[bonkon]

The eee box has been released in Taiwan and will be hitting the US soon. Although I am a big fan of netbooks and it's weight, I couldn't care less about the eee box. What is the point of having a small underpowered desktop with no optical drive (CD/DVD rom)?

Then the prices show up starting at $269 for the Linux version. It consumes less than 20W at load (full capacity) for comparison a standard non gaming PC consumes 7-10 times more. You can screw it behind your screen or TV for a neat workplace if it is not mounted to a wall. It has a small fan but is relatively silent and some ppl modified it to a fanless device and I just found out that it has a s/pdif out to feed dacs, two important factors for an audio source.

The real downside is that it uses 2.5" hard drives which are limited to 500GB. You can get a 320GB for less than $100 but a 500GB is still expensive at more than $220 which is almost the price of an eee box.

Would you consider it as a second desktop and audio source?

Some pics to see how small it is and the dimensions

Dimensions: 8.5″ x 7″ x 1″
Net Weight: 2.2 lbs.
Gross Weight: 6.6 lbs.

US Configurations and MSRP:
$269 1GB memory + 80GB HDD Linux edition
$299 1GB memory + 80GB HDD XP edition
$299 2GB memory + 160GB HDD Linux edition

 

[monolith]

That would be pretty nifty as a dedicated seedbox/audio source.

 

[richierich]

Wow interesting.

 

[MrMajestic2]

Bringing up an old thread. Did anyone try one of these for audio?

 

[iriverdude]

Good idea as a second computer and a alternative to the Imac (can upgrade unit without ditching screen) lack of optical reader isn't a problem, if you just use it for browsing, playing off network storage. Although if it's used as a audio player hope it's got digital audio output.

 

[linuxworks]

I use my own fanless pc. I built a VIA c7 system about 2 yrs ago and its been working fine all the while. mini-itx is the key and its pretty standard now.

you can find ssd's that are ide (for older pc's) and sata of course and that completes the 100% fanless setup (the drive was the last thing to make noise out of my setup).

you don't care about spdif on the mobo - usb-audio does just fine for that. so 'everyone' has spdif if you think about it.

my mini-itx system wasn't much more than the asus and yet I got a standard mobo, standard case, standard mini-itx power suppy (brick and dc-dc converter) and no lock-in.

gets me bit perfect output on the gamma1 lite usb/spdif converter and draws close to 20w.

 

[EnOYiN]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMajestic2 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Bringing up an old thread. Did anyone try one of these for audio?

I'll probably get an Eee Top later this year. It'll be my audio server/interface.

 

[MrMajestic2]

Would be great if the built-in S/PDIF would be bit-perfect up to 96khz, but Im guessing its not. Any small USB cards that go all the way to 192khz?

 

[EnOYiN]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMajestic2 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Would be great if the built-in S/PDIF would be bit-perfect up to 96khz, but Im guessing its not. Any small USB cards that go all the way to 192khz?

Yeah, I've got a small USB card already. It's called Stello DA100. Should work just fine although it doesn't do 192.

 

[MrMajestic2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EnOYiN /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yeah, I've got a small USB card already. It's called Stello DA100. Should work just fine although it doesn't do 192.

I want S/PDIF out only so the Stello wont work for me.

 

[EnOYiN]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMajestic2 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I want S/PDIF out only so the Stello wont work for me.

I was kidding about the Stello DA being a small USB card actually. Anyway, the M-Audio transit might do. It goes up to 96. I don't think there are that many USB cards that can do 192.

Where do you need 192kHz for anyway?

 

[anadin]

Not such a good write up here.

PC Pro: Product Reviews: Asus Eee Box B202

 

[MrMajestic2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EnOYiN /img/forum/go_quote.gif I was kidding about the Stello DA being a small USB card actually. Anyway, the M-Audio transit might do. It goes up to 96. I don't think there are that many USB cards that can do 192. Where do you need 192kHz for anyway?

Usually 96khz is enough I know. I just want to have the highest available rate as an option. Chesky has a few releases in 192khz now, might be followed by others.