audio server
Audio servers are central data carriers in home and provider networks that store and archive music tracks on their hard disks. They are components of home entertainment and can transmit the music data to the connected clients via streaming technologies.
In order to store a sufficient number of music tracks, the storage capacity is an important characteristic value of audio servers. Audio servers can store digital audio, but usually also have inputs for analogsignals that are digitized in the audio server.
In addition to digitization, they offer audio compression and support the MP3 file format. Lossless audio codecs such as Free Lossless AudioCodec( FLAC), provide data-reduced archiving of the music tracks. The individual pieces of music can be searched for, called up and played back via a sophisticated music library.
The connection to the home network can be done via WLAN or Ethernet, which connects them directly to the streaming clients.