01-Jul-2015, 22:32
(01-Jul-2015, 10:59)completeluxury Wrote: i have never heard of twonky media nor any idea of what it does, how good/bad it isI actually quite like using a PC as a source, rather than being locked into an Aurender eco system or whatever, but what I don't fancy is all the hassle of building and setting up such a beast. I am a fairly competent user of PC's and wouldn't mind a little bit of tweaking, but all this computer audiophile level stuff would drive me bonkers! Plus, limited free time is a big factor. Is there any kind of off the shelf solution that would yield 90% of the benefit of a custom built fully tweaked twin PC affair?
Theres a few good choices in music player software: Roon, jplay with jplay streamer, jriver, foobar, hq player.
You can also look at room correction software like: Acourate, Dirac
jplay is actually really easy to set up but theres other peices of important software that help as well.
Audiophile optimizer
fidelizer
project lasso
all help streamline and strip away unnecessary processes and stuff that isnt required for audio pcs.
you say you have access to other pcs but what i mean by a well designed audio pc is not just the software on it but also the hardware!
fanless cases to reduce fan noise and EMI, low voltage ram, specialised audiophile USB cads, separate hard drives for your operating system and all other software, audiophile sata cables, specialised power supplies for each component (cpu, motherboard, hard drives and USB card), audiophile lan cable to link up your computers (if using dual pcs), audiophile USB cable, upgrading the clock on your motherboard.
those are examples of the different things you can do... to do everything i just mentioned would be awfully expensive, i dont dare tally up the cost of what my ideal system would cost i would probably cry.
I would start off by building one good PC instead of going for a dual pc set up. it means you will have a solid source which you can upgrade later to dual pcs if you were ever so inclined!
