Best digital audio player for hi-fi stack.

Hello.

I'm completely green, as I've always been using physicla media up to CD, so no DVD-A, no SACD, no BD-A.
But I'm considering getting a digital audio player to hook up to my AV receiver.

What would you recommend?
Prefferably the best ever obviously, with hi-res support and with removable SSD to store TBs of audio. 4TB SSD are now cheap as a beat-up, so why not, I can always unmount it, plug to PC and transffer more stuff.

 

Any old PC connected to a reasonable DAC and running JRiver will do the trick.

 

Yep.....as Claude states. I run a 2011 Mac Mini (the one with the better sound card so it will do 24/192) into my AV Receiver via HDMI as I like 5.1/quad mixes etc...I don't have SSD's for storage yet, but you really don't need that kind of speed for audio streaming. I use 8TB WD drives x 4 for storage and backup. I use mostly JR River and occasionally VLC or Audirvanna.

 

For the price of a 4TB SSD, you could easily set up a redundant 8TB NAS. I set one up last year with a 3rd HDD as an actual backup physical disk for the current price of a 4TB SSD. The NAS is set up as a cloud server. So, I can access the files both local and though the internet.

 

Or Foobar.

 

OK, thank you for the insight, but I'm looking for a dedicated hi-fi set-up component.
Beside, my laptop, as all laptops has static noise from headphones jack, no line out.
The problem with HDMI is that I have a DisplayPort and I use it for second monitor.
It doesn't have optical through headphone jack.
And worst of all it's in a different room.

I was incorrectly talking about 4TB SSD, which are expensive, the 2TB ones are cheap. Above the 2TB mark the priceper TB increases dramatically.

Also, no macs.

 

My advise was to re-commission an old computer and the DAC is supposed to connect to one of its USB. But if you really want a one in all solution I think either the Bluesound Node 2i or Vault 2i will do nicely.

 

I don't trust USB. I'd rather have a rack-size player with SATA slot for SSD, so as to completely eliminate the computer from the music playing equation. And I meant 4TB SSDs, they cost ~400€.

I'll check geatslutz if they have topic on pro equipment.

 

A rack sized digital audio player is actually a computer in a rack sized box, so you are not going to eliminate the computer from your music playing equation.

 

I am aware that technically it's an oversized DAP, but that's exactly what i need, not a PC, I need something like HyperDeck Studio but for audio with native support of various formats.

 

As others suggested, a computer with a USB-DAC will do.
If you want this computer to look like audio gear, has local storage and can rip, look for music servers: The Well-Tempered Computer - Music servers
If you are not in need of local storage but pull the audio from a NAS, look for streaming audio players: The Well-Tempered Computer - Streaming audio players

 

Have a look at Cocktailaudio products (maybe N15 or X14 depending on what you need exactly...) : NOVATRON

 

No USB, no computers, no network.
A require a device that basically is a Hyperdeck studio, but for playing music files from SSD in a standard 19" form factor.

 

With the N15 I mentioned above, you just slide in an ssd. With the x14 you connect an external (ssd) drive. They are not 19" though. The X45 or X50 (you need an external dac) are, but they are also more expensive.

 

Thanks I will check them.

 

No need to unmount the ssd with these for adding new stuff. Put the new stuff on a usb stick (on your pc), and put the usb stick into the X50 (or whatever model) to import the new music onto the internal ssd. Another option is to do this through wifi from your pc to the Cocktailaudio as it will show up on your pc as a network device, so you can simply copy/paste new music onto the ssd drive.
Another, big bucks, option is Aurender - The Future of Sound |

 

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