HTPC just for music

[Fuzzy Bear]

First off I apologize if i'm being daft and there is a much more simple solution to what I'm proposing. I'm new to Hi-Fi so hold back your expletives when reading my ignorant post. Would love your opinions.
I am looking for a new toy ( and a project, just graduated should be looking for jobs, would prefer a project) I came to the conclusion that I wanted a HDD media player ( Sort of) I began looking and products like the Naim HDX. For me this is quite pricey, and I am aware of cheaper products but with not what I consider to be much storage space. The idea of a HTPC kept cropping up, but they all tend to be focused on the home cinema. So I thought about building a media centre solely based on music. A separate that would sit near my amp and have nothing to do with movies. I have a PS3 which suits me fine for movies, and don't want to play my music through an AV receiver. Features, Pros and Cons I suppose it would be a basic computer with a high quality sound card and lots of HDD space. Then a decent CD drive to record my music onto it. A quick google search shows some fairly non offensive looking cases. Comparatively it would have much more HDD space than existing products. One big con may be the need for a screen and user interface, mouse and keyboard. However there are some reasonable small touch LCD screens. It also seems that existing network based systems tend to lock you into to using particular software like itunes etc. Look forward to hearing Ideas and criticism.

 

[professorhat]

Personally, I wouldn't be looking to get the be all and end all of PCs to do the job for music. I think the easiest way to do this is a laptop and an external DAC. Many people would consider an Apple Macbook (or a Mac Mini) for this and, if you have an iPod and already use iTunes and like it, this could be a good solution. Combined with an iPod Touch / iPhone and a wireless network, you also get a fantastic remote control.

However, if you have no particular affiliation to Apple, then a Windows 7 laptop can be picked up cheaper and will give you the flexibility to use the software of your choice to store and playback your music. Using a USB output from the laptop to something like the Cambridge Audio DacMagic, the Beresford Caiman or the Arcam rDAC (amongst many others!) will provide excellent hifi sound.

The main thing you haven't mentioned is budget, but, without really making any effort to look for a cheap solution, a basic Dell laptop with Windows 7 will cost you about £300, plus a 1 TB hard disk to replace the internal laptop one (should be plenty, but obviously depends on the size of your music collection) will cost about £100. Combined with the DACs above, and you're looking at about £600 - £700.

There are other solutions which don't involve a PC at all, such as the Raumfeld (see the latest Awards issue for a review), the Olive 4HD and the beautiful Sooloos Control:One, but as you can see, these are not cheap options!

 

[xtsili]

Also, check this out

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Computer-Audiophile-Suggested-Hardware-List

 

[Anonymous]

I made up a music PC system some years back, and I do not regret doing it one little bit.It has worked flawlessly for the past 3 or 4 years.

No doubt there will be many saying go the Apple laptop way with an outboard DAC, that's certainy one way to go. But I couldn't justify the outlay, and having assembled a few PC's previously, I could build one at a fraction of the cost of on off the shelf system, and also optimise the components for music replay.

I bought a largish generic PC case, don't get one too small. I prefer working in largish cases, it gives you ample room to work in, add in extra components, and the airlow will be better.

If the supplied power supply in the case is too noisy,(mine was) swap it out for a quiet one (there are heaps of articles on the net about quiet PC power supplies. Luckily I had a quieter one sitting around, which again was a cheap generic one.

I got an Asus motherboard with an HDMI ouput (to future proof it!) Athlon Dual core processor (The intel ones were more expensive at the time). Can't remember how much ram I got, either 2 or 4 GB.

I bought a second hand 52x CD rom reader to Rip Cd's to the hard drive, for $1 or something off the net. I wouldn't recommend ripping Cd's with a new DVD burner of Blu ray.I wrecked mine after ripping my CD collection, the ripping software puts extra wear on the DVD drive which they are not designed for. Now I rip all CDs which the CD rom, it's not only faster but I have a supply of 3 more bought for small change.

Optional DVD burner/ Blu ray reader .

Seagate 80gb SATA Hard drive for Windows and programmes, not the CD collection.

Seagate 320gb SATA HD(can get much large ones now) for ripped CD collection.

Sound card, as you may imagine, took the most amount of research. Eventually I settled on a creative XFI Gamer. I read a number of articles suggesting the XFI Music is based on an old chip, but the Gamer has the XFI chip. Whether this is true or not I'm not sure, but the GAmer wasn't much more than the Music model, and if Creative are asking more for the Gamer you've got to ask yourself why. You can run the Gamer in Entertainment mode rather than game mode, which optimises it for music reproduction. I'm really pleased with the sound quality, in my opinion it's better than my nad C515 bee CD player. You can do things on it you can't do with a DAC. the 24 bit crystaliser I find really useful for sharpening the sound slightly, I run it at about 10%. THe digital graphic EQ is excellent at Eq ing my rather soft sounding Wharfedale 9.5.
I've heard good things about the Asus Zonar, which wasn't available when I built mine.
All the stuff I read about PC's generating Hum, static and interference on the music output simply didn't happen. The output is clean as.

