I can't help you to decide on hardware, but with this used stuff dealer I'm very satisfied. I have bought there for many years and anything was better than described. They only have high quality stuff, not a filthy eBay dealer. You find anything from professional micro PC to laptop and work station.
You got to check how expensive postage to your country will be.
You got to check how expensive postage to your country will be.
That’s good to know. A reputable dealer that I’ve bought new stuff from for years is now selling refurbed ThinkCentre PCs that Tom just mentioned. They are a similar price to a brand new micro PC like the BRIX and not far off bee-line and Dune-HD products.
I think for me that might be the way to go. It might even run HQ player that Mark suggested above, even though the intent of the thread was more “least cost” than “ultimate performance”!
I sometimes convince myself that some HD recordings sound slightly better than CD quality, but there are some CD recordings that I think are fabulous, so if I can play both then I’m a happy camper. I have my own active speakers that probably don’t quite reach the pinnacle of audio performance albeit they are way better than the usual consumer audio these days.
@Turbowatch2 do you have a link?
I think for me that might be the way to go. It might even run HQ player that Mark suggested above, even though the intent of the thread was more “least cost” than “ultimate performance”!
I sometimes convince myself that some HD recordings sound slightly better than CD quality, but there are some CD recordings that I think are fabulous, so if I can play both then I’m a happy camper. I have my own active speakers that probably don’t quite reach the pinnacle of audio performance albeit they are way better than the usual consumer audio these days.
@Turbowatch2 do you have a link?
@cowanaudio That looks like another possibility. It looks like that platform would run Windows too, nvme boot disk, 16GB RAM plus additional SSDs as needed.
What are you using as the media centre software? Are you using an external DAC?
For Qobuz, would you just use the web browser?
What are you using as the media centre software? Are you using an external DAC?
For Qobuz, would you just use the web browser?
Sorry, the link didn't make it in the post. My fault. https://www.itsco.de/
PS even if the prices may surprise you, this is no junk, but in most cases as new looking gear from large company's leasing returns etc. They don't have the consumer class stuff that breaks after a few years. I got DELL laptops drom them that are 15 years old and still work better than new (thanks to SSD for the most). The good thing about such large brand pro gear, you usually get any spare part used and cheap. Try that with your Wallmart ASUS.
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It may not be relevant to the OP, but just for completeness the Apple Superdrive works in linux too, using a command line package called sg3-utils. (At least, it's called that in Gentoo.)
As far as hardware is concerned, I've found just about anything is sufficient as a music server. I've used a Pi with a miniSD card to hold the files, but now I prefer used (and quite old) fanless nuc machines from ebay. Elsewhere on these forums phofman has pointed out that thin clients work well, and are dead cheap on ebay and elsewhere. But most likely only if you run linux, which is all I've done.
The H2 has been superseded, but would have no problem running Windoze. I use Kodi and the board feeds a Minidsp box.
Yeah, looks like the H4+ is the new kid on the block and can fitted into an its htpc case.
https://www.odroid.co.uk/Odroid-H4-Plus?search=H4+
Only 12W TDP so should run cool. I’ll take a look at Kodi, I’ve never tried it.
https://www.odroid.co.uk/Odroid-H4-Plus?search=H4+
Only 12W TDP so should run cool. I’ll take a look at Kodi, I’ve never tried it.
get a hp mini pc 60-100$ from ebay, they work fine get the 7th or 8th gen intel ones,
https://www.ebay.com/itm/276446218385?itmmeta=01HWRQRV0BRS7GCTY8CNDG7B67&hash=item405d7a8891:g
BUAAOSw~1pi9U~o&itmprp=enc:AQAJAAAA0KyUNzdwaZQquY6I7z9l9a/lB7Tli6kYSFyOLQhJOPDQXr9pwbCQbwlDIASQVWeicFlaLCWG2OJoX96uG5Xu0hipY4MvtWLAefhmRY9bH7xIlvwBqb/0zI39oEj8s11Z4dLRSvkYeFggfOO3iuXy+W5OsSDWngkNIBI3v6KLlUyQigjEv8qDqCGj7RI8MepRpkdOF6yj/IWkoqOrlaaUzG6y5yEd5SvZH8KC6Hxa3Il0TuqwuE3A+hf/IijmIpD5VNYcWd5Ezgy73lxD9IDPMu0=|tkp:Bk9SR8Sw45fmYw
or with AMD
https://www.ebay.com/itm/3053562273...lp:2332490&itmmeta=01HWRR001WQ5KG47QC956T470W
https://www.ebay.com/itm/276446218385?itmmeta=01HWRQRV0BRS7GCTY8CNDG7B67&hash=item405d7a8891:g
BUAAOSw~1pi9U~o&itmprp=enc:AQAJAAAA0KyUNzdwaZQquY6I7z9l9a/lB7Tli6kYSFyOLQhJOPDQXr9pwbCQbwlDIASQVWeicFlaLCWG2OJoX96uG5Xu0hipY4MvtWLAefhmRY9bH7xIlvwBqb/0zI39oEj8s11Z4dLRSvkYeFggfOO3iuXy+W5OsSDWngkNIBI3v6KLlUyQigjEv8qDqCGj7RI8MepRpkdOF6yj/IWkoqOrlaaUzG6y5yEd5SvZH8KC6Hxa3Il0TuqwuE3A+hf/IijmIpD5VNYcWd5Ezgy73lxD9IDPMu0=|tkp:Bk9SR8Sw45fmYwor with AMD
https://www.ebay.com/itm/3053562273...lp:2332490&itmmeta=01HWRR001WQ5KG47QC956T470W
I have one of those in a guest room, a Gigabyte BRIX Barebone GB-BLCE-4105 - Intel® Celeron® J4105 4x 1.50GHz, Intel UH.
Bought the BRIX new of Ebay for 100 and put Win 10 with an OEM licence from an English gamer-detailist on it at cost of another 10.
I put a salvaged NVMe M.2 Solid-state Drive and 8 GB RAM from a broken laptop in it. (it takes SO-DIMM DDR4 laptop RAM)
After stripping Windows 10 down from as much junk as possible within a reasonable effort, I am satisfied with it.
It's capable of doing anything I want including streaming HD video, but not everything at the same time, and it misses the smoothness of a fast PC.
I you have to buy the SD and RAM new, it might get a bit to expensive considering it's performance.
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It's important to understand the role of Moore's law on computers. There were i7 CPUs that are slower than a modern Celeron. Look up the exact model, ie the generation of a CPU before you buy it.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/
I am not a gamer and integrated graphics is fine for me, and video cards are expensive. Most anything faster than the old Intel core2 Quad is fine for audio and playing most video. You could go less but why bother. I have a couple i5-5xxx (fifth generation) refurbished desktops that are plenty quick and real cheap. An SSD vs a mechanical hard drive does make a big difference, so if you have an HDD system, I recommend moving the OS to a ~small SSD (~256GB). They are cheap.
But this PC is a 10th gen i5 that cost about $450, not much more than much older referbs, and I'm quite happy with it. This machine is now win11 and that is the biggest problem with older machine. They do not support win11, and MS is threatening to drop support for win10. So Linux becomes the logical solution. But beware that even Linux will not run on very old machines. I recommend making a bootable ~Ubuntu thumb drive to try out Linux. This allows you to run ~Ubuntu etc without actually installing it. There are things that Linux does better, usually because there is less malware.
Another issue with older and newer machines is IO support. A old machine will not support USB-3 or USB-C, or fast ethernet, but a new machine will not have a DVD or Blue-Ray drive.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/
I am not a gamer and integrated graphics is fine for me, and video cards are expensive. Most anything faster than the old Intel core2 Quad is fine for audio and playing most video. You could go less but why bother. I have a couple i5-5xxx (fifth generation) refurbished desktops that are plenty quick and real cheap. An SSD vs a mechanical hard drive does make a big difference, so if you have an HDD system, I recommend moving the OS to a ~small SSD (~256GB). They are cheap.
But this PC is a 10th gen i5 that cost about $450, not much more than much older referbs, and I'm quite happy with it. This machine is now win11 and that is the biggest problem with older machine. They do not support win11, and MS is threatening to drop support for win10. So Linux becomes the logical solution. But beware that even Linux will not run on very old machines. I recommend making a bootable ~Ubuntu thumb drive to try out Linux. This allows you to run ~Ubuntu etc without actually installing it. There are things that Linux does better, usually because there is less malware.
Another issue with older and newer machines is IO support. A old machine will not support USB-3 or USB-C, or fast ethernet, but a new machine will not have a DVD or Blue-Ray drive.
I had a quick Look at Kodi for Windows, it looks pretty good and looks like a very good replacement for Windows Media Centre 😀.
It’s starting to like one of the little AMLogic devices like the N2+ with CoreElec Linux and Kodi could work for me and it isn’t a tragic loss if it doesn’t. I’ll still find a use for it somehow. There are plenty of options in this thread for a plan “B” if not.
Thanks everyone for all the tips and suggestions, all very much appreciated.
It’s starting to like one of the little AMLogic devices like the N2+ with CoreElec Linux and Kodi could work for me and it isn’t a tragic loss if it doesn’t. I’ll still find a use for it somehow. There are plenty of options in this thread for a plan “B” if not.
Thanks everyone for all the tips and suggestions, all very much appreciated.
If you do not need windows, maybe considering RPi5 instead of AMLogic SoC would give you more options for the future. Non-RPi ARMs are quite hard to use, unless someone did the huge work to make it fully supported in his project - like CoreElec did. But should you need later on something not in CoreElec, quite likely you would end up stuck. Whereas RPi offers a full-blown linux distribution with full support and the (almost) latest kernel should you "outgrow" LibreElec options.
The RPi is very much on the list of stuff I’d like to buy and experiment with, but I’m not sure it is the one for me right now. I’ll doubtless have some fun with whatever I buy, and if I need to upgrade at some point it won’t be a big issue for me as I’m not planning on spending much on this right now.