Music server quality.

Henryhk,
The Arcam would be expected to be a good unit, I suppose.

Kana813,
My pockets are not that deep. (My grave might be deep if I bought one and "forgot" to tell my wife.)

I guess I just don't get the packaged server products. Are they for people who are afraid of computers?

What do they do that a simple Mac running i-tunes can't do, cheaper? That is, assuming that you want to use your own dac? I have a squeezebox, but it doesn't sound nearly as good as the mac going straight into the dac with the optical output. Am I missing something here?

just to add another option - there is Cambridge Audio unit that has received good ink, and it is quite affordable, any comments?

Sw23...I think on using your notebook etc or PC..a) personally I tend to upgrade my PC more regularly as the pace of tech development is much faster and b) they tend to crash much more frequently than servers (virus etc) and finally c) I use my PC for so much other stuff anyway could actually inibit usage flexibility if married to my music system. ...I do use a PC based system due to my IPOD and also via Sonus yes...but still interested in what the servers have to offer. Also finally I guess, for some rooms at my place wirless distribution doesn't work that well so need mutiple options to consider. Obviously a PC based system also has lot of advantages such as convenience, user interface, flexibility, software upgrades etc as well.

I bought a laptop that is dedicated as a music server. Its a mac. It never crashes. It's not wireless. As I said, I used the wireless squeezebox and found that the sound quality of the macs using the new intel chip and the digital output directly via toslink into a dac sounded clearly superior to the squeezbox into the same dac. Of course you want to have an internet connection so that i-tunes can get all of the data about the cds that you add to your library. But I honestly don't understand what it is that these other products offer. My laptop and 500 G hd cost about $1800 and that is literally all that you need if you already have a dac that you like. The mac has its own remote with a screen configuration that is visible from across the room or you can hook it up to a TV monitor. Don't want a laptop, buy a mini for $500! I'm not getting into the mac vs pc thing here for computing. This is just as a dedicated music server and nothing else. I think its cheaper, works better and sounds better easier to add more storage capacity etc.