Hi, I don't know much about hardware. I'd be grateful for some advice on what device to buy with which I can play back digital music files through a conventional hifi amplifier, a device that either has a hard drive or can be connected to an external hard drive. I hope to find a solution that'll play FLAC files as well as MP3 or WMA. I've think I once saw some device advertised on the Internet by Netgear maybe, costing a few hundred dollars.
In JB-HiFi I see small units that you connect a hard drive to and which play the FLAC format, but the units are designed to be connected to a TV, and it doesn't make much sense to me to have to run the telly in order to choose and play back music through a hifi system. I was hoping that there'd be a device that has a basic digital display on the front allowing you to navigate through folders on the hard drive and choose files to play. Today in a computer store a salesman suggested I get a small netbook computer and plug its output into the amp. He suggested this one they had on special at $399: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ASUS EEE PC Processor: Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz, 533 MHz FSB, 512K L2 Cache Chipset: Intel 945GSE / ICH7-M Memory: 1GB DDR2 SO-DIMM (2GB max) Hard Drive: 160GB (160GB + 10GB Eee Storage) Display: 10" 1024x600 (WSVGA) LED Backlight display Graphics: Intel UMA Web Camera: 1.3M Pixel Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition Comms: 10/100 Ethernet, Integrated Wireless 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth Expansion Ports: 1 x VGA (D-sub 15-pin for ext monitor) 3 x USB 2.0 1 x RJ-45 Ethernet 1 x Headphones / Speakers 1 x Mic-in Card Reader: MMC/ SD(SDHC) Audio: Hi-Definition Audio CODEC, Digital Array Mic, Built-in stereo speaker (1W for each) Battery: 6-cell 6600mAh; Battery Life: XP: 7 hrs* (subject to model, normal usage conditions & config) Dimensions & Weight: 266mm(W) x 191.2mm(D) x 28.5mm~ 38mm(H), from 1450g Warranty: 12 Months warranty provided by Asus or appointed service agents ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If I were to use a small laptop for this purpose I'd want it to start up almost as fast as the time needed to start up a hard drive. Maybe replacing WinXP with a suitable variant of Ubuntu (which??) would boot a lot faster. However, I imagine I would get poorer audio quality taking the headphone socket output of a netbook to feed into my hifi amplifier (as it's regulated by a volume control?). I s'pose they have no better output option? Does anyone know of a device designed for audio playback of stored music files without a TV being necessary such as I've described, or is a laptop computer the only way to do it?? If the latter, can you get a better quality output than the headphone socket? Thank you, Dave -- ubuntu-au mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
