This might seem a little off-topic but....regarding a music server: I don't really have one per-se, but my ALESIS HD24 RECORDER does a great job. I originally bought it for multi-channel archiving and some live recording. I soon found that because of its tremendous capacity it makes a great source for playing back music....and there is no change of format. I simply copy the music (CD or whatever) to the hard drive (either one of the removable drives in their caddies). Playing back stereo there was somewhere around 104 or so hours on a cheap IDE 200 Gb drive. holds 2 drives, both of which are removable. SO you can set things up however you want. You can group selections into "projects" or whatever. The HD24 records at 44.1 or 44 kHz. Also comes as HD24XR, doing 88.2 and 96 kHz.

Wow ! nfaguys,
With your windmill and all...you got some really nice toys...
I love reading about them...
that Alesis definitely puts the Cambridge Audio AZUR 640 H music server I was considering to shame...
I opted for better components in my pc instead,(optical drives, inputs and outputs, ,cpu, software, etc. )
therefore handling all audio and video formats...
with some compromise on quality...
not an inexpensive compromise mind you
( could have bought a Stewart screen instead of a Draper with the money saved)
but HEY!
there's no gain without loss...
music, games, off-air HDTV receiver & movies in one box...

Makes a very versatile addition to any system...

Well, I flipped a coin and went with the M-Audio Transit Upgrade sound card. I got it in the mail today so this week I will have time to mess around with it.

Hope it works out. I'll let you guys know in a few days.

Dan

Sniper do you have an Xbox360? By far this would be the cheapest and easy way to listen to music and watch content. The 360 will hook up to the outlaw via optical and then the 360 interface will allow you to connect directly to your media center laptop/pc on the network. I do this with my current setup and when the final piece of my outlaw get here today I plan to do the same. For the money you get a media server, game machine, and a dvd player (not a great one). Just a thought.

Laventura arote:

that Alesis definitely puts the Cambridge Audio AZUR 640 H music server I was considering to shame...

I wouldn't necessarily say that the ALESIS HD24Xr puts the AZUR to shame. These are different animals with different purposes. Some day I may want to have a music server for whole-house audio in addition to my "babies" in the rack for archiving and mass storage.