Best Audiophile desktop for under $2500?

@jhnnrrs

I play hi-rez music directly from a local SSD as well. The significant change I made was shifting from using a laptop/PC/Mac to the ifi Zen Streamer. One of the primary reasons for this switch was to eliminate the audible fan noise that was present when playing music through the laptop. To address this, I opted to use the fanless MacBook Air, but unfortunately, the sound quality did not meet my expectations. Ultimately, I transitioned to the streamer platform and couldn’t be happier.

My question to you is, setting aside any electric noise and non-fortified usb port that might not be audible to you but could potentially degrade sound quality, were you bothered by the fan noise at all?

@jhnnrrs First, I have close to three times of the collection. Yes, the initial index is long because it only have 1GB ram but you just leave it doing its own thing. Each time when you incrementally add in songs on top of the existing like mine, the update is quite fast although not lightning fast. Second, I was disappointed in their DAC too but that is not the case for the streamer. You need to experiment with other DACs. The USB digital out sounds the best to my ears but the rca port is no slough since both are noise barrier fortified. Noise floor is quite dark. The reviews are not hype. I just returned the everSolo DMP A6 after more than 30 days’ auditioning and comparison with ZS when both are used as the digital source only. I prefer the more neutral presentation of ZS

Try iphone. In my case, streaming iphone renders better sound quality than my windown-based laptop and MacBook Air. I don't wish to provoke another debate but try yourself if interested.