# best hardware and software for classical music



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

What do you think? I'm in the market, or will be soon. 

There's no reason to limit the discussion to what I might like - you can cheer for or denigrate according to your own heart's desire. 

But as for myself, I'm going to be looking for a laptop, I figure I need at least 500 GB of storage (and I want it internally, not externally), I'd prefer an SSD drive, and I hate iTunes so I need something better than that. I also want to be able to sync it to either a mobile phone or a portable mp3 player. So I'm looking simultaneously at laptops, music players, and portable devices.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

science said:


> But as for myself, I'm going to be looking for a laptop, I figure I need at least 500 GB of storage (and I want it internally, not externally).


Look for a laptop with two HD slots. Put a smaller SSD in one for your OS and a larger rotary drive in the other for storage. SSDs are expensive, and read/write speed isn't as important for storage as for an OS.


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## Marisol (May 25, 2013)

For software I use foobar2000 and I use custom tags but I am evaluating MusicBee as a potential future alternative.


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

This is pretty good as hardware








I find this works as the correct format of software for it


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I agree with Mr cwarchc even if I have a deeply rooted reluctance for suspended tables like the Mitchell! (Mine is a rigid construction)

As for digital play back, I use a shop made HTPC with a very small footprint as player (and that its all it is used for) with JRiver Media Center for software (I think it touch all Your needs), it is something like $50 but worth every penny, works very well with Classical as long as U have Your files tagged properly (I sometimes use Foobar as suggested above when I need simple and fast, but much prefer JRivers user interface)! For media storage I use a network attached raid 1 array (16 Tb self mirroring NAS), I've been digitizing my CD/SACD collection for the last year and have barley touched the surface... 

As for a laptop, I use a few years old Samsung PC with a small SSD disc in my (home)office that run the same software (that still play from the NAS) and it works fine, unfortunately SSD disc's run very hot, so make sure that the Laptop have very good heat evacuation or ad some form of USB Cooler!

If You have not considered it yet, make sure that You have some kind of external back up disc for Your Music files, as for the time when the unthinkable happens! 

My 2 Cent take!

/ptr


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