GreenBow
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2015
- Posts
- 4,197
- Likes
- 1,602
Agreed. Prepackaged network streamers have their place, don't get me wrong. You also get a much easier "out of the box" experience with these options. If you're not scared of setting up some software yourself, though, RPi based streamers are an excellent choice.
Allo's products are quite affordable, even when you add their LPS to the setup (which I would absolutely due as it makes a very noticeable difference IMO).
I was looking at the
1. NODE 2i, to use just a control box to drive a plugged in HDD of music. (The Node 2I does have a DAC and streamer built in though, so there is some price for that.) To me it would be £500 just to run a HDD via wifi.
2. The other option I keep coming back to is a fanless laptop. However that is not without issues, because being fanless means a less powerful processor. Meaning Microsoft might make remove support for the CPU at any time. For example, two years ago I upgraded from an Intel 4790K system running DDR3 RAM. All because Win 10 did not support the processor - a DDR3 system not supported by the almost the only Windows OS. It's just greed by MS forcing us to buy more machines to sell more software.
3. Someone did point me towards the Stack Audio Link. While it's expensive, the HiFi+ review of it says outstanding stuff. Like if you are using a DAC which does not clock incoming signals, it is a good server. It clocks the outgoing signals very accurately. The review said something like it one of the Dragonflies sound like a 'in the thousands of pounds' DAC. All being down to the clean and accurately times music samples from it I guess.
https://www.hifiplus.com/articles/exclusive-stack-audio-link-usb-streaming-bridge/
Anyway yeah, I just need a file source, with no streamer. I want to run my DACs as a hifi, without needing my PC on as a file source. … My three choices so far, are all pricey choices though.
Last edited: