Music quality from Minimserver on a PC

[Charles7]

Simon recommends in another thread to "store your music library on a NAS and run MinimServer on this NAS rather than running Minimserver on a PC which is an electrically noisier device and in your case is using a USB connection to read the music files."
https://forum.minimserver.com/showthread.php?tid=7342

If you mean with a USB connection only, okay; I don't know such a setup.

But don't sell Minimserver short!

I store files on a PC hard drive and run Minimserver on that PC. It feeds streams by Ethernet connection to the router, which puts the stream out on our wifi network. A Denon HEOS box receives the stream and passes it via optical connection to a high-quality DAC (which reports the clock source as Optical). I am quite pleased with the sound quality. I don't see why a NAS would improve it.

[simoncn]

Your system is different from the setup dicussed in the other thread. You are using a wi-fi connection to send the audio data stream across the network and you are using an optical connection to the DAC. Both of these provide isolation from any electrical noise or jitter that might be generated by the PC running MinimServer. I use optical Ethernet connections in my network and I have found this makes a very significant improvement to sound quality.

The system described in the other thread uses electrical Ethernet connections which can transmit electrical noise and jitter. Your setup doesn't have this issue and running MinimServer on a NAS would probably not improve sound quality for you.

Another difference between your system and the system discussed in the other thread is that the other system uses a USB-attached external drive for the music library and your system uses the PC hard drive for the music library.

More generally, every system is different and there is no simple formula for how to improve sound quality. MinimServer can run on a PC in systems where this the best approach and it can run on a NAS in systems where this the best approach. The other server programs discussed in the other thread (Audirvana and JRiver) cannot run on a NAS and this limits the options available when these server programs are being used.