Best computer for usb hi fi source

Mac mini. I have a dedicated Mac mini in my audio system with no attached disks, 16G of ram, and 1 of the best USB cables hooked to an external dac. My music is stored on a Seagate 5TB NAS central disk that I connect to it thru the wired network. I run my Mac mini headless, you don't need a monitor, keyboard or mouse, I use screen sharing from another mac or from my iPad using parallels. I actually rip my music using XLD from another mac onto the seagate NAS drive (itunes) so I can sync all of my apple devices to this iTunes repository of music. I use audirvana on the audio system Mac mini, I don't use the iTunes interface, I use audirvana's, sounds better but more crude in the interface right now. I use the parallels screen sharing program to interface with audirvana. I also have many TB of disks to perform different types of backups.
As far as ssd, I don't see the need for them. I actually have TB of SSD storage and the way my system is setup everything runs out of memory which is many times faster than SSD.

To me, the Mac still has the edge in industrial design and pride of ownership. That said, I use a PC laptop with an i5 processor, 8 gig of memory, and configure JRiver to play the music files from memory.

Really, for the task of delivering a digital stream to a USB DAC, about the only hardware thing that can interfere is disk drive thrash caused by not having enough memory, and the operating system having to swap things in and out of memory from disk. 8 gig should be more than enough when used as a music server.

However, it's important to optimize Windows to insure bit-perfect, hardware direct transmission to the DAC, and the chosen settings can be DAC dependent. These are normally set through the Windows control panel, but it isn't intuitive, so you either need instructions from someone like JRiver or Google the subject to find step-by-step instructions. The description of JRiver over at computeraudiophile.com has a good tutorial on the issues and options.

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04-08-15: Elevick
I'm not a Mac fan plus they are pricey. Windows 8.1 is awful. I wiped a new Acer laptop, put in a solid state drive and installed Windows 7. All is perfect. Using both JRiver and Foobar but when streaming, media player is easy. Dead silent, tiny footprint, portable and disposable."

Download and install a free program called Classic Shell. It turns the Windows 8.1 interface back into the 7 interface. 8.1 does seem to sound a little better, and at least for me, its been much more stable.

If you have the patience to manage Windows - and it can be frustrating..

get a custom PC - fanless, SSD with a linear PSU. You can get a lower power processor and use one of those fanless casings which double up as a heatsink.

Run Windows Server 2012 and JRiver. You can tweak it further - use JPlay and the Windows Server optimiser.

If you don't have the patience to manage Windows, get a Mac Mini from one of those companies that specialise in modifying them and adding a linear PSU. As before, use an SSD

You can JRiver for Mac, or iTunes with Audirvana Plus