Article: The Value Proposition In Computer Audio: Nuts, Bolts, and Building Blocks - Building a Home for Your Player Software

[MeMa2010]

First, thanks to bluesman for an excellent read!
However, I must admit that most of it went above my head. I found this article, because I am looking for the ideal setup to combine my Kef LS50W speakers with a new Samsung smart TV ("The Frame"). I currently have all my music on an external usb hard drive, and I have been using JRiver MC for some years and very much like that software. I thus read this article to find out if I should use a computer to connect these devices, and if so which one, or if I should buy some other device (the speakers are great at reproducing sound, but they do leave quite a bit to be desired regarding their streaming capability, so I was thinking that if some type of standard pc solution cannot solve my needs, than perhaps I need a proper server, which could be something like an Innuos mkIII?).

I am still in as much doubt now as I was before reading this otherwise highly informative article, so If anyone here would be so kind as to help me with some advice as to how I can best solve my doubts and connect my devices for the optimal compromise between sound quality and convenience, I truly would be most grateful.

My new tv has not arrived yet, and at the moment I am connecting my laptop directly to the speakers via usb, but I know it is far from the ideal solution.

[MeMa2010]

Once again, a thousand thanks for your thorough reply, Bluesman! You just made me realize how much I have not thought about, but that I should think about.

All I want is a decent, simple-to-use two-channel stereo setup centered around my Kefs. I hardly use any apps on my crappy and old (but still good enough for me) no-name mobile phone, and my main reason for getting a screen/TV is for managing JRiver. I never actually watch TV, and I haven't even had one since I moved out from my parents house some twenty years ago, nor do have I have any interest in a smart home (I would actually even prefer not having that, especially not having any microphones in the house, as that strikes me as being somewhat creepy). The reason for choosing "The Frame" is that it seems to be the aesthetically least intrusive screen that my wife and I have been able to find, since it can be put directly on the wall and almost looks like a work of art when not in use. We probably will get to watch a few movies on it too sometime on our external DVD drive or online, but probably not more than one or two a year, so its main purpose will be to enable the use of JRiver for music without having to open up the laptop. We did use to have a proper computer screen in our old house, but since we moved to another country a couple of years ago, we have been completely without screens apart from the laptops, and my old self-assembled i3 desktop computer has just been collecting dust. In our new and small home, a proper home office is however out of the question, and therefore so too is a traditional computer screen, as we agree that it would be ugly no matter where we would put it. Naturally, the idea now is that a screen will provide the image, while the sound shall be coming from the Kefs, so what we need is the connecting link to make it all possible.

I do have a proper high-end headphone setup, but at least initially I do not intend to connect it to the Kef+screen-setup that we are planning for the living-room. I just need to find out how to get the most out these Kefs, and for this purpose I want to be able to connect my external usb drive with 3gb of WAV music files to some device which lets me see and manage these files, while preferably also being able to use the setup for different kinds of youtube videos and possibly some internet radio too, which is something that both my wife and I do enjoy from time to time.

Sorry for all the text, but the market for these kinds of things seems to me an absolute jungle, and I feel completely lost in it, so I am glad to report that I have read your texts several times now, and feel that I am learning a lot from them, so once again thank you very much for that.

[MeMa2010]

That is some very practical and useful advice. I now know what I can and want to do, so thank you very much for that. I am very grateful to you, both for your articles and your replies to me here. I will keep reading.