Cheap Chinese Computers for Music PC

[subro99]

Dear FMs,

The name says it all !!

Is it possible to build a noiseless audiophile grade Music PC with the products shown below :

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Tronsmart-Ara-BJ19-Intel-J1900-NUC-Mini-PC-Windows-8-1-Linux-Computer-HDMI-WiFi-LAN/32392355502.html?tracelog=rowan&rowan_id1=buyerPayOnlineSuccessToBuyer_en_US_2015-09-20&rowan_msg_id=29306942257326$6870b6eb81654768877bfd0729daf7e8&ck=in_edm_other

or this one :
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Intel-Celeron-1037U-Dual-Core-1-8Ghz-Mini-PC-Thin-Client-with-HD-Graphics-2G-RAM/1962183777.html?tracelog=rowan&rowan_id1=buyerPayOnlineSuccessToBuyer_en_US_2015-09-20&rowan_msg_id=29306942257326$6870b6eb81654768877bfd0729daf7e8&ck=in_edm_other

For those who actually could not do much with Raspberry Pi (that kind of novice!!) will these be a solution? If yes, in that case will a separate DAC enhance the audio quality (considering HDMI output is available...)

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and analysis. Cheers.

 

[venkatcr]

This is based on (or a copy of) the Intel NUC platform. This platform has been a great failure for Intel, and they withdrawing from it.

One of the critical items for audio PC is to have a high end DAC. There is no DAC card made for NUC platform. In any case, the NUC platform cannot take an additional card. Only way is to output through the USB, and do the DAC externally.

My fear with Chinese products is the quality of connectors etc. Low quality USB port can increase the noise floor, nullifying the strength of an external DAC.

If you really want a good quality audio PC, go for a quality mother board, cabinet, and related accessories. If you screw up the source, what is the value of spending time building an audio PC? Might as well get one of those amplifiers that can take a pen drive and play the music from that?

All depends on the level of audio quality you are looking for.

Cheers

@Venkatcr ... you mean to say Intel NUC is a flop and Intel intends to stop it ?

NUC is a flop for Intel and they will stop pushing it into the market. Other vendors may keep the platform alive.

Cheers

What's the source of this information?

One of my nephews is directly working in the NUC team. I was speaking to him about my interest in NUC, and he very clearly said keep off. The NUC is neither here nor there. It is too weak to compete with a full bodied PC. It is too expensive to compete with media players and the now emerging Android based systems. Intel itself has moved on to stick PC.

Intel wanted the NUC to be a second PC, a media player, or a HTPC. It falls short of being a HTPC in terms of graphics, and is too large and expensive for being a media player. The stick PC is what Intel is betting on now.

BTW, the total sale of NUC has been around a million pieces. Far less than what Intel planned for.

Intel is also facing severe issues in their core business of CPUs for PC. They are now looking for alternate businesses. They are too late to enter the mobile CPU market and are losing ground every day since 2013. But, given their size they may just gobble up an ARM or a Qualcom!

Most people using PC's for audio use external DAC's.

Sure there is no harm in that. At the same time, there are arguments that DAC conversion nearer the source is better. And two, my point was the quality of USB on a Chinese product. They will not be optimized for audiophiles.

Cheers

 

[manniraj]

Hi Subro

I have a Foxconn PC for sale in the forum. I was using this PC purely for music via a DAC and Windows 7 + Foobar. Its a great PC and you just need a HDD to install internally or if you are into Linux then just a USB drive will be sufficient to load the Linux based Volumio/Daphile or other audiophile OS systems and you are good to go. Let me know if it interests you. I had brought it from Newegg of US and presently upgraded it a higher configuration one hence this sale. I have put it at a very good price considering that its a wifi in-built card and also I am giving away a 4GB RAM pre-installed.

Thanks

Dear FMs,

The name says it all !!

Is it possible to build a noiseless audiophile grade Music PC with the products shown below :

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Tronsmart-Ara-BJ19-Intel-J1900-NUC-Mini-PC-Windows-8-1-Linux-Computer-HDMI-WiFi-LAN/32392355502.html?tracelog=rowan&rowan_id1=buyerPayOnlineSuccessToBuyer_en_US_2015-09-20&rowan_msg_id=29306942257326$6870b6eb81654768877bfd0729daf7e8&ck=in_edm_other

or this one :
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Intel-Celeron-1037U-Dual-Core-1-8Ghz-Mini-PC-Thin-Client-with-HD-Graphics-2G-RAM/1962183777.html?tracelog=rowan&rowan_id1=buyerPayOnlineSuccessToBuyer_en_US_2015-09-20&rowan_msg_id=29306942257326$6870b6eb81654768877bfd0729daf7e8&ck=in_edm_other

For those who actually could not do much with Raspberry Pi (that kind of novice!!) will these be a solution? If yes, in that case will a separate DAC enhance the audio quality (considering HDMI output is available...)

