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Welcome to the rabbit hole that is digital streaming.
Ok the short answer as to why a NUC is better than a NAS in your circumstances is simply (a) raw compute power and (b) data access time. With a large library of audio files on a budget NAS you will be looking at 30 seconds or more to return a list of directory contents, and the little cpu will struggle so you'll get constant dropouts. This is not about sound quality but its actual ability to read a file, encode it and push the data to the network interface fast enough. Remember, higher quality = far more data to process. A cheap NAS will be so slow as to be unuseable, even for one user on a fast network. I know, I've tried and failed miserably.
The other issue is to do with the quality of your DAC and how it is introduced to the signal path. People generally get hung up on resolution and conversion bitrate (e.g. 24bit / 96Khz is generally accepted as plenty good enough), but IMO what is equally important and often overlooked are the Total Harmonic Distortion, the Dynamic Range and Jitter.
These first two are not new to audioheads coming from the analogue world but seem to go out of the window when considering consumer-level digital equipment. (for the sake of completeness: THD+N is the noise introduced to the signal path, so less is better. Dynamic range is the ability to deliver signal amplitude; more DR is better so that detail is not lost in quiet sections of your music). Jitter is roughly to do with the timing of data sent to the DAC and its ability to resequence the packets before conversion.
Consumer electronics manufacturers rarely publish these specs for their devices. On the other hand, the specs for a DAC connected to a NUC via USB (or even optical) like the ones mentioned are published and significantly better with regard to sound quality.
I guess what I'm saying is that for sound quality, especially on a budget, you have to flip your thinking a bit; try to invest most of your budget into a decent DAC and then figure out the cheapest, most effective way to cleanly deliver a digital file to it. UI is important but it can come later. If you lock yourself into a proprietary, relatively lo-fi solution it will be difficult to break out later.
That said, there is a perfectly good place for Sonos, chromecasts etc. which is to use them only as streamers of digital data and have a separate DAC connected to their optical out ports, which is what I do in my bedrooms and study. But I already had a decent NAS and even then for my main hi-fi setup I run a NUC + DAC instead.
freddo-
With a large library of audio files on a budget NAS you will be looking at 30 seconds or more to return a list of directory contents, and the little cpu will struggle so you'll get constant dropouts. This is not about sound quality but its actual ability to read a file, encode it and push the data to the network interface fast enough.
With my #fanboi hat on: this is mitigated in a Sonos style solution that indexes the drive over night and has its own library of music with direct pointers to file locations. No need to wait for the NAS to enumerate directory listings across the network at playback time.
Also, I totally agree about the DAC comment, as you know. It was a significant upgrade for me when I switched to using the digital out of my Sonos Connect into a Cyrus DAC XP preamp an DAC combo. Good upgrade path available when using a streamer that has such a digital out.
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Right, I have a vague plan.... starting from the top and trying to keep it logical (spoiler: I think I fail).
I don’t need the Brennan B2, cos I already have a CD ripper; I’ll use the iMac to gradually rip* my collection to ALAC. I can run trusty iTunes as a fallback, even build a nice little office system :)
On media storage, I reckon i’ve only got about 500CDs tops, and for now i’m not looking at video, so we’re looking at <<1TB setup ... I reckon a NAS is overkill (future upgrade?), maybe for now a half gig USB SSD or even SD card with the iMac.
Server... well I love the look/idea of Roon. It might be just what I am looking for... so I’m gonna give it a trial. Let’s see... if it works I could run a Roon Core on my iMac. I’d like to trial Plex too.
For multi room, well I don’t like really like Airplay 2 because it only works from iTunes / Apple Music**. I do like Sonos, it’s clearly the market leader for usability, my mum and dad use it FFS. I know from my years of green marker pen, clocking, and upgrading decoupling capacitors around TDA1541As (who’s with me?!) that the DAC section is crucial... but thanks for reminding me @freddo! Then I remembered my old (epic) Musical Fidelity Digilog DAC ... it’s 16/44 of course, but I’m not drinking the hi-res Kool Aid just yet (not saying I won’t glug it in the future). So I could dust that down and with a Sonos connect, it could be a nice client/renderer for my two-channel system. Thoughts? Cost: £350 for Sonos Connect.
Looking at an alternative i.e. high-res DAC I would probably lean towards DLNA rather than Sonos because it opens up some very nice integrated client/DAC options and lots of endpoints choice. I like the look of the Aurilic Aries Mini. This can take a 2.5” SSD too within the chassis and become a streamer ... neat solution for my storage. Cost: £450 (plus say £80 for 512GB SSD)
I am swooning at the Chord Poly/Mojo combo. Yes, that did escalate quickly. My internal case for this is that I could use it as a headphone source as well as Hifi client. ‘Phones is actually how I do most of my listening nowadays, what with an office job, commute, and young kids. Anyone else use this setup? I have Bose QC35s currently but I find them quite fatiguing and not that engaging. Obviously they’re Bluetooth too so I am sure can be improved on. To go tethered again would take some getting used to though. The Chord Poly also has a micro SD slot so again for a hundred quid it could host and stream my library.
Cost: £1k plus £100 for micro SD plus headphones £???!Thanks to all those who helped so far. Looking forward to spending some dosh.
*Yes, I know I should really just save myself the trouble and not bother, because it’s all available on Spotify or tidal, but I can’t do it. I’m gonna rip ‘em. At least it’ll remind me of what I have. I like the idea I think @Airhead said about whittling CDs down to a classic shelf of albums... I’m not chucking my CD player away just yet.
**One thing I did discover, don’t remember it being mentioned here, was Home Sharing on iTunes. This is limited but elegant: it just lets you access and stream your iTunes library from the iMac to iOS devices with the same Apple ID, but only while on the home network. So you can listen to lossless on your iPhone. And then bounce it on through AirPlay 2 I guess.
mashton
Olly398
Hey man, thanks again for your posts. I knew this was going to be a rabbit hole, and i’m fully in it now so may as well see it through!
So, about this part:
In what sense will it be superior? It’s a genuine question: I don’t want the source in my Hifi to be compromised. I’m guessing processing power, which translates to streaming capability? A consideration with high demand applications e.g. video, multiple users etc?
Edit: my late night baby-cradling Internet trawling also indicates that increased ability to buffer audio is beneficial to sound quality.