Mac Mini vs Macbook Pro for better sound

[Mike Gillespie]

I'm looking for a music server that can run both Mac OS and Windows. Not going to go the Hackintosh route so it would have to be a Mac Mini or Macbook Pro running both OS.

 

n theory, what do you think would be better: a Macbook Pro laptop with the external power supply some feet away and the wall plug "cheated"

 

or

 

A Mac Mini (same chip and internal SSD) with its stock power supply pulled and replaced by an external linear power supply that could also be a few feet away and again, the lps wall plug also cheated?

 

Has anyone ever done this comparison?

 

I know Chris C still uses his MBP so I'd love to hear his take on the differences between it and his Aurender and Caps 2.0 in terms of SQ (eg, for his recent Meitner reviews)

 

Thanks all.

 

Mike

[wgscott]

Why on earth would you not want to ground your computer?

 

Replacing the internal power supply of a mac mini is not a trivial task.

[TommyTunes]

I have used both however only in a Lion environment never running windows. Both were very close in spec's I7 processors, 8gb Ram, 256(SSD on the Mini) and 512gb(SSD on the Pro). If you go the Macbook Pro route you must run on battery power, using the external power supply produces a significant amount of electronic hash. I used mine with the big Hyperjuice power supply.

 

I'm using an aftermarket Audioquest power cable on the mini, and I run it in a headless environment. IMO while close the mini seems a bit better in openness and dynamics.

[Mike Gillespie]

Thanks, Tommy Tunes.

 

Wgscott: I run all my gear except my preamp with a ground lift. The sound is much more dynamic with a bigger soundstage. I don't live in an area where there is a lot of electrical storm activity, and I have dedicated audio lines and the sound is so much better I'll run the risk.

[Frederic Vandeputte]

I have the same dilema ,mac mini or the new MBP retina.

Money is not an issue but would love some more people to comment in this thread about the difference in sound quality between the MM and MBP.

I'm planning to buy a Western digital My book Thunderbolt 6TB but what file system should i format the unit to as i to want to use boot camp to use Windows 7 J. River media center 16 and OSX with Audirvana +

[joaco_]

Hello , imho all sound the same . Ive own a macmini a macbookpro , an iMac a mac pro and a G5 , really all sounded the same . The really issue is to be clear of the use of the computer . This was my experience .

 

Mac mini , nice ,small but many times i wanted to use it for downloading music etc and of course you need the monitor etc for that .

 

Macbookpro . Was really fine because you can use it for many things , and you can use an external box to connect a pciE sound card . This is my choice by far .

 

IMac . Sound the same of all (optical) too big , i have it for work .

 

Macpro . Excellent machine , this is a nice choice if you do not care about expendin , you can use pciE directly and the noise of the fans is extremely low , in the case you use interface sound card use aes ebu as it cancell all noise .

 

G5 . Good but fans make sound soyou have to install it in another room and use a long cable , PCI ready , the problem is that veru

y new software like audirvana doesnt run in this .

 

Please decide upon versatility sound via optical is really the same in macs .

[Frederic Vandeputte]

Hello , imho all sound the same . Ive own a macmini a macbookpro , an iMac a mac pro and a G5 , really all sounded the same . The really issue is to be clear of the use of the computer . This was my experience .

 

Mac mini , nice ,small but many times i wanted to use it for downloading music etc and of course you need the monitor etc for that .

 

Macbookpro . Was really fine because you can use it for many things , and you can use an external box to connect a pciE sound card . This is my choice by far .

 

IMac . Sound the same of all (optical) too big , i have it for work .

 

Macpro . Excellent machine , this is a nice choice if you do not care about expendin , you can use pciE directly and the noise of the fans is extremely low , in the case you use interface sound card use aes ebu as it cancell all noise .

 

G5 . Good but fans make sound soyou have to install it in another room and use a long cable , PCI ready , the problem is that veru

y new software like audirvana doesnt run in this .

 

Please decide upon versatility sound via optical is really the same in macs .

 

ok,sounds like it is going to be a Macbook Pro Retina if there is really not a big difference between all of these.

I won't be using the optical out anyways and i have my windows home server for my downloading needs,i will be hooking up my John Kenny MK3 (a modified Hiface running on battery) to one of the usb slots and from the JKMK3 to the SPDIF of my Burson HA-160D headphone amplifier.

