Bill, what did you listen to? With NAS running Roon and if so, which NAS and how was it hooked up? I spoke with Neal Von Berg about his Music Vault yesterday. I have a close friend who owns the top of the line MV and feels it's better than the W-20. I can see that honestly, as I have heard their older ones and liked them better than the Aurender at the time (right when Aurender was coming into this country). There are home made (by professionals) servers out there that also sound better than the W-20. I have LOVED the W-20 since day one and I've been fortunate to hear it in a few systems that are worthy.
I lean towards the Music Vault only because it's an all in one. The blue ray ripper is tied into dbpoweramp and rips bit perfectly in about 2minutes per disc. It can store the half dozen blue ray discs the wife would want so those will be gone from the room also. It has a very high end A/D converter built in so that I can record all the albums and then sell off the Basis TT, Rhea and albums to pay for the MV in the first place. It's all balanced and I can use the AES connection for a perfect hook up to the QX-5 and stay completely balanced throughout. Wire world builds a special balanced cable that has the 4 pin on the server side and the 3 pin on the Ayre side. It's their cast solid silver cable that sounds terrific. Cast silver to me, sounds the best by far and is never too hot, which I am very sensitive to.
I'm not 100% sold though. If I can get much better SQ from the Ayre and either the Melco NAS (can't run Roon) or a QNAP 471 NAS then I'll go that route for 4k less and I could use that 4k for college for the kids, LOL... So many questions.
Glad that I will get to see and hear it in person on the 30th at Audio Connections in Verona, NJ.
Bill, thanks for the answer in advance. Really appreciate it.
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