At the point of decision, and worse off than ever! I am wanting to put together an inexpensive music server to mainly play music from a dedicated hard drive connected by USB, but also not wanting to limit myself too much. I am running an older DAC, Xindak DAC5, which only has SPDIF and Toslink connections, no USB. Due to that, I have been leaning towards the Digione, but am concerned that I might find it limiting for other choices. I am naturally a Mac user, and would like the option of still being able to stream music through iTunes subscription and other sources; I find this to be a great way to check out new albums and bands before committing to buy the record. So, connection and price for the Digione are motivators.
I also am looking at a NUC, which would have more processor power and be more functional in the long run (perhaps). The down side, I can't run on USB. So, I was looking at converters such as this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FEDHHKE Do I want to put a $20 piece in my signal path to convert it to a SPDIF signal? I don't know how I feel about that.
3rd option is a Mac Mini. It costs more, I found a used current model for $400 locally. Its a real computer, and could be used as a backup unit around the house. Output, same issue as the NUC since they stopped putting the optical out in the headphone jack.
Is there a clear choice? At this point, regardless of the unit, I am planning to run it headless and am leaning towards Volumio as the player that I will primarily use. The Mac would have its own operating system that I can dual boot into, the NUC would require a purchase of Windows if I wanted to dual boot and get the full functionality.
Just weighing the options and driving my wife crazy! Any opinions and experiences would be helpful and appreciated! Even if it is way off of where I am starting at.
My system. I am running a vintage Pioneer sx-980 that has recently been gone through and freshened up. That runs into some vintage speaker cabinets that have been "Vaporized." Ed, Pete, and Ryan recently replaced all of the drivers and created a crossover to retro-fit into my vintage boxes- all of us were stunned at the results! And then my DAC is the Xindak DAC5 that I mentioned earlier.