pc computer used under $500.00 for music only

My problem with Mac laptops, even heavily modified one’s, is that I’ve heard them turn otherwise sweet DACs into very hard sounding. I have no idea why. Not all DAC’s are affected equally, but for instance the Ayre QB-9 I heard was not happy. I know I’m in the minority here and that it’s a complete sub-industry.

Why not make it yourself from scratch, new? I built a mini-PC with Xubuntu and am streaming and ripping quite happily with it. Total part costs is under $600 for a 2 TB build.

Use a mini-ITX motherboard that supports FM2+ chips with an AMD A series GPU (Graphics + CPU). Stream via USB 2.0 to a modern USB capable dac (i.e. driverless for OSX/Linux) and you’ll be golden.

I stream PCM and DSD through my Mytek Brooklyn this way. It’s stellar. I also watch Hulu/Netflix and occasionally game from Steam. Oh, and I have open source Android and iPhone app support by using Logitech Media Server. If I want to stream my music remotely I can add Subsonic for a modest fee.

Music management can happen directly on the PC or remotely by sharing out the music folder and using whatever software you want on your laptop.

Using Squeezelite you can turn old Android devices into remote WiFi players too.

Best,

Erik

You can also do what I did with a Raspberri Pi 3 by the way. :) I've not tried it, but once you have Ubuntu on it the same ideas apply.

If you feel comfortable, I would build a "Music Rig" PC. I have built two PC's, one for gaming and one for audio streaming. The price of the gaming rig is way beyond your price point and is totally unnecessary for audio. For audio however, you do not need massive computing power. I picked up an old dead HP Pavilion for $25 including the HDMI monitor (hard drive died). I then purchased a $30 graphics card that had only a heat sink and no fan. Lastly installed 4G of new ram and a Crucial 500Gb SSD and a decent sound card, then loaded Windows 7. This system has only three fans total and is dead silent! You really want a quiet PC. My total layout for this rig came to about $400. I now use it to stream TIDAL exclusively to my DAC via Toslink and to surf at the same time. This solution worked out very well and was light on the wallet. Good luck!