Back

It's also a lot easier to have a nice player experience when I'm not fighting with DRM. (Example... Spotify apps... The official one sucks cause it's an electron wrapper, and the unofficial ones aren't ABLE to achieve feature parity. My Plex library though... if I can't get a nice Plexamp app, I can use DLNA, or even resort to sshfs, and use whatever the fuck app I want that can play FLAC and MP3 files).

Obnoxiously, and I'm sure deliberately, PS5 doesn't have the DLNA features PS4 and PS3 had

Oh and PS5 also doesn't allow Plex as a background music source. I can listen with the app fully open, but I can't put it on in the background in place of my game's music like I can with Spotify. GEE, I WONDER WHY THE FUCK THAT IS! It couldn't POSSIBLY be fucking greed, could it? No, that'd be fucking preposterous!

You CAN use a drive full of music files that way, BUT, it's not intuitive to get that going AND I cannot put them on the same USB drive my PS4 games are stored on. They have to be their own. Oh, and it's REAL limited on what I can do with it, like playlists and stuff. It's almost like it's motivated by the same reasons that put a fucking Spotify button on my media remote! (Even Apple Music is lacking in features in background mode!)

@hellomiakoda have you considered using an old phone as a DAP or just getting DAP specifically for your library. It's kind of cumbersome but it can be very flexible for what you are trying to do. Most of them just run android and have the Google Play Store so you can install Plex amp and any other streaming players, but also play files off an SD card.

@cienmilojos I just use my daily driver for that out and about, my Playstation or laptop for listening at home. If I really want to just enjoy music in high quality, my primary laptop has a REALLY nice built in DAC (you an actually hear the relays when it gets that far in boot, or wakes from sleep!) that is supposedly shielded from the rest of the laptop. I didn't pick it for that feature, but it sound NICE, and I'm sure my headphones don't do it justice.

@cienmilojos I'm sure audiophiles would laugh at this thing, but it does sound really clean to me, and I didn't spend tends of thousands on it.

@cienmilojos It's the only laptop I've actually had in my hands (mine or anyone else's) with headphone out, Line out, mic in, line in, and SPDIF!
...and I love that the volume can go to 150%. Yes, I know that's a Linux thing, but it drives bigger headphones better than anything else I have, and doesn't get all distorted (aside from when it's set to use the laptop speakers).

@hellomiakoda what's the make/model? I think HP had a few laptops with really nice dacs in them about 10 years ago or so.

@cienmilojos System76 Serval WS.
This thing is a fucking CHONKY boy! Full desktop class processor, complete with the big retention bracket. Laptop plus power brick, and I mean FUCKING BRICK, came to 35lbs when I weighed it in the laptop bag with my kensington lock.

@hellomiakoda yeah it's a dying breed. I think Lenovo still makes a few P series chonkers with giant power supplies. They are basically portable desktops. Enjoy it.

@cienmilojos I LOVE this thing! System 76 still offers a newer version of it! (Not in stock at the moment. From experience, that usually means the newest version is about to release soon)

@cienmilojos Bah, looks like the current one on their site is only in a 17", not a 15". Sad days. I'm not a fan of 17" laptops.

@cienmilojos I looked at the images... sadly, it's trimmed down. Still what I'd go with if I needed a new one, but it's still less IO. Sad days.

@cienmilojos And yes, you can use all those DP and HDMI at the same time as the internal display.