At the moment I use my PC to play music through a DAC. Is it possible to replace the PC with a mini laptop ? I plan to use the mini laptop for music only and the PC for other things (internet etc.).
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question about mini laptop
- Thread starter Cypher
- Start date
scene
Well-known member
- Sep 25, 2008
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No reason why not. The only issues you might have, are with the size of storage on the laptop - unless you have a DAC - and the keeping the laptop running all the time. If you're going to use the mini laptop ONLY for music, you might want to consider a more dedicated device, like Squeezebox+NAS, or a Brennan jukebox...
Laptops and the like aren't really meant to be on all the time, and you cant really clean the dust out of the fan the way you can on a pc. One idea would be to get a nettop (essentially a tiny pc case with a netbook processor inside.
You can get ones which are completely fanless and as you are just playing music on it, you could get a low spec one with no operating system on it for less than a ton, if you're eagle eyed on the deals. Stick ubuntu on it and you're good to go.
You can get ones which are completely fanless and as you are just playing music on it, you could get a low spec one with no operating system on it for less than a ton, if you're eagle eyed on the deals. Stick ubuntu on it and you're good to go.
Nettop ? First time i hear of it ! It's just a tiny PC ? Can you get one with a storage room of 250 GB ?
I have a small form PC purley for music duties (Viglen MPCL). Its very low powered (500Mhz), which is ok for streaming music to my Squeezeboxes, but is painfully slow when something goes wrong, needs a re-boot, or a software update etc...
You can however get Atom powered nettops, around the 1.6Ghz mark, which will be quite nippy for music duties, and yes, you can put a 250GB HDD in them, as they normally take laptop hard drives.
My small PC has no monitor on it, so it just sits in a cupboard - I use my netbook to 'remote desktop' to it via XP when I need to access it.
You can however get Atom powered nettops, around the 1.6Ghz mark, which will be quite nippy for music duties, and yes, you can put a 250GB HDD in them, as they normally take laptop hard drives.
My small PC has no monitor on it, so it just sits in a cupboard - I use my netbook to 'remote desktop' to it via XP when I need to access it.
A netbook works perfectly fine for me. It is cheap (200euro for system with a decent screen) very flexible, you can choose the software you like, silent, and you can unplug it if needed for other purposes. And you have internet radio, spotify, youtube, ....
A standard 320Gb HD is good for some 1000 cd's in flac, but you'd have to have a disk (or NAS) for backup also. You'd have to rip with your laptop though, or an external cd/dvd. And a (USB) DAC
A standard 320Gb HD is good for some 1000 cd's in flac, but you'd have to have a disk (or NAS) for backup also. You'd have to rip with your laptop though, or an external cd/dvd. And a (USB) DAC
normdeplume
Well-known member
- Aug 5, 2010
- 9
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- 18,525
You might have a look at the Item Audio site as they are selling netbooks that are audio-ready and available in a wide range of configurations. They have SSD drives for noiseless operation too.
I've bought kit from them in the past and they are nice guys to deal with.
I've bought kit from them in the past and they are nice guys to deal with.
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