Hello everyone, long time lurker here, thanks to this forum I've already spent far too much of my hard earned money and now I'm thinking about trying something a little different. I realize that there is a computer audio forum but, like I said, I'm thinking about something a little different.
I've been toying with the idea of getting a Cowon X7, J3 or S9. Ideally I would like a portable jukebox. I'm not interested in getting an iPod classic because of the file type restrictions. I'd like to be able to load my music collection as FLAC onto a single device used mostly at work.
Size isn't terribly important to me (to a degree) since I'd be using this at my desk at work for the most part, I am interested in sound quality which is why I have been considering the Cowon line. Then it occurred to me, I already have something capable of playing any file format that I can dream of and capable of long battery play back time - with some modifications. My old, and hardly ever used Eee PC701 4G. My only real concern is the sound quality issue.
With a few modifications my old Eee PC (running Ubuntu) can be modified to hold up to 256 GB which should be more than enough to hold my music collection.If I were to couple this with a high quality USB DAC would it be possible for my Eee PC to get sound quality that could rival one of these Cowon players? Would I need a good portable amp with this set up? I have been looking at the Headstage USB DAC and Arrow amp.
I'd be driving Sennheiser HD555, Shure SRH440 or Audio Technica ATH-ANC7b headphones (if I'm traveling).
Currently I'm using a Rockboxed 8GB Sansa Clip + with a couple of 8GB micro SDHC cards. Do you think a USB DAC on my 'crappy lappy' would surpass the SQ of the Clip + or would it be just as useful for me to carry around my music library with me and just load it to the Sansa?
Am I over complicating things?
Edited by damnbiker - 11/7/10 at 5:21pm
