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Nettop as an alternative

Hi all,

I happend to plug an ordinary Win7 Laptop with foobar and no optimizations at all into my chain in front of the DAC (an Audio-gd NFB-2, connected through Audio-gd's Digital Interface). And I found it to sound surprisingly good in comparison with my fully optimized cMP²-system according to cics' recommendations - actually, a difference was hard to find...

That rose my curiosity, so now I've ordered a little Nettop, a small SSD and a USB-HDD with external power supply. I'll put a fully stripped XP on the Nettop, and then we'll see...

It seems to me that tweaking the software comprehensively is far more important than the hardware, except one little detail: connecting the DAC trough asychronous USB connection (NOT synchronous) is absolutely crucial.
Example: I'm listening through earphones (Bayer DT880) on my workstation-PC without any tweaks. I'm using a TeraDak 3.1D "luxury version" for it with the earphones connected directly to its line out. That one, too, sounds surprizingly clean and nice, whereas it sounds absolutely horrible and totally unlistenable if I connect a DAC (e. g. Audio-gd FUN) through its simple synchronous USB.
The TeraDak 3.1D provides asyncronous USB connection, plus it is said to reclock the signal (whatever that means for that cheapish little unit). However, the difference to a regular synchronous USB-DAC is striking.
By the way: Audio-gd's Digital Interface provides asynchronous USB as well. The fact that it is bus powered (external PSU available) doesn't make a relevant difference to me (the power seems to be refined significantly inside).
Just in case anybody wants a comprehensive explanation Play_Mate is a "powerful" source...

To cut a long story short: just for the curiosity, for learning effects and maybe to pull newbies on the cMP²-side does anyone want to share his/her experience in using Nettops/Laptops as a more convenient to handle replacement for a classical cMP²-computer?

Cheers,
Eunegis


Edits: 12/11/11 12/11/11
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