JASON VICTOR SERINUS Antipodes Audio K50 MUSIC SERVER

On the face of it, playing and streaming digital music files is a straightforward process.

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You direct data from various sources—some local, some “in the cloud”— perhaps via a reclocker/ signal conditioner to a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). “And the music comes out here.”

Not so simple. Bits, it seems, aren’t bits, or not only. A digital datastream is also an analog signal. Noise and other signal errors endemic to multifunction computers not designed primarily for music playback can affect how music sounds. And then there are the practical issues of setting up and connecting everything optimally, and then organizing music files correctly, which can be especially difficult when ripping files from multidisc sets.

These obstacles are why so many audiophiles have either switched to one-box music server solutions or even thrown up their hands and stuck with physical media.

Ever since I began using my Roon Nucleus+ music server, powered by an HDPlex 300 linear power supply rather than Roon’s supplied switching power supply wall wart, I’ve wondered about the quality of other server/ streamers that cost considerably more. I’ve listened to a few, including the Wolf Audio Systems Alpha 3 SX and the Innuos Statement. In June, I requested a review sample of my most expensive yet, the one-box, flagship server made by New Zealand company Antipodes Audio, the K50 ($15,000). My contacts at the company were Mark Jenkins, Antipodes’s CEO, and Mark Cole, the company’s head of service, sales and marketing. Which meant that, in addition to figuring out how to operate a unique device with multiple choices of inputs, outputs, servers, and players, I had to figure out which Mark was which.