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It only loads 2 tracks as such of high resolution material. From reading what it does, it seems to hold onto the memory which will prevent it from loading the "freed up" memory. It also isn't loading the full memory since I have 3.5 GB left over. Any ideas.

I have tried a demo of Pure Music a few times. Each time it had some bug or another that showed up. But, I really like the sound and the ability to change sample rates on the fly. I just upgraded my Mac Mini w. a clean install w. a SSD, and 8GBs Ram. So I downloaded the latest Pure Music and had no problem playing a full album recorded at 16/44. I then tried to playback an Album of 24/176 that I have as an AIFF file. I purchased from Reference REcordings and converted. All my files are on an external WD hard drive connected via USB into my Mac Mini. They are tagged in iTunes as Gapless. When I choose to play it can only load 2 to 4 of the tracks out of 8 into memory. It then crashes at the end giving me an error message. Wonder if I am doing something wrong. I still have memory left over (3.5 GB available). I really want to buy it but on High Resolution files this has been happening. I am using Hybrid Memory mode. My DAC is a Firewire based Prism Orpheus.

You just need the drivers that should come w. the MH. There are people saying you need to buy this or that software (Amarra, Pure Music etc.) to play high resolution. I just want to clear this up. It depends on the device/DAC and if it comes with the drivers.

Bill, While I have not tested drives for sound quality I have tested drives for ripping w. error. The big realization for me is that the Hitachi Drive in the MBP is a much better reader / ripper than the Pioneer in the Mini. I really want to do the eSATA mod. Need some help on sourcing the parts. If you can post or PM. I hate taking the Mini apart is the thing. I would gladly pay someone to do it. 2L dowloads at 24/192 rival the best of my SACDs on my CDSAse for playback. And that is saying a lot. I am running these days in 64bit, but I have no idea if there is a sound difference. It was easy enough to do. For me the biggest upgrade out there is the resolution of the music. 2nd, would be to get your computer able to play the high resolution files without stuttering etc.

Lars, Can you try your hard drive via USB and get back if the difference is still that big. With 8GB RAM & SSD you should be playing from some form of Memory and eSATA should not make much of a difference. Just curious. Testing memory vs. SSD is more difficult but this is easy. For me to hack the Mini to install a eSATA on it is quite a bit of work. Prepared to do it if worth it. BUt would rather do the 8GB or the SSD. On a different note: using Pure Music - memory play loaded a full CD into memory if it was tagged as gapless. But only if not high res. Once high res I ran out.

Gordon; Would you recommend 8 GB or a SSD. Both are about the same price. Mac Mini w. GB right now. With the increase in Memory (either virtual via SSD or otherwise) would there be a benefit to running the library (which is on an external drive) on eSata or Firewire vs. USB. Or would the increase in memory negate this. Would a library on a eSata drive negate the need for more memory? Kind of tricky how each choice goes a different direction.

I have a dedicated Mac Mini using external Hard Drives connected by USB to store music/video. It currently has a 120GB hard drive (stock) w. 4 GB of internal memory (added from OWC) and is connected to my DAC via firewire. While the sound is excellent I feel there can be a touch of improvement and would like to either upgrade my Memory to 8 GB or hard drive to a SSD (either 60GB or 120GB). Would adding a SSD negate the benefits of an increase in memory. Using activity monitor I have seen the Maximum amount of memory use to be about 3.2 GBs at any time . Any recommendations would be appreciated. I am definitely tempted to upgrade my laptop as well to 8GB or a SSD although this has nothing to do w. audio. Just performance and photo editing. My Mac Mini only has in use 20GB on the hard drive. So I really only need a 60GB SSD. Would there be a benefit to a 120GB SSD besides the increase in storage.

I will check what drive our latest iMac is using. I find ripping software made much less of a difference than the drive as far as getting the bits off of a scratched CD. I didn't try Max but I will tonight. I have seen iTunes slow down to 5 X speed (maybe even slower) on a problem CD. I think the main differences are the number of passes on a bad sector can be set on ripping software where iTunes would be fixed. Also the speed etc, but iTunes seems to adjust the speed fairly well. The difference between the CD Rom Drives ability to read a scratched disc was major IME.

