denorm

Hi wgscott, I wish I had had your advice before I bought that overpriced Time Capsule at the Apple store! It's really unusable, perhaps it might be good for periodic backups of a computer but definitely not for streaming audio files through iTunes. I was unclear- I stopped using the Time Capsule some time ago, so I know the audio issues were not due to the external storage source. Before when using the WD disc with iTunes/Mini/USB/Dacmagic setup the digital audio files sounded "digital"- flat, without depth, definitely not as good as CD's. Now using WD disc with iTunes/Pure Music/Mini/Optical/Dacmagic the audio is even better than CD, even more natural and with more depth. It was a very satisfying moment when I realized this after the blind tests.

I originally used a simple and short list of genres (Classical, Rock, Jazz, World, Spoken, etc.). When I converted my entire library to ALAC for use in iTunes and changed to a "Genre: Collection" format. This works great in iTunes. It's much like I used to browse my CD library by first opening up the box set and then finding the album. In the screenshot you can see how it works.. It's much faster for me because I usually know which set I want to listen from..

Deleted! Sorry somehow I mixed up tabs in my browser and posted a reply to the wrong thread

I forgot to mention that I also ditched the Time Capsule. It was incredibly slow and I frequently had issues where iTunes couldn't play files on it, perhaps because the disk dropped out or had slept. Instead I bought a 2TB WD My Book Studio with USB3. It works great, is very quiet, and I can move it between Mac/Windows computers (which was necessary because I frequently use MP3 Tag for managing metadata).

Hi all, Thanks for all your help with my earlier thread linked here As I posted on that thread today, I'm finally getting wonderful sound out of my Mini setup. Now I need your suggestions for an elegant way to browse and control the library. At first, iPad Remote seemed like the ideal solution. I like to listen to music while talking/drinking with friends, and it was great to be able to just hand someone the iPad to select music. But after months of using it to access the iTunes library on the Mini I'm giving up. I'm listing the reasons below along with screenshots. I'm just not sure how to replace my iPad with iTunes Remote. I need a simple solution that anyone can use. At this point it seems my only option is to hook up a monitor, mouse, and keyboard to the Mini. But this sucks! I don't want to have to get up and use a computer every time I put on an album. The only other alternative I know of is Apple TV. It would be nice to use a TV interface. But I'm afraid the interface might be cumbersome for browsing through hundreds of albums, and I'm not sure if the Apple TV interface supports playlists? And I don't wish to route the music through the Apple TV at the cost of sound quality. And I use Pure Music- will the music streamed out of the mini to the Apple TV still go through Pure Music? Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks! Derek Why do I find iTunes Remote unusable? First of all, I have over a thousand albums (mostly classical) to which I have spent a lot of time adding metadata and scanning/downloading album covers. The covers are an important way for me to search for the album I want to hear. For instance, when I am looking for a particular recording of Horowitz playing Rachmaninov it's frustrating only to have the album names- they are all pretty much the same. But when presented with a list of album covers I can pick out the right one immediately. Unfortunately, iTunes Remote on iPad doesn't cache album covers. So each time I want to browse the albums I have to wait for each album cover to download. It takes a while, even on a fast wireless network. So I spend a lot of time just waiting for the covers to load. As you can see in the image below, the remaining five album covers haven't loaded yet. It's frustrating! A while ago when switching to iTunes I decided to put the Composer in the Artist field for all of my albums. I know some of you might be against adapting metadata for a particular software program, but I liked the ability to just click on "Artists" in iTunes and see a neat list of composers rather than a haphazard long list of a bunch of performers/ensembles/etc. Unfortunately the Artists tab in iTunes Remote doesn't have the pure Album view I prefer, rather a list of album covers with each title in the album. And once again, the album covers must reload each time! Finally, I've found that iTunes smart playlists are a wonderful way to browse albums on the mini or my macbook pro. They allow you to select the view type, which I invariably set to Album. However, the playlist view in iTunes Remote ONLY has a list view, which is hopelessly unusable for a large number of classical tracks. It takes forever to scroll down and find the right album, if you can find the album at all. And of course there are no album covers shown:

I started this thread quite a while ago, but I've finally resolved my issue with the Apple Mini audio quality and thought I'd post an update. A few days ago I received an optical toslink cable. That night I also installed Pure Music on the Mini. My friend and I did multiple tests of classical and vocal albums, comparing CD's (including high-quality ones) vs. iTunes/Pure Music playing ALAC on the mini. Cambridge Audio's Azur 650c -> optical -> DAC Magic -> Amp iTunes/Pure Music on Mini -> optical -> DAC Magic -> Amp I'm very happy to report that the ALAC files sounded significantly better than the CD's. My friend and I did blind tests and every time we unanimously chose the ALAC. Although there was one exception which we believe was due to a poor ALAC conversion (perhaps I had used a lower quality source file when converting to ALAC). I was so happy with the results I neglected to determine which was the most significant factor in the sound difference- the cable or Pure Music. I also did not mess with any of the Pure Music settings, the default worked great. I haven't bought the software yet, still using my trial period. And note that I have no relationship whatsoever to the company that makes Pure Music. On a final note, I really don't care for the Pure Music interface.. I think it looks horrible! But if that's what it takes to get great sound from the Mini then so be it..

Thanks for all the advice. I've tested with a high quality CD and ALAC ripped directly from that CD. Still quite a difference. I'm ordering an optical cable for the mini and will report back once I've had a chance to test it.

First, thanks to everyone who's posted so much information on this site. I recently purchased an Apple Mini and 2TB Time Capsule. Music files are on the Time Capsule and the Mini is connected directly via ethernet. The Mini is connected via USB to a Cambridge Audio Dacmagic. The Mini runs iTunes with BitPerfect. Music is controlled by iTunes Remote on an iPad. In the past I converted CD's to FLAC, and now I've converted the FLAC's to ALAC using XLD on OSX and xrecode on Windows. Only last night did I do a comparison with my old setup- Cambridge Audio's Azur 650c connected to the same Dacmagic. I listened to CD's and ALAC's ripped directly from those CD's. Unfortunately sound from the CD player is much better- a deeper, larger soundstage, more natural sounding, while retaining clarity. The FLAC files played via iTunes (supposedly through BitPerfect) seem tinny, too clean and crisp, and unnatural. What's going on here? Is the Azur CD player's internal DAC contributing to the naturalness of the sound? Should I try an optical cable from the Mini to the DAC? Is BitPerfect even working at all? (The BitPerfect website says Home Sharing is not supported, does that cover shared files on the Time Capsule?) Anyway, any ideas you have would be appreciated. I really like the setup (using the iPad remote is wonderful) but at this point I'm still listening to CD's.. Derek