Sound quality differences between NAS units

[ac16161]

I've made some progress in assessing sound quality differences, in particular the somewhat harsh/shut-in vocals when running Minimserver on a Synology DS214+, and it's not what I expected: sound improves quite clearly when running Synology's own media server, quite consistently across the same FLAC files with all transcoding switched off. I never considered trying Synology's own media server, since the control point experience is beyond rubbish, and when I set up a Synology NAS for my brother last year serving an on-loan Naim NDX (I can't recall the NAS model, it was an even lower spec than the 214), Minimserver was so far ahead in SQ over Synology's media server that without it the NDX purchase would not have gone through. But, via the Synology media server on the 214 (running DSM 6), FLAC files without transcoding are very close to native WAV streamed directly from my PC through Minimserver, whereas via Minimserver on the Synology the difference in SQ is quite obvious.

I appreciate that this could be a controversial post, but I'm just reporting what I'm hearing. I've every reason to be biased in favour of Minimserver (I love the control-point experience), and have heard it do great things. But for some reason, it's not doing great things on a DS214.