With these premises, Antipodes has in its top-of-the-range server / player K50 (15,750 euros) the maximum exponent of its technology: this “beast” includes two internal computers in a single chassis (one acts as a server and the other as a player), plus a third processor with precision clock and (digital) output functions. That, plus his food, worked very hard. But with the different components of the more affordable “S” series that we have tested, you can get to that “heaven” in digital playback, and that is precisely what we have tested, step by step. Each device is a computer that we can dedicate to the desired function or that we need: player, server / player or server. Antipodes advocates using a dedicated processor for a single function (that minimizes your work and potential interference),
#New musicserver how to
How to measure or predict if a computer component will be better or worse for a music player? Getting it systematically, understanding it, and not hitting it “by chance” is precisely where they focused on Antipodes. The key is in the noises that are generated at different points on the used motherboards: how some of those noises are very pernicious, how some can be eliminated by playing with the power and how some can be modulated to minimize their effect on the digital signal. Although they have been improving each product since 2011, the “jump” takes place in 2017 with what they call “Project Oladra” and which focuses the technology of its sources in two areas: the management of interferences between different noise spectra (they minimize interference between internal computer noises), Who are Antipodes? After a few beginnings making cables, the New Zealander Antipodes (what an appropriate name at least for the Spaniards) began working ten years ago on digital music servers and players. Its founder, Mark Jenkins, understands and pursues the best technology in all areas and in particular, thinking of a digital server, at the level of computer components that are ultimately the origin of any modern digital source. But he does it with a particular perspective, because experience has made him distrust: some advances in technology do contribute something positive to the quality of the final sound, but others only seek to improve performance in (for example) data transfers and have an influence negative in sound. At this point we have tried many players, from simple to good and very good, and their sound may be perfect, but… what about music? Well, with the Antipodes S40 we have discovered that, a truly musical server / player. Digital transfer can be perfect (it usually is) but not even the “bit perfect” guarantees what we will hear. Must as different CD players sound different with the same DAC, different file players also offer a different sound, and also different from that CD if we have converted it into a digital file. This is a proof of a pure digital source, that is, what a “transport” would be if we used the language of the original digital sources. Then (well and still) we had on the one hand the optical disc reader (that “transport”) and on the other the DAC that receives the “zeros and ones” and converts them into the analog signal that will go to the amplification and speakers. Anyone who has done enough testing will know that not all transports end up offering the same sound. The same happens with digital servers and network players: although they all read the same file (from a hard disk or via the Internet) and send it converted into “zeros and ones” that the DAC can convert … for some reason the conversion does not it’s the same. We are going to test this time a digital source, a server that is also a player, innocent in appearance but we will soon discover what an amazing performance. Its modular nature and its versatility means that the test has several parts or sections, and this is trying to simplify because the variables are many … In fact we will leave the test of its younger brother (Antipodes S30) for another report, to focus now on this S40. Review: Antipodes Audio S40 Music Server: Finally a truly “musical” digital font
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