John (as in Mr Welder)

What's a touch ironic is that you are obsessing over monitor power supplies and the like. It's a bit like a hi-fi obsession with power cables. It all makes a difference. It seems to me whilst your obsession is a well-founded quest for perfection it also is quite time-consuming. Had I the time I'm sure I would be going down a similar route. I resisted returning to record decks for a long time because I knew I'd have to "do it properly". The same is true for a music server.

W7 with Jplay and a really good DAC has got me to the point where for under 600 euros I have a sound that bears comparison with what is a high-end sounding record deck. This is with redbook software too.

I need to devote time to other things in my life, including listening to music. I can learn Linux as I have done with several operating systems in the past but it's not my priority. Actually I question whether even Linux is ideal, something like RT-11 might be better though we'd need a PDP-11 for that but at least I know these things inside out!