Submitted by Gulinias on Wed, 03/10/2010 - 14:51
I am a long time audiophile but new to computer audio. I ignored the possibility of the computer being a component in a high quality music system till my son explained to me the problem was not that there were no quality music files but the fact was they were reproduced in much less than optimal ways. I am deciding between using a Mac Mini or the caps server but all my questions in this post will deal with the Mac.
I have desk top pc I built and that is used for work and gaming. I really do not want to turn it into a music server though it has adequate hd space available at over 1 td. It is self built. I like the idea of a headless mini Mac server. Is there any musical difference in using the 599 dollar model or should I move up ti the 4 gigs and faster processor? Do I need to put in an audio card? I am planning on buying the dac locally and my choices are the Wavelengths and the Ayre as well as the ARC and the Naim. I am sure I can find a dac I like from that choice and they are a chord dealer as well. If I use one of the usb dacs from Ayre or Wavelength is there any need to to modify the mini.
I may well like the look of the mini and the noise factor but how do I control it. I am getting an I pad so am I correct in assuming that there is some appps that will allow for it to take the place of monitor and keyboard.? This would allow me to surf the web to download music as well? This is a part I am not sure of. if I got a dac that was not usb would I need a new sound card for the mini? I am sure there are many more questions but this is a start.
Mac Book Pro, HiFace, Cary Exiter Dac, Focal speakers, JL Audio sub,plus cable and cords from Audio Art and Shunyata, Hydra powered by Cambridge Audio
I cannot authoritatively address the audiophile sound quality issues, but the more technical issues I can perhaps share my opinions about. :)
There is little difference between the $599 model and the $799 model, other than as noted, a little more memory, a slightly faster processor, and a little more disk space. A $999 model includes the server version of MacOS and a pair of 500g SATA drives, which is probably overkill for your needs. Judge the processor and memory the same way you would for a PC.
One caveat here is that if you intend to use the Mac without streaming the audio around, high end music players use "memory play", which means they read the entire file into memory before they start to play it back. With really high resolution files, an album can gobble up a LOT of memory. If you plan to do this, just upgrade whatever model to 4gb of RAM.
What I prefer to do is keep the music on external drives, which are low cost and easy to connect. SATA is fine for streaming music. (Anyone who knows me professionally would not believe I said that, but it's true. Fibre or even SAS is overkill.)
I personally recommend using Firewire capable drives on a Mac, instead of USB. (Invert that for a PC. :) Firewire definitely gives you a smoother, and therefor superior, data transfer from the drives. Also, the Mac handles Firewire much nicer than a PC does, including the capability to boot from firewire attached drives.
The little phono plug on the mini is also a Toslink port, which plays up to 24/96 for sure, and I think may handle up to 24/192 on the newer models. (I am not sure of that, my DAC tops out at 24/96.) If you need higher specs, the sky is pretty much the limit- USB and FireWire based interfaces all work just fine, though if I understand correctly, the USB units have some sample rate limitations and are prone to picking up electrical noise from the buss. Firewire sound controllers range from small things to complete mixing boards. Quality usually varies in direct relation to price. :)
Controlling the headless Mac is easily done, from another Mac or from a PC with a VNC client. Screen updates are a little slow, but you will probably want to invest in a $199 iPod (unless you have an iPhone) and run the free REMOTE app on it. That will control iTunes just fine, and works really nicely.
The Pure Music player you hear discussed here can also be sucessfully controlled from an iPod with REMOTE, since it uses iTunes to play.
iTunes on a Mac can provide "bit perfect" playback all by itself, but will not autoswitch the bit rate for you. Players like Pure Music do autoswitch for you, and handle files which are above or below the bitate supported by your DAC.
The other folks here will chime in with good opinions about the differences the processor speeds and such can make with the audiophile level sound you are looking for. And if you dig a bit, there are mountains of technical information about the whys and wherefores of each issue. You will need to decide what sounds best and works best for you though, as this wonderful board has people from all extremes.
One fellow here really works hard to keep EM radiation out of his listening space, while I on the other hand, would do away completely with wires of any kind, if I could and still hear sweet music. :) I bet his system sounds utterly fantastic compared to mine though, and I really like mine. :)
Since most of my stuff is from CDs, 24/44.1 works for me almost always as the correct bitrate, and that particularly bitrate is conveniently but not coincidentally handled by Airport Express units, which enable you to put speakers pretty much anywhere you want, and feed them over a wireless network. Players like Pure Music and Amarra do not directly support Airpport or streaming music, but iTunes does just perfectly. Even to allowing you to turn on and off various speakers from an iPod running REMOTE. Oh, and it is "bit perfect" streaming at that bit rate.
A good re-clocking DAC can make your remote music sound heavenly though. :)
Hope that helps a little bit. Best!
-Paul