[dba-Tech] netbook as a home music server

Last week I asked, why not sell our CD player, use MediaMonkey or 
dbPowerAmp to rip our CDs to lossless FLACs onto a $300 netbook with a 
.25TB HD, connect the netbook to the HDMI port of our AV receiver, and 
play all audio digitally from the netbook.

Turns out that can't work. HDMI carries video, sometimes with audio too, 
but not audio alone. Sending digital audio from a 'puter directly into 
an AV receiver requires a digital output (toslink) from the the 'puter 
into the AV receiver's digital coaxial or optical audio input jacks. 
It's the rare laptop or netbook that has a toslink jack, so you need a 
USB dongle with that connection. But USB adds jitter, which doesn't 
sound good. Dead end.

Enter Logitech's SqueezeBox Touch 
<http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-930-000090-Squeezebox-Touch/dp/B002LARRDA/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1319062743&sr=1-1>, 
which is getting rave reviews for losslessly streaming digital audio 
(mp3, wav, flac &c &c) from any wired or wifi network source straight 
into an AV receiver, at a purchase price of $230. Better still, there's 
an Android tablet user interface app. Looks like we'll go that way.

PB