[chip]

Not to throw you off again but have you thought about this -

MSI Wind PChttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167032 -
G.SKILL 2GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 533 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231146
Kingston 2gb Compact Flash Card - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134520
Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB 32MB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136317

You can run Freenas on the CF Card. Freenas can run squeezebox by running Slimnas on it. Then the hard drive can be used for storage.  Or take a look at vortexbox.

This is my setup except I am not running freenas at the moment. I was before I bought this MSI PC. You can either have a CD Drive and Hard drive in it or I run two hard drives in mine.


There is also this MSI Wind PC that is a dual core - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167037


Other Options -

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30522/77/

[NewBuyer]

...I plug the switcher into a PS Audio quintet which isolates the switching noise from getting back into the AC power and the other components...

Hi Jim,

Just FYI, PS Audio states that the Quintet (and Duet) do not block noise from going back into the AC (in-wall) power.  Those products are not two-way noise gates, so to speak.  That is why they recommend always plugging the Quintet etc. into their Soloist product, which does block the noise from getting back into the AC power.

[jrebman]

Didn't realize that.  Guess I have less of a noise problem than I thought.

-- Jim

[chadh]

Thanks everyone for suggestions and comments. 

I've made my decision, now, and the new digital front end is in place and sounding nice.

So...it's out with the old...


and in with the new...


That's an ASUS EEE 901 PC laptop (with a miniature 8.9" screen), employing solid state drives.  It's pulling FLAC files from a drive attached to the PC in the basement, playing them through ASIO4ALL-equipped FOOBAR 2000, and passing the files into my brand new Audio Sector USB DAC (by Peter Daniels).

The laptop is dead quiet.  The DAC is a solid piece that, despite its stripped down aesthetic, reeks of high construction quality.  I'm pretty excited by the setup right now.

It sounds nice even this early in the piece.  I'll probably gather the enthusiasm to compare it to the modified SB2 I've been using in the reasonably near future.

Almost everything is working very smoothly.  The only little problem is that occasionally I'm getting tiny pauses in the music.  I suspect this is due to the fact that my new audio PC is receiving files wirelessly from the PC downstairs, and there are tiny interruptions in the wireless signal.  I have the capacity to hook up an ethernet connection, and will probably do so in the next few days.  I hope that fixes the issue.

Chad

[jrebman]

Chad,

Congratulations -- sounds like an excellent choice to me.

If going to a wired ethernet setup  doesn't cure the dropouts, then you may have to play with some buffering settings in foobar or whatever media player you end up using, but you've got more than enough horsepower there to do the job beautifully.

Good luck,

Jim

[doctorcilantro]

Mini-ITX boards like the one in my Psile case have a silent external "laptop" psu....45w dual-core runs cool and still has power to double as video rig, besides stream audio.

DC