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Sonosfed by lossless files on an NAS.
Reader Charlie S. wonders what you use for digital music these days? What is your <I>primary</I> digital front end?
I would have to spend quite a bit more money to beat my Squeezebox with a Bel Canto DAC3. BTW, if you run Ethernet instead of wi-fi, it sounds much/ better. That wireless tranceiver must really be producing some problems with RFI/EMI.
SACD, DVD-A, and then CD are the format of choice in my playback (owing to evolving tastes and buying habitsI have nearly as many SACDs as CDs, most more recently acquired). I have representatives of each format that have excellent sound, but as I favour discrete MCH playback, SACD and DVD-A dominate my current choices (DVD-A is as good, to me, as SACD but there are far fewer titles in that format that I want).
If you want high quality, CD offers by far the widest choice of music. iPod is poor quality, and only a very few labels will be offering music files of higher-rez quality than CD. With high-rez discs being almost dead, the challenge is to get the best possible music out of your valuable Red Book disks!
Since I don't currently own a dedicated CD player, I'm listening to a hybrid DVD-A/SACD player. I consider that my primary front end even though my iPod probably gets more actual hours of usage, since I can listen to it at my desk at work. I plan on getting a CD-only player as soon as I can after I spring for record cleaning machine and then maybe that phone preamp with the USB output (so I can get my vinyl-only mucis onto my iPod). I don't know when I would be getting a Blu-Ray since I'm in no hurry to get a HDTV, and if I go server, I'd probably want to roll my own using a computer.
Still sticking with a format with a long MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure, a hard drive spec). What I envisioned as the replacement for CD, little plug in fob-like devices with no moving parts on the player has not materialized. Files on iPods or flash memory is very close to this, and a "player" for the former (and hopefully latter) may be in the works out there. SACD and DVD/A, both two and multi-channel sound great to me, but until Music Servers lose the I-am-sure-to-break hard drive, I'm sticking with the old for now. I'm not sure why I hate to back up a hard drive, while making copies of CDs is okay with me. Wish I could "back up" SACDsor can you?
Music server the most convenient option to sit and listen without the hassle of thinking about what you want to hear and change it every so often, it is all about the music in the end. The fun part is that good servers, such as Linn's and the Transporter simply made the transition easier.