mlknez, thanks for the reply.
Like I said, right now I am really just starting to get into music. I really don't have any decent equipment and plan of making it a bit of a project. My budget range is more Audioengine than B&W. I have quite a few albums in 24/96 24/192 which have been downsampled to 16/44 to save space on my computer.
What I really need is a NAS that can store both music and video and serve them without issue to a central media player. Or a seperate music/video player if having both in one unit will degrade the performance of the other.
Resolution of audio and video files - 1080p Blu Ray (owned) rips, with DTS audio.
Number of channels of audio - I keep the DTS audio because right now I have a Bose 3-2-1 system which is a 2.1 system that can only decode DTS and not AC3. It just plays 'PCM', which sounds like total trash
File types - Music FLAC, Movies are all in MKV container.
Cost budget - If it handled both audio and video I suppose the price of a good gaming PC would be about how much I could pay
User interface requirements - Something simple but functional. My WD LiveTV is simple but buggy and prone to frequent crashes.
Time available to manage the system - I like to get involved but don't want to have to troubleshoot before listening or watching anything. When its go-time I want my technology to work.