I am using a Mac Mini as a dedicated media server and ripped all of my music collection as AIFF w. error correction using iTunes via my Mac Mini CD/DVD Rom drive. The Mac Mini is using a Pioneer drive. I had a few CDs w. surface scratches that I didn't know about. On playback on my system skips came through the system and I checked the original CD. The CD did in fact have some scratches that were easily seen. I then tried playing back the CD on my EMM CDSAse. It skipped as well. I then tried some different compounds to repair the CD and and none worked. Skips remained on both the CD player & Mac Mini on playback and ripping. I then tried using DB Poweramp using a ripping technique for damaged CDs on my Lenovo Laptop. The results were the same. Then I tried to listen to the CD on my Macbook Pro which uses a Hitachi drive. It played back almost perfectly. I then copied the CD to my Laptop and moved the files over the my Mac Mini. The Music played back perfectly with only one audible glitch. My realization is that the quality of CD Rom drive is important in terms of ripping CDs if the CDs are defective. I wonder if it makes a difference if the CD is in good condition. Has anyone experimented with different drives for ripping on a Mac. I did some A/B comparisons and couldn't detect a difference on CDs in good condition but I haven't had a lot of time for extensive comparisons. Any thoughts and experience from others would be appreciated.

I find Working Man's Dead a much better 2 channel mix than American Beauty. American Beauty has very bloated bass and poor imaging compared to the original. The tracks are a little different than the original. The sound quality is excellent as far as tonality. But the 2 channel mix of American Beauty sounds like they (Warner) mixed it (actually Mickey Hart is credited with the 6 channel mix) was made off of the 6 channel to some extent. A very different presentation than the CD. I have the LP but need to check it. I think it is faithful to the original.

I used the DVD A extractor to rip the only 3 DVD Audio Discs I own to flac. Grateful Dead, American Beauty, Working Man's Dead & Mickey Harts compilation. I ripped both a 2 channel & 6 channel flac files. Then moved them from my PC to my Mac & used Max to create 24/96 (native resolution) 2 channel files in AIFF. Sound is almost great. I have a cheap bedroom system DVD/A player for years now. Comes w. speakers etc. Sound is poor. That is the only time I listened to these discs & went with SACD instead. But now ripped to my PC Audio system the sound in 2 channel is very rich and smooth. But... it is a remix and thus comparisons are limited. Also, definitely the 6 channel mix is better than the 2 channel mix. Too bad as I am 2 channel only, but I probably could run 6 channels out of my Prism Orpheus (wonder if iTunes could handle). Then I need more amps/ speakers etc, so never mind for now. PC Audio Surround would be interesting. I have no blips or anything wrong in the recordings. I used the free 1 month trial to do my 3 discs and am done. One interesting thing is DVD A can either be native 2 channel, 6 channel or 6 channel mixed down to 2 channel. The Extractor allows you to choose. But I think the 2 channel option itself on my discs is a mix down.

Thank you. Just downloaded the Pure Music 1.2 and your advise helped w. Hog Mode. The instructions are very detailed and seems a lot of good features are on the horizon.

I downloaded PM 1.12 as indicated above. Big difference in performance. No more random pauses on playing gapless albums from Memory Play or just regular albums. Did some sonic comparisons as well and the PM player using upsampling is a touch more liquid and laid back than the iTunes direct. I wouldn't say better but I do prefer it for most of my recordings. But it is that slight. I was not able to activate HOG mode for my player (it was indicated as not available) and once I set what player I am using and sampling rate it wouldn't allow me to adjust my oversampling. I then removed the check for managing directly my player and restarted the program and all was good. Not sure why I had issues w. PV and not PM is they are supposed to be the same. I looked at the memory footprint and basically my Mac is using 2.5GBs of memory if loading into memory and the album is not gapless tagged. If it is tagged gapless, then I go to about 3.2GBs which sounds about right. CPU processes are about 82% free. I like many of the features of PM especially the large banner on top. Wish I could make it bigger so I can see it from across the room. I am still testing and the program can hang if you move from Gapless album to gapless album right after loading and playing one for a tiny bit. But I expected that. I have tried Amarra and while impressed with the sound on high res native tracks I wasn't on redbook resolution rips. In fact I found it made the music have an overlaying sound. If I get the time I will compare PM to iTunes to CD via my EMM CDSA. That should be fun but then I am using my preamp and right now I have bypassed it going direct from the Prism Orpheus to the VTL amps.

I had them often but less. Need to check my version to get back to everyone. I used to have the blips but my DAC had a Snow Leopard firmware update and blips w. itunes alone are gone. But very soft ones that are low in volume w. PM. I just feel the sound might be a bit better if all is going well. Seems to be a touch more open. They are close & I believe in long term listening rather than short term a/b tests. It really isn't the money it is a question of if it is worth the hassle. With Classical it can be very annoying. Actually most of my music is either concerts or classical and having it pause hurts the flow.

I tried it with Memory play configured using my Mac Mini (I have the free demo now for about a week), w. 4GB of RAM (it is dedicated as a music server). EAch time it will play 3-4 tracks and then stop. Need to be restarted again. Sound is very good but I don't know if is necessarily better. I have upsampling turned on to 24/176.4. Anyone else having the same issues w. 4 GB of ram. Anyone not having issues using Memory play & over sampling. My system is listed below. Trying to decide if to buy or not but the bugs are holding me back.