How simple can an audio computer be?

Connection to a TV via the HDMI port is also possible, but needs some specific setup procedures as normally the HDMI port only accesses the OS command line for use with keyboard and mouse connected via USB.

If you don't intend connecting the Pi to the Internet, what music file sources are going to use? An SSD or USB memory stick connected to the Pi USB ports works well.

The uSD card used to load the OS can also contain Music files, but this has severe drawbacks. If you need to reload the OS any Music files on the uSD card will be lost. Some users also claim that reading music files from the uSD hinders the OS reading the uSD card, I've not tried it so am only passing on information.

The Moode forum provides a wealth of information and is a generally friendly place, a bit like here!

If that all sounds complicated, it isn't. It's all much in line with your topic heading - How simple can it be?

Ian

Simplistically, as far as the digital information is concerned, a clean, well timed 0/1 stream should be presented to the Digital to Analogue Conversion process. Extraneous noise on the signal, if well below the switching threshold, should have little impact on the conversion process. Noise imposed on the power supply rails via whatever source, however will impact on the post conversion filters, buffer/output stages. EMI interference will be present at all stages, circuit design will determine what impact this has.

As I said that is a very simplified version of events, the point is though that with all that processing your "micro-signals" don't stand a chance of being preserved in the digital domain. If we were talking Analogue signals it's a very different story and we know someone that understands that.