'm coming in from the Lynx on aes/ebu that will happen anyhow, no? This is more for people who want to use ethernet and who perhaps don't have JRiver?

I ask if these are 'theoretically' the same, as of course in reality there will be at least minute differences.

Exactly the info I wanted! Interesting... Well - once you have it at 800 in the back of the device you might as well go with ethernet and the cheap connection. If you do Lynx its basically same price as Bridge. So, if they offered an external Lens, lets say for 800, then you'd have to spend 800 on Lynx and then 800 for the Lens, so its probably not for computer music as much as getting that last 5% from other connections, maybe from an existing CD player for example.

So, the interesting comparison at this point is:

JRiver / Lynx / Berkeley
vs
JRiver / Ethernet / Bridge+PerfectWave

Anyone compare those yet? I know people have compared PerfectWave vs Berkeley, but I'm thinking of those specific combos.

While in general I would have thought the Berkeley to be much better, perhaps with this lens stuff the PerfectWave is competitive?

While I'm not 100% sure, I think JRiver will do most/all of that. You may need the upnp stuff. Devil is in the details. This stuff is just barely complicated enough that in the end you have to just start building it and then find out what will/won't work... Not saying not to ask questions, but I've built a few of these and its amazing how much goes into getting it right in the end.

I do storage at work and while none of the NAS systems are comparable at all to the kinds of things I do at work I've occasionally dipped down and poked around at the NAS offerings. The main problem with them is they are software not hardware raid, which is why in tests RAID 0 isn't 2x in speed over RAID1 and RAID 10, which is the best one to use if money is plentiful, is typically really horrible. It makes sense, though, a decent RAID card is the same price as these whole devices!

In any case all that to say I was impressed a year or two ago when I looked into all this in detail was Synology. I don't think they are known quite as well, but especially their higher priced models actually perform reasonably well and have a decent processor.

Because I work with high-end storage professionally I've become a storage snob and the only prosumer nas I would get is one of the Synology top of the line models or alternatively I'd just build one myself.

Yes, indeed. I am very happy with what can only be called extremely extensive features of J River, so if a person is feeding the Bridge from J River that takes some of the onus off of the server software on the NAS unless I'm missing something.

In either case - it would be great to get Synology on the radar of those doing all of this because on purely technical merits it kicks the butt of most other NAS systems.