I bought a cheap generic remote control for the pc which allows you to increase volome, skip tracks etc. This is another "boon" as my NAD 7240 receiver doesnt have remote volume.

Windows XP OS

DB power amp for CD ripping, can rip to dual directories ie FLAC and MP3 simulatenously. MP3 are ripped with the LAME encoder. CLassical and favourite albums get ripped to flac, general pop songs get ripped to MP3 (between 170 and 256 depending on how much I like the song!. Generally 192 kps is ok, 256 if your fussy.

Winamp for FLAC replays, Itunes for mp3. (Itunes cant replay FLACS) WInamp can play FLAC but Itunes is still easier and friends like to play tracks on Itunes on my system

Hope this helps. have fun, it shouldn't cost the earth to get nice sounding music from a PC..

 

[Fuzzy Bear]

I already own a Macbook so the ida of a DAC might be a good sensible solution. I think I would like to keep it separate and have a system dedicated to the job, so a cheaper laptop like the dell would be a good option with HDD replacement. How good are the sound cards on Macbooks or cheaper laptops? ( how long is a piece of string ) but comparatively to what I could buy sound card wise

As of yet, the project has not begun other than these planning stages. I think my budget would be somewhere around the 400-500 mark, but I will look at all the options and decide. The laptop Idea also solves the interface problem in one clean swoop. ( I can tell you right now if I had a wireless keyboard and mouse they would get lost pretty quickly. Yeah I have a few hundred CDs. Much of my space is taken up with Podcasts as well. I like to keep them ( even if they do become outdated quickly) And I would like to think that in my lifetime I will own a few TB worth of Cds. ( one can dream )

That link was very useful. I had already bookmarked a few of those pages. But quite a handy reference tool. It's good to see the components with just the audiophile in mind. I have no interest in building a gaming PC but the second I mentioned it to friends they only knew of component sites that had heavy emphasis on gaming.

Aahh that's interesting about going for just a CD burner rather than a newer DVD burner. Also can the amount of RAM be important if you are playing FLAC constantly. Would be a shame to wear it out after only a year or so. So you have already completed such a project, congrats, glad your leased with it. I think I want it to be more like a separate, so people come round and ask me. " ooo whats that" The separate solution to me would fix more of and aesthetic problem.

I have never built a PC before and would like to. But that might be the problem. Are peoples first PC builds more of a learning experience and just encourage a hobby or would I be happy with what I had rather than then knowing how to improve , looking at my new PC and scowling every-time.

 

[professorhat]

Fuzzy Bear:I already own a Macbook so the ida of a DAC might be a good sensible solution. I think I would like to keep it separate and have a system dedicated to the job, so a cheaper laptop like the dell would be a good option with HDD replacement. How good are the sound cards on Macbooks or cheaper laptops? ( how long is a piece of string ) but comparatively to what I could buy sound card wise

The beauty of using a laptop with USB (or optical) output to an external DAC is it bypasses the computer's soundcard so you don't need to worry about this.

Fuzzy Bear: The laptop Idea also solves the interface problem in one clean swoop. ( I can tell you right now if I had a wireless keyboard and mouse they would get lost pretty quickly.

Indeed, this is why I would go with this solution! It also keeps everything nice and tidy since the laptop lid can be closed and thus look very unobtrusive (if that's important to you).

Fuzzy Bear:I have never built a PC before and would like to. But that might be the problem. Are peoples first PC builds more of a learning experience and just encourage a hobby or would I be happy with what I had rather than then knowing how to improve , looking at my new PC and scowling every-time.

I'm an IT bod by trade, though admittedly I not that hands on these days. In my former days of glory though, I tinkered with repairing PCs and laptops as part of my everyday job. Despite this, I've never gone down the route of building my own PC - it's a reasonable amount of effort sourcing parts and fitting everything together (or even a lot of effort if you've never done it before), and you really don't save that much money. Time better spent listening to music if you ask me!

 

[PJPro]

xtsili:
Also, check this out

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Computer-Audiophile-Suggested-Hardware-List

Hmm. I reckon there are some fairly serious omissions from that site. Still, it's a starting point.

 

[PJPro]

I'll mention the WDTV Live. Will do music (just about every format except Apple's), movies and photos. Will stream from a NAS via wired ethernet. Will playback USB attached storage (I use a 1.5TB seagate HDD). Has optical out, allowing a dedicated DAC to handle the conversion fromdigital. Has HDMI out.

You can browse any USB storage device attached to the WDTV Live across the your network...allowing you to drop tunes you have ripped on your PC onto it. Th WDTV Live will automatically update over your internet connection and it allows you to browse a select number of radio stations and youtube (not spotify or iPlayer unfortunately).

I doesn't have the best interface but then again it's only £88 (Amazon). And it sounds pretty good. I'm surprised that everyone doesn't have one. I suspect that would change if the mag did a review.