pc computer used under $500.00 for music only

Quicksilver 90 watt silver monos
Quicksilver LS preamp
Fritz speakers prototype... 2 way monitor with ScanSpeak 5" Illuminator mid/bass & ScanSpeak 9700 tweeter 13H x 71/2W x 12D... Skylan stands in 12x15 room
Kimber KCAG, interconnect
WyWires Blue speaker cable
Musical Fidelity M1 A dac
Theta Pearl transport

The one that seems the most promising and you can squeeze it in new.

An Intel NUC with Celeron processor. At about 6W, it outperforms the Atom based designs but still runs extremely cool.

Add in 4GB of DDR3 1.35V memory and a 60GB of SSD.

Download Daphile - an optimised OS for music playback.

That's it.

You might even be able to throw in the HDPlex Linear PSU to power this for under 500. New

Are you still looking for a computer for audio playback? I'm thinking about selling my Niveus Rainier w/daphile and a 2TB with 1100 albums on it.

Try to look to AM1 processors from AMD. Very power efficient. Get a small ITX case with built in power supply (power brick). It's enough to power it up and dead silent. For extra silence you can go for and SSD instead of HDD. 500$ is more than enough for new computer, not used.

A used Oct. 2009 Mac Mini is the ticket. Buy it on ebay for $375 with wireless keyboard , mouse and OS CDROM disk. Upgrade it with 16 gigs DRAM and a SSD from otherworldcomputing.com. Beats virtually all servers on the market if you supply DC power from a linear 18.5V supply. use Amarra playback software. I have won several best of shows using this configuration.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio