Motivated reasoning perhaps? I don't think so. If I hadn't heard it myself I would've called it bull. They are both running on the same Linux box feeding out the same USB port on the same USB cable into the same DAC etc. I don't have an explanation or even a WAG but there's no doubt in my mind which sounds better. I sat there late into the night a bit stunned and very pleased as I played a whole array of stuff - all FLAC - through LMS/Squeezelite. To put it simply, LMS/Squeezelite sounded far better played through my system than does JRiver. This is the part where the pleasant surprise comes in. Last night I got LMS and Squeezelite loaded on the Linux machine with very little difficulty, picked the appropriate USB driver for Squeezelite from the available list, bought the iPeng app for the iPad to remotely control Squeezelite and fired it all up. Even better, there is now a client app/player called Squeezelite that will also run on Linux in lieu of needing a hardware based wireless Logitech player which I'd long since sold off.
What else can I try? Lo and behold I discover that LMS never really died but has been nurtured along by a group of enthusiasts/programmers and is now in the public domain not unlike Linux itself.
Though scratched, the itch was still there. And darn if JRiver didn't work flawlessly on Linux. Next I put JRiver on the Linux server and got it up and running and it was like old home week only on a different platform. Anyway, so I got the Linux server all working and networked with my PC, laptop, iPad et. Ultimately I ended up with Linux Mint because of its Cinnamon GUI but Ubuntu worked great as well. I repurposed a simple PC I'd been using as a NAS using FreeNAS and replace FreeNAS with Linux. It's a bit geeky but overall I've found Linux to be remarkably robust and stable. Then just this past month I got an itch to try a Linux server just because. (FYI, I bought an iPad mostly because of JRemote - that should tell you something. Then a few years ago Logitech bailed out on the whole LMS thing and I got curious about alternatives. Starting back around 2006/7 I've owned at least 2 versions of Squeezebox players that were linked to what later became Logitech Media Server (LMS) which I ran on a PC.
Thought I'd share this since it's not every day I get truly surprised (in a good way) with new approaches to audio.
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