Audio PC

The big issues tend to be the PC's power supply injects a lot of noise into the AC line, and ground loop noise over the USB connector.

Best,

Erik

From the computer, I would connect a OPTICAL cable to a external DAC this will eliminate/isolate any electrical noise between the computer and the rest of the system :-)

Build an AMD processor computer.  Add a Pink Faun card of your choice (USB / SPDIF / I2S).  Then get a dedicated linear power supply for the Pink Faun (such as Farad Super 3 or Teddy Pardo or some others). 

I would recommend using a higher end power supply such as Seasonic or similar to get the least amount of noise.  You are pretty much stuck with switching power supplies in a computer unless you try to build a small format music server (there are linear power supplies out there that support PC motherboards).

I built my own Music Server/HTPC and use it for streaming music DSD & PCM and surf the web with the same Windows 10 PC. It has only 8GB of RAM, an Intel i7 Processor (2018 Vintage), and a Fanless Power Supply ( Seasonic X-400 Fanless PSU), and Fanless Heatsink for the i7 CPU. The motherboard is an ASUS Gaming type.

Extremely quiet and as added insurance, I have a solid wire 12AWG/20A AC circuit for the PC & TV while the Audio Rig has a dedicated stranded wire 10AWG/20A.

Hard drives are of the spinning type (1TB, 1TB, & 6TB). It sound good to me. The noise floor is low enough for me.

coincidentally, first time in my main system last night, I hooked up my little hp laptop (HP Pavilion x360: 14m-dy0013dx). It has B&O audio, that helped me make a choice when buying it.

wireless YouTube stream, headphone out jack, adapter to rca, direct to my integrated amp.

I was delightfully surprised how darn good Eva Cassidy sounded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgBTG_HOvMQ&list=RDSgBTG_HOvMQ&index=1

here is a documentary about that performance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEqzTlZdfSo

I've seen/heard it before, but never thru my dedicated music system. holy smokes, the signal is better than you realize when played thru a revealing system.

I'm gonna patch that laptop into the Home Theater and see if it beats my current pc in that system. that will tell me something. I went integrated intel sound there many years ago, to avoid fan noise from a dedicated sound card. 

maybe it's about newer and better integrated audio chips!

then, I'll compare that to my Oppo-105 when I move it into that system this weekend.