Music Servers, DAC, Speakers, Wireless, Headphones, Software, Cables, Other, Disk Storage

The M2Tech hiFace has received a lot of press this year. It was one of the first very inexpensive asynchronous USB to S/PDIF converters to support all sample rates from 16/44.1 kHz through 24/192 kHz. The hiFace's good specs, good technical design, support for high resolution sample rates, and $150 price tag has had users from all over the world going gaga. While there is no such thing as bad press too much good press can make it very hard for a product to live up to expectations. Such is the case with the M2Tech hiFace. I tried for several months to pull every ounce of sound quality out of the hiFace. I began to wonder if I was the only person on Earth unsatisfied with this converter. I have no qualms about saying the hiFace, through no fault of M2Tech, is overrated. Fortunately this has nothing to do with value. At $150 it's well worth the price and has a very high price to performance ratio.

Many of us computer audiophiles, and audiophiles looking to get into the music server game, have long wanted a music server that rivals the Sooloos touchscreen interface without paying the Sooloos price premium. What many people don't realize is how advanced the Sooloos product is as a complete package. Notably how it handles metadata and library navigation using this extended metadata. I continually research music servers and every related product under the sun but I've yet to find anything that duplicates or equals the quality of Sooloos metadata support and library navigation. For example browsing an album's credits to find the producer then searching for other albums in the library that were produced by this person. It's all a couple touches away and without manually entering the information at any time. As the saying goes, there's no free lunch. This is certainly true with what I call Joe Sixpack's Sooloos.

Join Computer Audiophile at Listen Up in Colorado for Digital Music Matters. Myself, David Solomon of Peachtree Audio, and Adrian Eiben of Sonos will be talking about nothing but digital audio for three nights. The events will take place in Colorado Springs August 24, Denver August 25, and Boulder August 26. I'll be talking about how to get the best audiophile sound quality form a music server as well as sharing some tips and tricks related to computer audio. As usual I'll have plenty of high resolution material to play through a number of great audio systems at Listen Up. I hope to see many of the Computer Audiophile readers during this trip. Read more for RSVP information and the official event postcard. I look forward to seeing many of you there :~)