Best standalone music server?

"Thank you to all who have suggested computer based systems but I am not going to go that route for my aforementioned reasons whether it may be superior or not."

You don't have a choice. There are no non-computer based options. You're just getting hung up on what the box looks like, and believing sales literature. One of the biggest misconceptions is that "appliance" style solutions are easier. When you have an issue with one of those things, its usually far more difficult to deal with. They remove all the options on them so when something happens, you can't do a simple fix even if you wanted to. Also, most use proprietary apps that pretty much forces you to send the unit back in for any type of issues. Don't take my word for it, look at what happened with Olive. Its considered to be on of the best ones. If owners haven't already, a class action suit will be brought against them because no one can get them to work. Not even Olive.

I know this is not what you want to hear, but to be fair, you can't show me one system that's not computer based.  

Even if you buy a dedicated music server, it is usually NOT a simple one-box solution and you will still need to hook it up to the internet to get downloads of metadata on the albums and tracks you download onto the server.  That means a switch and router, plus most will require a controller (can be your phone or iPad with suitable apps), perhaps a separate NAS, perhaps something to rip CDs and it is usually handy to have a PC or laptop (to configure the system, troubleshoot, edit metadata, etc).

But, once you are set up, the convenience and accessibility of your music collection makes a server well worthwhile to have.  This becomes more and more important as your collection grows in size.  I am just guessing, but, I think I would not want to be without a server if I had 1500 CDs or more (I have ripped more than 4,500).