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Best standalone music server?

So I am considering dipping my toes into the full digital world and was wondering what people here may consider as the best standalone music server, and here I am going to be specific.
I do not want to consider a home pc or mac based type of system at all!
Looking at adding one of the standalone models like for example the Wyred4sound ms1 or cocktail audio.
High on my list is ability to rip my cds directly at the unit itself, access to internet radio and other music apps (Pandora etc). High quality built in dac would be nice but if not then high quality digital out to run to an external dac. I will not be needing to access music files stored on another pc as my home pc is pretty old but fully functional for my simple needs. The only music looking to access from it right now are ripped cds and internet available music in whatever form.
So if it worked out well, yes it may be a replacement even for a cd player completely

Thank you
uberwaltz
uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz OP
13,381 posts
 
@jond 
Oh I agree totaly on the flac vs wav point
Just pointing out the fact that on my computer it took twice as long with the EAC software compared to windows media player on same format of wav.
I truly think my old pc and drives are more the stumbling block on rip speed
uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz OP
13,381 posts
 
In fact I think I have dbpoweramp on my work laptop just to play music back on those long nights in the hotel while away for work
sbank's avatar
sbank
3,402 posts
 
Maybe your test would be different with FLAC, both should go faster. FYI, flac does much better with metadata than WAV. Cheers,
Spencer
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uberwaltz OP
13,381 posts
 
@s
You could be right Spencer, I will try another cd tonight and see
But do you think it would be any faster writing to an external drive over usb2?
jond's avatar
jond
6,105 posts
 
@uberwaltz that won't be faster write to your computer first then transfer your files to an external drive if you want to. Writing directly will likely slow things down further.
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