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and analysis. Cheers.

 

[druk2004]

@Venkatcr ... you mean to say Intel NUC is a flop and Intel intends to stop it ?

 

[sam9s]

AFAIK NUC is pretty decent piece of Hardware and very well accepted in the market ....

 

[keith_correa]

This platform has been a great failure for Intel, and they withdrawing from it.

What's the source of this information?

One of the critical items for audio PC is to have a high end DAC. There is no DAC card made for NUC platform. In any case, the NUC platform cannot take an additional card. Only way is to output through the USB, and do the DAC externally.

Most people using PC's for audio use external DAC's.

 

[skdas]

What about this ?If your DAC support android without any additional software? Very exited about this product coming soon .........


Remix OS Ultratablet Mini Forum Jide Store

The worlds first true Android PC @ 20 USD

Remix Mini is powered by the latest 64-bit chipset With Android, it all just works.

Remix Mini gives you the same power of desktop computing at a mere 10 watts.

Remix OS. Android re-engineered for PC.

 

[keith_correa]

I noticed that none of us gave you a direct answer

Dear FMs,

The name says it all !!

Is it possible to build a noiseless audiophile grade Music PC with the products shown below :

Short answer - Yes.

...will a separate DAC enhance the audio quality.

For sure.

 

[asliarun]

@OP: You can also consider other prebuilt solutions like the Zotac Pico or Minix (several models - both ARM based and x86 based - and both Android based and Windows based).

ZBOX pico: ZOTAC - It's time to play!

MiniX Products

They are in the $150-$200 price range and so not that far off from the Chinese options. And these are fully built up with RAM and storage and OS preinstalled. Barebones small form factor PCs are quite finicky and hard to build up and often the cost exceeds the cost of fully built up options.

@Venkatcr - Good to know some insights about Intel's NUC strategy (or lack of it), especially from someone close to the action.

As a long time watcher of this space, and investor and being fairly close to it, I would still say that the final word has not been said. Intel is still testing the waters. NUC was an experiment and perhaps it will get rid of it. However, it will still listen to its ecosystem carefully. Gone are the days when Intel was the only game in town and could push around its ecosystem partners.

So if a big vendor or partner for example insists in Intel continuing to support very small form factors (not just NUC - but there are a bunch of others), Intel will indeed accommodate. Just as it bends over backwards for Apple, one of the few partners which buys Intel's flagship (expensive) products.

The problem with Intel is really not dwindling market share. It is dwindling profit margins. Intel has long enjoyed extremely good profit margins because everyone was used to paying $1000+ for PCs and laptops, even back in the day. With ARM came not just power efficiency but throwaway prices. And now everyone expects to get desktops and laptops at rock bottom commodity prices. In the $200-$500 range.

I would be a rich person if I could predict the future. But we are living in interesting times. While Intel's products (CPUs) were not competitive in terms of performance and power consumption, the current gen coming out (Cherry Trail and the tock generation products of the tick-tock cadence) are really strong options to the best of breed ARM. Core M is already starting to appear in fully fanless designs.

I recently purchased the Asus Zenbook UX305 which is fully fanless, has Core M, runs Windows 10, has 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD, has 10+ hours battery life, has decent integrated graphics, is made with machined aluminum, and is one of the lightest and thinnest laptops around. At about $600, to me, it represents phenomenal value for money, and what laptops should always have been. Dell XPS 13 is another phenomenally well built laptop, although a bit pricier.

I am digressing a bit, but I wanted to add that there is more to it than meets the eye. For example, if Steam Machines (gaming box design similar to XBox One and PS4, but PC based, not based on custom design - and based on the Windows/Linux cross platform Steam software), it will be a more compelling reason for more people to go for a living room PC (but in various form factors and sizes) that can perform various functions - HTPC, quality audio player, gaming box (lightweight or heavyweight), streaming audio/video player, storage solution (lightweight NAS), etc.

A variety of devices have tried to address this in a multitude of ways. Many, half hearted though. AVRs pretend to be streaming audio/video devices. Streaming players like Roku pretend to be audio players with USB and network support. Fanless small form factor cheap devices like Minix pretend to be HTPCs at a fraction of the cost.

The main problem with desktop class solutions is space, noise, and price. Especially for a product class that is so rapidly evolving - it might even make sense to go for extreme low budget solutions like what OP is suggesting. Worst case, Intel pulls the plug on NUC a year down the line - it will still take several years for parts to finally disappear from the market. And enough quality products like Squeezebox have bitten the dust.