02-Mar-2019, 04:34
(28-Feb-2019, 19:39)Antoine Wrote: Hi @Axel, not a silly question at all, though the answer might be to a non-audiophile!Thanks, @Antoine , for the comprehensive reply.
The main reason for the fanless case is that is produces less (zero in fact) acoustical noise. Also there's less vibrational noise and some claim less electrical noise as well (no PWM circuits active for regulating the fans) resulting in better SQ. All my computers in my living room (HTPC, music server and now AL NUC endpoint) are fanless.
If you're familiar with building computers transferring the insides of a NUC inside an Akasa case will be a breeze, very easy. Each Akasa case comes with a manual and also there's someone on audiophilestyle.com (AS) who documented the process for the NUC7i7DNBE (which is the same motherboard as used in both NUC7i7DNHE and NUC7i7DNKE). In case of the NUC7i7DNHE, this was cheaper here in NL than both the board only and the NUC7i7DNKE which is smaller and can't house a SSD.
All Akasa's are engineered for specific NUC models so depending on the one you want there's a fitting case. I specifically chose the 7th gen models mentioned because of them being tested by the good people on AS.
NUCklehead, being a semi professional but commercial company, can't (or better said, wont ) do it as cheap an one can do DIY but does give support and may (besides the hardware) also include the $49,- for AudioLinux Headless. Piero, the maker of AL, does provide support as well though. If one doesn't need the support I don't think there's any reason to buy from NUCklehead though perhaps there may be some tweaks Larry 'hides' from the community, not sure, they were never mentioned.
As long as you enjoy the perhaps initially overwhelming 'learning curve' you'll be alright. Last weekend I upgraded both my installations to the latest versions, from scratch (not necessary but it's what I prefer to do) and it becomes easier and easier each time especially since I make notes of what I do/did on the command line.
Piero is also developping his products 'like crazy' and releases new updates with additional features (i've seen five major releases since I started using it in December and even more minor menu releases!) making things easier and requiring less and less Linux knowledge. It's far from being the turnkey system like an SOtM Euhasu is yet of course but it's getting better and easier each time.
Good luck and enjoy!
You nailed it in the first line. I didn’t realise that the original NUC had a fan, so it all makes sense to me now.
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