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Possible Music Server


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Will you be using the computer for gaming as well?  There is no reason to have a high end graphics card in something you aren't using for gaming. Money would be better spent on something robust that is intended to run 24/7 and that has a great sound card. I would rather have some sort of network hard drive and a really good (tube?) DAC then an integrated amp.

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I have repurposesed several old computers for this purpose. High end computers need not apply, spend your money on the DAC and other audio gear.

All the computer does is store and pass along the the 1 and 0, it doesn't take a lot of processing brawn to do that.

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I have an Intel i7 3770k w/32GB memory computer for my music.  It is a serious overkill for for a music only server.  If you are looking for flexibility and will be using the server for other uses, mine also houses all my music and concert DVDs, plays blu-rays, karaoke and everything else, then it may be worth it to have the flexibility.  Internet, live TV, everything at one time.  No problem.

 

I keep it simple as no video card for extra fans and noise.  The video on the processor is way more than capable for any processing you will do outside of very demanding games.  Good 80+ super quiet power supply works well for a pretty much noiseless / cool running configuration.  Again excellent to do everything but heavy duty gaming and you can put one together for about $600 - 700 with Linux / Windows and 4TB storage.

 

That said, I have an i3 2120 with stock video and 4GB of memory and 4TB.  It too can also do music, video, and blu-rays for a lot cheaper but doesn't afford the flexibility.  In actuality, it is also an overkill because new tablets for under $100 (I have a $29 Zeki that works fine) can also do most of this with storage.added but just doesn't afford the ability to do much more than the one task.  Get one with hdmi if you want video as a wire connection is nice.

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Agree with Wardsweb.  Go minimal.  I have a couple of older version of these small Foxconn.  Add ram and enough SSD to hold an O/S.  Get out pretty cheap.  

 

One for my main rig, and one for the kitchen and patio speakers.  Set up for wake on lan and remote desktop.  Wife can start up and control the kitchen/patio from her laptop at her counter station while I run mine from the laptop at my couch in the basement.  Both can either pull from the net (Pandora, Spotify) or from the ripped stuff on the NAS.

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This was more of a "look at this machine" moment for me. I thought it very cool that personal computers have evolved to this level...If I was into video games for me this would be something to look into and also make it a music server. Overkill absolutely....LOL

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Skip all the computer stuff and get an Auralic Aries Mini at $549.  Add an external or internal hard drive and you have a self contained music server that does up to PCM 32/384 and DSD256. The DS Lightning control software works wonderfully. 




Aries Mini can't beat it



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Funny thing is once you actually use a computer, you find out that you will use it for more than just music... Add Vevo and/or YouTube, CD/DVD/Blu-ray, stream, just to name some stuff music/video related.  

 

For the same money as a dedicated music server (or cheaper) with just as good a sound and much greater flexibility.

 

Can't live without mine.

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Your computer selection should depend on whether you want it for audio, video or both.  I built a completely silent PC dedicated for audio and run it with an optimized install of MS Server 2012.  The OS is very expensive but I use a trial version which can be extended.  I keep a USB flash drive with all my installs on it so I can actually build the audio server back in about 30 minutes.  

 

This is somewhat dated now but here is my experience with a dedicated audio server.  

Since the original post I have added Fidelizer and the USB Regen.  

 

You can go crazy pretty crazy with audio PC stuff!  You will find that the less overhead running on the computer the better the sound.  My opinion is that this all goes back to keeping power supply noise out of your way as much as possible.  You can use anything you want for a garage system or where the kids are listening to their compressed junk but I get more picky about MY setup.  

 

 

 

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I use a repurposed HP M8100n desktop with 8gb RAM, dual core processor, upgraded HDMI video card, and power supply but don't have a lot of money it.  I have 4TB RAID 1 storage for music (about 900GB) and movies (about 1.5TB) but no BluRay stuff.  I also do use it as a computer for browsing in the living room while listening to what's on drives or Spotify Premium.  Any other location in the house can access the movies or music stored there if needed.

 

But, I'm going to tinker with one of the little Liva Mini PC's that have HDMI out, 32GB on board storage running Windows 10.  We used a few at the school for kind of a "NUC" for basic computing as no one saves anything to the HD's...they have home directories for that (I have 10 TB of storage for their documents, etc)  But I want to see how this little $100 jobber can do with using a separate 2TB drive for music and video, a basic USB DAC, and simple browsing.  It won't be as strong as the other but we hardly ever play the movies stored on the computer although the kids can access them with their Apple TV's through the "Movie Trailers" icon as I've got my server set up as the DNS.  Would be nice to have some of that space back if it works.  We'll see....about to kick that project in tonight I think.  

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I built my own UnRaid NAS to store all my Media on and then use $100 Kodi Media Players through out the house to play the Media. You can get Media Players with Kodi Pre-installed for as cheap as $50...or just install Kodi for free on a old PC.

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Well, I started on the Liva Tiny PC project last night with very good results.  For a sub $100 "PC" that I installed Windows 10 Pro 64 bit on previously at the school, using a Muse Mini USB Dac I already had, this little booger sounds quite good and may in fact replace the more power hungry desktop.  I was listening to Spotify Premium plus watched some 1080p YouTube videos with not a single bit of stuttering.  Looks like I'll be installing JRiver on it, setting a static IP so I can access the movies and music from other devices through one of the two hard drives (for now until I get an NAS box).  If I need to rip CD's or DVD's into the drives, I'll just use an external drive.  Not too bad.  I need to get a USB 3.0 hub sometime soon, too. 

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