Media Servers/Network Players/Computer Audio/All-In-One Players

[callas01]

Computer Audio is where the mass is turning to now-a-days. Its convenient, doesn't require a bunch of storage of physical media, sound quality is vastly improved with lossless formats such as FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF and DSD. Even modern 320 kbps MP3s sound better then the MP3s of yesteryear. Then you add in the many different music server software systems you can download, Pure Music, Audirvana, Amarra, JRiver, MediaMonkey and Foobar2000 to name the more popular ones.

A few years ago, the Squeezebox was one of the most popular items in music streaming. Since then theres been many other brands, Naim, Olive, Cambridge, Marantz, Cocktail, Simaudio, Yamaha, Sony, Sonos, NAD to name a few, and they have products that range into all different price categories. Then of course you have places like computeraudiophile.com which will show you how to build your own computer music server and storage system at different price levels.

High quality downloads can be bought from places such as hdtracks.com, acousticsounds.com, of course being the biggest 2 online locations. Then there are smaller places to download music from like, bluecoastrecords.com, linn.co.uk, naimlabel.com, societyofsound.com. Other larger libraries of music can be downloaded at places like iTunes, google, amazon and such. I would be interested to see which is the first one to offer up hi-res files for downloading. I honestly can't believe that Apple or amazon hasn't made that move already, especially Apple considering that they have their music mastered for iTunes, which takes files from 16/24 bits and all sampling rates 44.1-192 and then masters them into 256 kbps AAC files, they could just leave the files in their original state for people who want CD quality or better better hi-res files.

Wireless and powered speakers like Audioengine, Dynaudio, Focal, Emotiva, Aperion, and the list goes on and on, that you can use with Computer Audio based systems. Be it on the desk or wireless set in front or behind your desk, or in another room. But whether they're a high-end brand or not, we know that computer audio is reaching all levels of manufactures as they offer wireless and powered speakers for this market.

Lets not forget apps on phones and tablets that allow for control over your home network for playing and changing music, or input devices.

So if you have computer audio related questions or comments, ask away and lets begin a discussion. If theres something that I missed please bring it up. Talk about your favorite music that you've downloaded, discuss a DAC you want to buy, Headphones, speakers, amp's, or whatever, its an open discussion forum with no boundaries, just the same way, computer audio occurs in many many forms.