Which personal confuser for ultra high end audio, MAC, PC, notebook, tablet or desktop?

Jim sorry that is the best autocorrect ever! I would be happy to be your personal confuser as I seem to have been confused a good chunk of my life! :-p

Jim:
Since you already have a Synology NAS drive, I would suggest you purchase a Sonore Microrendu , and let it do all the music workflow between your NAS drive, DAC and computer. With it in place, your music files will no longer run through your computer, which can degrade the sound quality. You computer simply uses a program like Roon, JRiver, etc. to direct the Microrendu and tell it what to do with the music files on your NAS. Your sound quality will improve quite a bit, and you can use any computer, laptop or tablet you wish. The computer will no longer be a limiting factor to your sound quality.

Jond > that is the best autocorrect ever

Blindjim > actually, no correction was needed, it was the intended phrase. I prefer it over the A B Normally used ‘personal computer’ innuendo.


Bigshutterbug > purchase a Sonore Micro rendu , and let it do all the music work for you…. SQ will then increase.

Blindjim > Bigshutterbug, wow. Really? Thanks.

Why those two in particular? No others?

I’m just getting into these latest greatest aspects of digital as it has progressed to date. I’m unclear on a couple things, some on software, and now your input on this new approach with different hardware.

These two gizmos you mention, how are they accessed? IOS? Computer? From Disc Station apps? Or…?

I’ll presume they are on the LAN via Ethernet and are then intentionally enabled with permissions to see the data storage within the Synology domains options.

Subsequent to that configuration an app of sorts activated by a controller (iphone, ipad, pc, or dedicated remote control) facilitates the transmission of the content to the rendering device or main audio system DAC. Albeit, if necessary, some rendering may occur in either the software or ‘server’ domain, if necessary such as ‘on the fly’ up or down sampling or format conversions, correct? or would any alterations to the files be done ONLY in the hardware domain by the items you offered as solutions instead?

Will the needed software options be limited in any way? OS? IOW, do these devices use only specific app (s) for file playback operations?, eg., ROON, JRiver? A proprietary mobile app?

I must ask because, in my world, a concern always exists which hands me either some grief or a lot of grief, and that is software which does not play well with peripheral adaptive software.

I must use high functioning accessibility (screen reading) apps to get anything done via PCs. MACs have a proprietary Voice Over facility which allows navigation and operation of its apps and hardware, provided when necessary, the third party apps were written with Voice Over functionality in mind. It is suprising to see how many main stream apps simply ignore the VO component, rendering them useless arbitrary . inconveniences
regardless the OS, it happens all the time.

Regularly, I’ve gotta install what ever, and run it to really know if it will work. If not, go a different route and buy or try something else. And so on, etc.

Lastly, OK. I’ll reiterate the obvious, to me anyway, issue. Exactly how are these gizmos environments any better than the one in a computer?

The two items I’ve read about so far which seem to address the possibly degrading issues prevalent in a computer, were
Fidelizer Nimitra Computer Audio Server
And
Aurender W20

The latter requires a lottery ticket and a lot of luck, the former seems as though it has its own learning curve, especially if one trys to employ the PC adjusting or streamlining’ software without the total packaged hardware.

Thoughts?

Jim a more serious answer to your question then I am also a bit of a computer neophyte but set up a streaming setup first with a Sonos Connect which I later upgraded to an Auralic Aries Mini. I stream wirelessly from a Synology NAS drive as well as streaming Tidal outputting to an Audio Note Dac via the coax output on the Aries. My setup does require wifi my modem is in my office and system in the living room but I've had no hiccups to speak of streaming wirelessly. I love the Auralic Lightning DS app it's easy to use and setup and pretty feature rich. Just my own experiences I hope they are helpful to you in some way. Cheers!