Scottes

As much as I've used MediaMonkey, I've never used it with DLNA as I haven't had good luck with DLNA in the past - though that was attempting to stream hi-res movies, not hi-res music. I'll keep this in mind if the current upgrades - cables and Intona - don't prove adequate. The microRendu does look attractive - but not if I don't need it. Thanks.

Well just to follow up... I checked out a bunch of options mentioned, like Roon and Regen and Intona and microRendu, and researched some other options, like Bluesound and other similar products, and a bunch of other devices and players I could find. This research made me realize that I do not want to give up the use of MediaMonkey - specifically its dynamic playlist feature, Automatic Playlists. I've used this feature for many many years, and it is how I listen to music 98% of the time. I could not find another product that could do anything remotely similar. And I decided that my music player/manager must be more technically-oriented than products like Roon or Bluesound or anything else I looked at. I'm just too much of a data geek to give up MediaMonkey. I ended up going to a local audio store, and asked some questions and got a few answers. They also let me borrow a Jitterbug, an AudioQuest Carbon USB cable, and a Chordette 2Qute DAC. With the Jitterbug installed, my PC could not see my Hegel h160's DAC, though it worked fine with the 2Qute. The 2Qute is nice, but not much of an improvement over the Hegel. It was different from the Hegel in ways that I don't like, but I have another 5 days of listening to do before I return it. The AudioQuest Carbon cable was a definite improvement over the cable that I had. With that cable plugged into my Hegel, all the issues that I heard with my cheaper cable disappeared. So that's a keeper. And I ordered an Intona Isolator, and it has shipped already so I will hopefully have it before I return the 2Qute. I will almost certainly consider a Regen in the future, but I'd rather upgrade, test, and change 1 thing at a time. Many thanks for everyone's help and suggestions.

That is a good thing. But can I run them with my existing configuration, just a Windows 10 PC connected to the DAC via USB? That would let me see if I can get them to play music the way I want, even if I have to write a program or two. For instance, it wouldn't take much programming to read in the MediaMonkey database and build an m3u playlist for Roon/whatever. The open question is whether my program can automatically instruct Roon to start playing that playlist, or how many keystrokes/clicks it will take to manually get Roon to do it. I hope to have some time this weekend to do some research on all/most of the options people have mentioned above.

Well as I said above, I wanted an SSD for silence - a reduction in audible noise coming from the PC. But for now I'm going to skip a data drive and store the FLACs on a NAS, so SSD-vs-HDD is no longer a concern in this thread.

@Jud, I don't think HQPlayer is going to work for me, since the supported players apparently don't support the way I play music, using dynamic playlists based on non-standard tags. Please correct me if I'm wrong here. To explain, I have dynamic playlists based on pre-defined search criteria based on tags like Genre, Rating, and some custom tags. Using MediaMonkey, I just click on the playlist and at that point in time it finds all songs matching the specified criteria and starts playing them. Having spent many years using this feature, I have absolutely no plans on moving to static playlists. It does not seem that any of the software that supports HQPlayer can do this. Please correct me if I'm wrong. @ElviaCaprice - why both the Intona and Regen? There seems to be a lot of overlapping functionality using both.

So it appears that I went down what I thought was the correct path, and it wasn't. So, some simpler criteria: - I have a bunch of FLACs stored on a Windows PC and/or a NAS, and can be accessed via gig wired or decent wireless. - I want to play them on my Hegel h160. - Any player must be able to read some non-standard tags and base the playlist on those tags. - I have a budget of $1500. And a completely different question: - What could/should I do?

I took a quick look at microRendu and your description makes me realize that I need to look again. I'm very much tied to MediaMonkey for its database and all of the programs that I've written for it over the years. I'm not tied to it for playing, so long as the player can read some non-standard tags and automatically create playlists based on the contents of those tags. I'll take a look at microRendu, Roon and HQPlayer again - JRMC will never get my attention for reasons best left unsaid here.

@ElviaCaprice: I'm not so sure that my equipment or ears warrants such a device. Is there a cheaper alternative that might not be so good? A good cable, perhaps? @Sherwood: I am looking at an SSD for silence, certainly not for any performance concerns. But to start I am planning on accessing files stored on my existing NAS, so I will research SSD-vs-HDD only if there are performance issues with the NAS.

Stef, bruny - thanks for the info. The Akasa case erases my concerns over noise, and both NUC approvals are great. With these thoughts, I'm leaning towards a NUC in an Akasa and a small M2 for Windows. I realized last night that it would be easy to start with an Intel wireless card, storing the FLACs on my existing NAS. If I get performance issues with that, I can move to wired ethernet and/or an internal SSD. This would make for an inexpensive start with easy upgrades if necessary.

I currently run a Hegel h160 connected to my primary desktop via USB, and I'm having sound quality issues which I believe is due to all the processing done on the PC, which I use heavily. I've decided that it's time to build a small PC dedicated to playing music. I'm proficient with building PCs, but not so good at picking all the best components. I've read many threads here, but I'm still at a loss for specific pieces. And I have some questions concerning which pieces are more important than others. So I could use some help. I am not an audiophile, but certainly and audio enthusiast. I'd like my music to sound as good as possible - within my (current) budget of $1500. I listen exclusively to FLACs because I ripped all my CDs to FLAC because lossless is good. I do have some high-rate downloads, but not a lot. I am pretty stuck on MediaMonkey since I've been using it for many many years, so Windows 10 Pro, too. Remote control would be covered by an Android app, with occasional login via VNC since this system will not have a monitor or keyboard. In general, I am certainly looking for a quality components. Not necessarily the best possible, due to budget concerns. But I'll always lean towards the better component - and if it throws me over budget then I'll build this system in a few months, after saving some more cash. I have room for a small tower case, and would prefer a tower since anything wider would have to be placed on top of the Hegel which I'd rather not do. All my PCs here are in Fractal Design cases, so I was looking at the Define Mini silent case, but I'm not stuck on it. Quieter, if possible, is better. Since all my PCs have SeaSonic PSUs, I have lot of cables to choose from, so I was looking at the Platinum 400 Fanless - but I'm not stuck on it. I have just under 1TB of FLAcs. They can be stored on my JBOD NAS, but would a local SSD be better? With a local SSD in mind, I was looking at the Samsung 850 EVO. That's a big chunk of the budget - would I be better off spending the cash on something else and using the NAS? Is it worth considering another small SSD for the OS? 2TB is more than enough room for music + OS, but I come from a long history of putting the OS & Temp on a separate drive from the data, so if it's important then I have no issues with considering one. Is wired Ethernet a common cause of loss in SQ? Should I consider wireless? I do have a good wireless access point in the same room. If wired, I have an appreciation of Intel NICs over Realtek, so this is important when choosing a motherboard. If wireless, then I have no knowledge of which brands are better. 8 Gigs of RAM should be enough for this system, I would think, but I have no problem going to 16GB since it's not much more expensive. But what kind is right? Or does it really even matter that much? With all that... What motherboard and CPU should I look at? All my PCs here are Asus, but I'm not stuck on them. The case I mentioned above is micro ATX, but again I'm not stuck on that case, and I have enough room that I don't need a tiny machine. I had originally priced out an Intel NUC for this system, but I was concerned about the noise level, just due to a lack of knowledge about the amount of noise a NUC makes. And will the on-board USB be OK, or should I seriously consider a separate USB card? I'm strongly leaning towards on-board, but what does a separate card really get me? Lastly, what software - if any - would be worthwhile? AudiophileOptimzer? Other? Thanks in advance.