If you for a cheap laptop to perform as a music server there many laptops that can perform this task and still base on Windows with more support i.e. drivers for hardware(USB DAC) and variety software players.
I am currently using an AMD based CPU laptop i.e. E450 dual processors, it has sufficient processing power(better than netbook) to perform the WAV/Flac/mp3 conversion to USB output. There are currently many SECOND hand laptops based on this processor, I am using the HP Pavilion DM1, I bought for $175 it has 4G memory. In fact I bought 2 units. Dell, Asus and Toshiba make them too, look up Ebay if interested.
The clicks and pops are caused by high latency of the laptop, i.e. like you say too many interrupts and servicing of other processes which are not associated to music reproductions, there is a program which can identify whether the latency is adequate for music reproduction.
The program is dpclat, you can download from internet free. Also use another program called Fidelizer, also free which minimizes activities of processes which are not necessary to music reproduction.
I can get very good sound from these combo, hardware and software for very little money.
Kinda depressing to think that its the year 2013 and we still haven't really sorted this stuff out yet.
What is the method of choice these days for getting music on a hard drive playing on a hi-fi stereo system, with the minimum of fuss and bother? Chrome, in principle, would seem to be well suited, and indeed Google were headed in that direction with the ill-fated Nexus Q...
What is the method of choice these days for getting music on a hard drive playing on a hi-fi stereo system, with the minimum of fuss and bother? Chrome, in principle, would seem to be well suited, and indeed Google were headed in that direction with the ill-fated Nexus Q...
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