Hello everybody. Total newbie here, sorry.
I just bought a decent USB-DAC with
ASYNCHRONOUS USB. I'm very interested in using daphile on a computer for playing and storing music. But where is it good to start? It work on most computers from what I understand. But is something preferable? I do not have anything laying around and will have to buy a new computer anyhow. Would a I3 Intel nuc be good choice that would have have working wi-fi and so on for exemple? I would like not having to spend that much money.
One last thing, do I have to install it on the harddrive, or can I for exempe use Ubuntu on the harddrive and store the music there and boot daphile up from USB and still be able to access the music on my harddisk or do I need a NAS then? I could use the computer for more than music playing this way.
Best regards
EA2002
I just bought a decent USB-DAC with
ASYNCHRONOUS USB. I'm very interested in using daphile on a computer for playing and storing music. But where is it good to start? It work on most computers from what I understand. But is something preferable? I do not have anything laying around and will have to buy a new computer anyhow. Would a I3 Intel nuc be good choice that would have have working wi-fi and so on for exemple? I would like not having to spend that much money.
One last thing, do I have to install it on the harddrive, or can I for exempe use Ubuntu on the harddrive and store the music there and boot daphile up from USB and still be able to access the music on my harddisk or do I need a NAS then? I could use the computer for more than music playing this way.
Best regards
EA2002
Daphile works on x86 and x64 machines, AMD and Intel. I use a second hand computer from the local tip (waste disposal) but any working old computer, even an old Pentium or 486, will work. Used ex-corporate boxes aren't expensive and they come with a DVD/CD drive normally.
If the PC has three SATA ports, you could use a HDD for Daphile and another for another operating system, the third for the CD, of course. Select the HDD from BIOS to change over though there should be a boot manager available online that will do this.
@ Tromperie
That is good to know. But does it really not matter what kind of CPU, how much memory, motherborard and so on, I mean soundwise and because of built in Wi-Fi and so on? I'm looking for a quiet small unit that can sit beside and connected to my DAC, where I just can can install Daphile, move my FLAC music over, connect with Tidal and Spotify and start listening to music using a iPhone for picking tracks and so on. I guess that I can buy unit just for music when it doesn't need to be high spec hardware. I'm just afraid to go out buying something that I later find out is far from optimal.
My DAC is connected to a old desktop computer at the moment with Windows 10. The sound that is coming out with the Tidal app, or Fidelify in Wasapi is everything from acceptable to horrible with Pops, clicks, crackles and so on.
@ junior35 That is impressive. Interesting.
That is good to know. But does it really not matter what kind of CPU, how much memory, motherborard and so on, I mean soundwise and because of built in Wi-Fi and so on? I'm looking for a quiet small unit that can sit beside and connected to my DAC, where I just can can install Daphile, move my FLAC music over, connect with Tidal and Spotify and start listening to music using a iPhone for picking tracks and so on. I guess that I can buy unit just for music when it doesn't need to be high spec hardware. I'm just afraid to go out buying something that I later find out is far from optimal.
My DAC is connected to a old desktop computer at the moment with Windows 10. The sound that is coming out with the Tidal app, or Fidelify in Wasapi is everything from acceptable to horrible with Pops, clicks, crackles and so on.
@ junior35 That is impressive. Interesting.
I'm thinking of buying a Intel NUC5CPYH. Beacause they are cheap and small. I could just put in a 1TB 2.5 disk and 4GB memory that I've laying around. Would that be a good a solution? Just a bit afraid that I've have to buy a USB-dongle because not all Linux-distros recognizes the the built in wifi.
Note if your DAC supports DSD and you want to experience real time up sampling of all audio files to DSD for an 'improved' listening experience then you will need a faster CPU, ideally i3 6100.
That information is something that i very much appreciate. My DAC has High-speed asynchronous USB input up to 24bit/384kHz. I've never tried to upsample and don't know how to do it. But maybe it is good to have is as a option though?
Please could you let me know your DAC model. The ability to process DSD files can be very rewarding?
But only if you like high frequency noise...
With your ears you can probably hear into the MHz.
With our DAC and CLANS7 modulator, out of band noise peaks around -80db of the signal @ around 180KHz Then drops from there. Better than -120db down until past 100kHz.
Transcoding from flac 44100/16 to pcm 384000/32 with SOX in LMS (the engine of Daphie) takes 10% of 1 CPU core in a 2009 AMD CoreDUO 6000+ CPU.
No needs for consuming iCore CPU, a Celeron 2930 is more than enought.
DSD upsampling is different, but I don't really think SOX is the best tool for the duty.
No needs for consuming iCore CPU, a Celeron 2930 is more than enought.
DSD upsampling is different, but I don't really think SOX is the best tool for the duty.
While I'm a big fan of logitech media server and squeezelite (Daphile) and I love the way SOX works in decoding and upsampling PCM, I don't really think is good the same in converting and upsamplig DSD realtime.
Just my 2/00.
Why would you convert/upsample in real time (repeatedly), when you can do it as a batch conversion (once)?