NAS and Minimserver

[Jamesroy]

Do I need a NAS and Minimserver? 

My setup:

Mac Book Pro 2013 with HI Sierra 10.13.6   2.4 GHz Intel Core

8GB Ram 250 GB SSD Internal drive
External 4TB WD HD with only Music

Thunderbolt To cat-6 Ethernet to Old Netgear router, Cat7 ethernet to Micro Rendu,  Cables used Oyaide neo d+ Class A USB 2.0, Stellar Gain Cell DAC-Micro Rendu with latest Upgrade to make it close to Ultra Rendu
LPS-1 Power Supply-Grounded Cable, XLR cables to PS Audio M700 Mono Blocks 350 into 8Ω
Paradigm Studio 100v.3 series speakers BiWired 8Ω Spiked

Audio Software Audirvana+  latest version 3.5.11

[Superdad]

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[DavidL]

If you are seriously considering moving to a NAS as your music source the most effective setup would be to buy a NAS with a sufficiently powerful cpu to run MinimServer (& MinimStreamer), together with an ethernet-to-SPDIF/I2S renderer. Adding an optical fibre element in the ethernet leg immediately before the renderer/DAC can improve performance.

 

Not sure why you posted this question on the Sonore thread as they (currently) do not make this type of renderer - their focus is on USB, as it is for your system. Both approaches can give excellent sound quality AFAIK, but the non-USB route is less complex, easier to manage and makes playing music independent of your computer. You will still need to use the computer for curation of the music library of course.

 

When I started out streaming from a NAS in 2014 I bought the original Sonore Rendu ethernet-to-SPDIF renderer, which is no longer available (though Jesus has hinted at a new potential product in this area).