Adding A Music Server To Your Hi-Fi System

 

Way back in the early 2000’s when the first music servers appeared they were great for someone with little knowledge in computers but were very clunky and damn right frustrating to use, especially when you had to tag album songs and embed album covers. Fast forward 20 years and not surprisingly audiophile music servers of today are a completely different experience with the introduction of Apps and with software design on another level.

Innuos Music Servers

If you have a large CD collection you should consider investing in an Innuos audiophile music server, rip all your CD’s via the music server then you can browse your whole music library in one place via the clever InnuosSense App. Plus stream cloud based music via the popular music services like Qobuz & TIDAL and listen to internet radio.

We decided to range the excellent music servers from Innuos as they have an excellent reputation for building superb sounding solutions at different price points. Their entry level music server the ZEN Mini Mk3 has an internal DAC so you can simply connect via analogue interconnects to your Hi-Fi amplifier or you can bypass the internal DAC and use an external one like a Chord Qutest etc. You can also upgrade the sound performance by adding an off board linear power supply by replacing the switch mode PSU included as standard with the ZEN Mini Mk3. It is great to know that as and when you are ready you can further improve performance rather than selling unit to upgrade.

The next one up in the range from Innuos is the ZEN Mk3 which is on another level due to the integrated dual linear PSU and audiophile components. You need to use the Zen Mk3 with an external DAC, we have our demo unit partnered with the excellent Chord Hugo TT2 DAC and it sounds truly amazing! Another benefit is you can upgrade the Zen Mk3 to the ZENith Mk3 at a later stage, so great to know you have an upgrade path as and when you are ready.

Ripping a CD could not be easier using the Innuos Sense App, it takes approx 3-4 minutes to rip a full CD in fast mode and 7-8 minutes using slow/quiet mode when not to disturb your listening session. You have a choice to rip each CD to either WAV or FLAC audio formats, this will be dependant on if you plan to use digital files in a portable player e.g. on the move etc. We usually specify 2TB internal drives as this will hold just under 8,000 albums in 16 bit (see below) Note – A 4TB option is also available too for very large libraries.

Over the past few years we have been selling fewer CD players as introducing a music server into your system merges all of your local and streamed music in one easy place. Even though we are very pro vinyl here at Vinyl Groove Audio, we do make some pretty amazing sounds too via an audiophile network player/music server. As I have mentioned before on other blog posts, I regularly use streaming services as a great music discovery tool, therefore every vinyl album I now buy I have has a listen too first via Qobuz or TIDAL, therefore no longer making any expensive mistakes buying an album on a whim or just because the album cover looks really cool (we have all been there…).

The Research and Development team at Innuos released an impressive App called Innuos Sense, available for IOS & Android.  It has just about everything you need to manage your music and even better it is free and they keep improving their App by adding new features via software updates.

All of the Innuos music servers can be also used as a Roon Core this is another music management system at $9.99 per month. We are big fans of Roon here in the showroom as for real music geeks the available information, bio, reviews, artwork and links to all musicians who played on that album enhances the user experience. Think of a YouTube rabbit hole but just for music, I love interacting with Roon while relaxing listening to music. Last but not least personally I think the $9.99 is worth it just for Roon Radio alone, once an album in your queue is completed if the queue is empty Roon Radio will start playing music based on the music previously played in the queue, the amount of new music/bands I have discovered not on my radar is too many too mention.

A music server is the ‘modern’ music source that brings together your CD collection, downloads, music services and internet radio. Connect a music server to a stereo Hi-Fi amplifier and speakers/headphones to introduce yourself to a whole new music world.

New – Innuos Pulse Range

This September Innuos will launch their brand new range of network players starting with the Pulse Mini at £899 full details available here.

If you have any further questions or would like to arrange a demonstration please contact us to at the Preston showroom.