Choosing a platform

Digital audio can by played using a streaming audio player, a PC or a music server.

On the road you can use a portable but today's smartphones can be an excellent source as well.

 

A couple of aspects to consider are:

 

• Silence.
  Beethoven’s string quartets are written for four instruments.

  Not for four delicate string instruments accompanied by a noisy fan of the power supply, a cpu-cooler and a clattering hard disk.

  If you are into hard rock this argument might not appeal to you.
  

  Streaming audio players in general don't have moving parts; they are quiet by design.
  It is possible to buy or build a PC with few or no moving parts.

• Sound quality
  The average on-board audio often leaves something to be desired for as far as sound quality is concerned. If there is an analogue out only, there isn't much you can do to improve on it. If there is a digital out (SPDIF/USB), you can improve on it by using an outboard DAC.
  More about sound quality.
• Interface
  The usual stuff, intuitive, etc.
  In the past a lot of streaming audio player comes with a small screen.
  Today they often have an app to interface with your smartphone.
  

  In case of classical music, check if it is possible to browse by composer.

• Supported audio formats.

  MP3 support is almost universal. If you want CD quality, check which lossless formats are supported. WAV is a popular lossless format but support for tagging WAV is poor.
  FLAC has become a popular lossless format.

• Supported bit depth and sample rates.
  CD quality (16 bits/44.1 kHz) is standard. Check if 24 bit depth and higher sample rates are supported if you plan to play high resolution audio (88.2  – 192 kHz).

• Gapless playback
  Check if gapless playback is supported. Nothing as annoying as having some white space in a life recording or between two movements played as one.
  Note that gapless playback is not a part of the DLNA standard.

• Networking

  In case of streaming audio players, you need a home network as the music comes from the internet or from another computer (often a NAS) in your network.
  Hard disk players can be used without a network but often they use online databases to lookup Meta information (tags).