DCAudioDIY.com

Yeah, people got on his case when he first announced it, but he decided to keep it. It's a pretty neat little package.

The installation procedure seems fantastically complicated.

Out of curiosity, where do you get the Aussie TV shows? Acorn.tv?

ray

WETA especially WETA-UK have several such as "The Dr Blake Mysteries", "Miss Fischer's Murder Mysteries," and "A Place To Call Home."

Thanks. Any recommendation on the chassis and PS?

I have a spare laptop which I will be using for the next few weeks to try out the audio streamers before buying the fanless PC.

If you can come up with $5 a month, you can stream from the quite large collection of British and some Aussie shows at acorn.tv

https://signup.acorn.tv/

Currently I'm laughing my way through the totally outrageous Rake series. No sub-titles however and the accents are definitely 'strine'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rake_(Australian_TV_series)

On a separate note, I am now listening to Christiane Karg - Parfum on Qobuz which is reputedly one of the better streaming services for classical music but not available in the US. I was in England recently and signed up for their free trial using Paypal which does not indicate which country you come from. I am still able to stream here now that I am back in the US. I only got the CD quality version but may do the upgrade later. Sound quality is fine, but I get occasional stuttering on my Comcast connection, but it might be my laptop that is the problem.

The classical music selection is wonderful and there are so many great recordings coming out these days.

ray

I think the planned use in this case is audio only, which makes it a moot point. I use it audio only here, and run Kodi on an rPi in a totally different room for video...

Roscoe

_________________
I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

Yeah, that's why I blew it off. Anyone who can't figure out how to do a standard install from CD/DVD on linux isn't smart enough to handle my audio...

Roscoe

_________________
I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

I'm using this case: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0035FIS2O/ although without the PS, took it out and used one of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005TWE6B8/ with a 12V/5A power supply that I don't remember where it came from. It's a switcher, too lazy to build a 12V/5A linear supply...

Roscoe

_________________
I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

Last night while doing research on the music players came across a neat little software called jPlay. It is developed by a polish and dutch guys. It got glorious review on the net including mainstream audiophile gigs like 6 Moons, Positive Feedback, TAS, Enjoy the Music, TNT etc. See the reviews at http://www.jplay.eu/reviews/

Core difference between jPlay and other computer music players (except may audiophile linux) is the "real-time" streaming. All sources and DACs process the data in real time so the timing of the bit stream is maintained. Computer CPUs are built for multi-tasking (task switching) and almost all OSs are multi-tasking also. When it is time for the music player to process the next group of bits, it might be swapped out of the CPU causing the delay in the bit stream. Add to that the multi-tasking OSs like Windows and Linux where several hundreds of processes are running and competing for resources, those delays could be substantial.

According to jPlay developers, their main focus is on "time perfect" streaming in addition to "bit perfect" streaming. To achieve this, jPlay takes over the computer stopping/hibernating all the processes and gives itself highest Priority. In "Hibertating" mode (recommended) even the mouse and keyboard are disabled. Computer looks as if it is struck, it will not respond to any thing until the jPlay finishes the playing. And it loads the entire music file into memory before starting to play to avoid any delays.

jPlay developers created plug-ins for jRiver, foobar, iTunes etc, ie jRiver etc are used as the front-end (UI) and jPlay takes over the entire back-end (music playing) operating. jRiver did to like it and issued a statement calling jPlay "Hoax" and recommended removing it completely. https://jriver.com/jplay.html . That convinced me to try jPlay

Last night, installed jPlay trial version on my laptop. It comes with bare minimal user interface. It opens up a terminal window. To play music, select the files from windows explorers and copy. Go back to jPlay terminal window (Jplay Mini) and press space bar. JPlay takes a few seconds to load the files into memory and hibernates all other processes. You will see screen flicker and music starts playing.

I did a quick comparison of two songs between jPlay and foobar2000. I did not immediately notice the huge difference the reviews claimed but it felt like jPlay created deeper soundstage and it was little smoother.

Going to reinstall windows on my laptop and try out jPlay and Audiophile Linux (since both are trying to process the music in realtime) for the next couple of weeks.

Anyone using windows for music playing, give it a try and share your observations.

BTW, trial version of jPlay creates random gaps in the music. Full version is 99 Euros with lifetime support.