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In Reply to: RE: Hardware (& external drive) setup options? posted by Scottson on July 12, 2014 at 10:59:38
Other than Apple Mac laptops, few current laptops have connectors for firewire or eSata. PC cards slots are not common either.
The simplest storage solution might be to find a laptop with a 1 TB internal drive or a 500 GB drive. If your music collection fits.
There are practical things to learn about computer audio and work to be done getting the right software and ripping your music collection. If you experiment with the gear you already own before you buy expensive gear such as a DAC, you will make better choices and be happier with the result. The same applies to ripping CDs. Learn how the process works and how you want to browse / search your music collection before you plunge in ripping a lot of CDs.
my blog: http://carsmusicandnature.blogspot.com/
Follow Ups:
Actually I have the laptop & it has firewire connection & a pc card slot so there is no expense involved there. What I don't yet have is a DAC. I was leaning towards getting a USB DAC as I understood they generally produced the best sound quality... But perhaps I need to rethink that choice?
"But perhaps I need to rethink that choice?"
Nope... You have the right idea.
> I was leaning towards getting a USB DAC as I understood they generally
> produced the best sound quality... But perhaps I need to rethink that
> choice?
I think that it makes sense to use a USB DAC. Right now, there are LOTS of choices for USB DACs. Not many firewire DACs with Windows support. In addition, firewire has marginal driver support from Windows. The usual advice is to use a TI firewire chip if you are going to connect a firewire DAC. There have never been many PC Card DAC choices.
You could look for a solution that puts the DAC at the far end of an Ethernet cable. There are several protocol based approaches: Apple's Airport, the Squeezebox protocol and uPnP / DLNA.
f you are concerned about using USB for storage as well, consider
a big internal SATA drive
a eSata external drive
a NAS with one or more drives
a USB external drive (sometimes practicality trumps other considerations)
a fireware external drive
I listed the alternatives in the order I'd consider then. However, in the past I preferred to build a desktop PC with components I selected including a big SATA internal drive for music storage.
my blog: http://carsmusicandnature.blogspot.com/
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