2. pc-audio
  3. 137443-74445

Best PC to use as a Server

Sure this one has been asked before but I couldn’t dig up anything recent and this stuff changes over time anyway.  I use a Mac Air but it apparently is out of HD.  It is 7 years old and has been stuttering badly lately, especially since I loaded Audirvana Plus and dbpoweramp.  
  I am interested in a Windows based PC, because I want to run a Windows based program called MusiCHI and I also would like to have an HDMI port, which Macs don’t offer afaik.  I won’t use it for much else, maybe for surfing, occasional downloads, etc.  I haven’t owned a Windows Computer for years but use them at work, where the Dell Laptops that we are given seem particularly crappy to me.
  My daughter had a Sony PC that I demoed in my system a few years ago that impressed me, but it seems that Sony has gotten out of that business.  Is there any particular brand that works well for music?
mahler123

Showing 4 responses by mahler123

mahler123 OP
3,029 posts
 
I have used Macs as a source, but also Bluesound (Vault2 and Node)
and also my Oppo disc spinners will recognize my NAS.  Sonically, I prefer the Bluesound and the Oppo.  If you think about it, renderers such as Bluesound should sound better than a PC, since they have much bigger Power supplies and their parts are optimized for music replay, instead of general purpose computing.
  I think that you will find that the quality of the experience of file based listening (i.e., Computer Audio) is largely determined by the quality of the App that organizes the files.  Most of the apps are terrible for Classical Music, which is what I listen to.  The best is MusiCHI, but it’s Windows based.  I have no interest in using a program such as Parallels, that splits a Mac OS into a Windows and Mac environment, having had a bad experience with that before.
  We may not get a lot of responses here.  I might ask the same question on the Computer Audiophile Forum, which you might want to investigate as well.
mahler123 OP
3,029 posts
 
@jaybe  i’m New to that forum.  Every forum has it’s share of Aholes, but at least they can stimulate useful discussions.
@whart  I think you may have misunderstood me about Audirvana.  It loaded and works just fine, but my Computer is a 2011 Mac Air with a limited HD, and A+ and dbpoweramp seem to have gobbled up the what was left of my HD.  I couldn’t do the last Apple update because it was out of room.  Apple has increased the size of their programs and I recently had to get a new iPhone for the same reason.
  Audirvana + is a significant improvement over iTunes, but A+ from the Air still doesn’t compete with the same files played from my NAS via Bluesound or the Oppo.  I am looking to replace A+ and dbpoweramp with MusiCHI, which is reportedly much better for Classical Music.  In CM most of us want the Metadata listed in a very different way than is traditional for other genres.
mahler123 OP
3,029 posts
 
@jsd52756 
Thanks, I had never heard of eluktroniks.  The offerings look interesting and yes it does look like there are some sales going on.
mahler123 OP
3,029 posts
 
It sounds like you’ve mastered some inexpensive workarounds and I salute you.  Unfortunately my IT skills are very limited, and I  don’t understand the bulk of your post.  I know what Raspberry Pi is but you lost me after that.  I do have a question about Audacious, however.  When you say it handles Classical Music, do you mean that it does a better job organizing Metadata than iTunes, et al?
And how do you rip CDs?
Regarding Linux—my understanding is that most Server/renderers, such as Bluesound, are Linux Computers.  Is that correct?
i


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