[Sparky14]

I have this spare Lenovo mini-PC (dual Celeron, 4gb Memory, 500gb HD). I thought I could turn it into a dedicated music player. It currently has a clean Windows 10 install and nothing else on it. I've used FOOBAR on my laptops for years, very familiar with that. However, for the Lenovo, I'd like to do something better.

It will be going via USB into a Sabaj D5 DAC, which has the ESS9038 Pro and is DSD capable.

I did some searching of the interwebs last night and see many specific OS just for audio (e.g. Daphile). But on reading through the stuff, most of the discussions are very detailed by folks very familiar with Linux and Ubuntu and the like. I am not completely unfamiliar with Linux as we use it at work, but I am just an end user not a programmer.

Are any of these music OS simple enough for a dummy to install and use? Any advice or suggestions on what to do with the Lenovo box?

[jmc207]

Volumio should be a lot easier than Daphile.

https://volumio.com/en/get-started/

[WGH]

Keep Windows 10, install JRiver Media Player, play music.
https://jriver.com/

JRiver likes tags, I had to re-tag many of my early ripped CDs. dBpoweramp is one of the best tools for ripping, converting and tagging music files.
https://www.dbpoweramp.com/

I have JRiver configured to sort by Year, I think that is the default, then new music is added to the top of the pile so it is easy to find. I use dBpoweramp to change the Year so when I pick up old classic recordings like the 1975 Jeff Beck - Blow by Blow the album is sorted to the top instead of buried under 1000's of other albums. I like to have the year the album came out in the Album heading where it can be seen at a glance. The Album Artist heading is very important, be sure that is filled in.



JRiver has DSD pass-through, enable it in the Bitstream option otherwise the default setting converts DSD to PCM.

The Lenovo should be able to upsample and even convert PCM to DSD. JRiver has upsampling but I have not used it. A much better tool is HQPlayer, expensive but worth it.
https://www.signalyst.com/consumer.html

Lots of people install HQPlayer on a Linux distro or dual boot leaving Windows on another partition.

Audiophile Style has a HQPlayer thread, it is dense. Miska is the developer and is extremely helpful.
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/19715-hq-player/#comments

A recent article has info about installing Linux and HQPlayer on a low powered streamer
https://archimago.blogspot.com/2022/10/using-low-power-beelink-mini-s-as-linux.html

I posted a few articles/reviews about HQPlayer, search AC for HQPlayer but the guys at Audiophile Style are the experts.

[Sparky14]

Thanks for the info all!

volumio - I'll look into that one

dbpoweramp - already have that one, excellent program.

Jriver - for this Lenovo box, it won't be used much and this is my trial/experiment effort so I am looking at the free options for now. Sometime in the future, I may consider Jriver for my main laptop.

Not doing any streaming, I have an insane amount of music files from DSD128 on down, so no need to stream.

[whell]

I use Daphile, and I'm certainly no Linux expert.  You don't even have to install Daphile to try it.  Some folks never bother with the installation, they just run it off of a USB stick.   

The setup process can be a bit tricky if you're accessing your music from a network drive. Other than that, it's pretty straightforward.  If you ever get into streaming from sites like Quboz, Tidal, or Spotify, it's really hard to beat Daphile, especially for the price (it's free!). 

[charmerci]

Thanks for the info all!

Jriver - for this Lenovo box, it won't be used much and this is my trial/experiment effort so I am looking at the free options for now. Sometime in the future, I may consider Jriver for my main laptop.

Not doing any streaming, I have an insane amount of music files from DSD128 on down, so no need to stream.

JRiver has a thirty day free trial.

[Sparky14]

I spent about 4 hours to get Daphile going via a USB stick.

I get the initial Daphile screen, but I can never get past the "Waiting for Network Connection" spot.

Put in WiFi, and all the IPv4, Subnet Mask, DNS numbers ....... "Waiting for Network Connection"
Put in WiFi, and don't configure static IP ...... "Waiting for Network Connection"
Skip WiFi, and put in the IPv4,etc. numbers......"Waiting for Network Connection"
Skip WiFi, and don't configure static IP ...... "Waiting for Network Connection"