Only question remains in what file system (like NTFS,FAT32,HFS+ journaled) should i format the Western Digital My Book thunderbolt 6TB .I want to use this unit in both Windows 7 and OSX so the audio files could be read in both Windows 7 (with J.River media center 16) and in Apple OSX (with Audirvana + or Amarra)

[joaco_]

Osx includes support for fat32 , but native osx filesystem doesnt fragmentate , and all applications runs rock solid . Try to use native osx filesystem . A used g5 will do the work of your windows server to makw shure comunication via ipad etc will be there with out any glitch . Just an idea .

[kjmagnusson]

I have a 15" MBP non-Retina with the hi-res display that is a lot cheaper than the Retina equivalent, and allows me to change out the RAM, disk, etc., when the Retina components are non-user-serviceable. Further, the effective resolution of the hi-res non-Retina MBP is higher than the Retina. You lose a lot to get that Retina display that IMHO isn't worth it. And you're going to use this as a music server? It's a Cadillac solution to a Chevrolet problem.

 

I feed bits to my NAD using a Mac mini with 4 GBs and a 2 TB ext USB 3.0 disk in conjunction with an NAD DAC-1 connected to the mini, and it works flawlessly. I remote into the Mac mini from any Mac on my net (I'm logged in via my 11" MacBook Air right now) and control Fidelia.

 

The file system question is a good one. HFS+ is a great file system. I would format your MyBook in HFS+ and load an OS extension on your Windows machine called MacDrive that enables it to create/read/update/delete files on HFS+ disks natively. I used one of its ancestors in a production environment for years--I beat the crap out of it with Subversion and it worked flawlessly with nary a hiccup. Another one that is known to work well is Paragon HFS+ for Windows. Anyway, either of those will meet your needs.

 

ok,sounds like it is going to be a Macbook Pro Retina if there is really not a big difference between all of these.

I won't be using the optical out anyways and i have my windows home server for my downloading needs,i will be hooking up my John Kenny MK3 (a modified Hiface running on battery) to one of the usb slots and from the JKMK3 to the SPDIF of my Burson HA-160D headphone amplifier.

Only question remains in what file system (like NTFS,FAT32,HFS+ journaled) should i format the Western Digital My Book thunderbolt 6TB .I want to use this unit in both Windows 7 and OSX so the audio files could be read in both Windows 7 (with J.River media center 16) and in Apple OSX (with Audirvana + or Amarra)

[Frederic Vandeputte]

I have a 15" MBP non-Retina with the hi-res display that is a lot cheaper than the Retina equivalent, and allows me to change out the RAM, disk, etc., when the Retina components are non-user-serviceable. Further, the effective resolution of the hi-res non-Retina MBP is higher than the Retina. You lose a lot to get that Retina display that IMHO isn't worth it. And you're going to use this as a music server? It's a Cadillac solution to a Chevrolet problem.

 

I feed bits to my NAD using a Mac mini with 4 GBs and a 2 TB ext USB 3.0 disk in conjunction with an NAD DAC-1 connected to the mini, and it works flawlessly. I remote into the Mac mini from any Mac on my net (I'm logged in via my 11" MacBook Air right now) and control Fidelia.

 

The file system question is a good one. HFS+ is a great file system. I would format your MyBook in HFS+ and load an OS extension on your Windows machine called MacDrive that enables it to create/read/update/delete files on HFS+ disks natively. I used one of its ancestors in a production environment for years--I beat the crap out of it with Subversion and it worked flawlessly with nary a hiccup. Another one that is known to work well is Paragon HFS+ for Windows. Anyway, either of those will meet your needs.

 

Thank you for the advice,on the choise of the file system matter now.

When i format the drive to HSF+ and have macdrive installed in windows 7 would i be able to see and play the files with J. River media center 16 (its a bitperfect audio player like Audirvana but for windows)

[Paul R]

Thank you for the advice,on the choise of the file system matter now.

When i format the drive to HSF+ and have macdrive installed in windows 7 would i be able to see and play the files with J. River media center 16 (its a bitperfect audio player like Audirvana but for windows)

 

There are some caveats to that. Windows has much stricter limits on file names and the path length for files. That can give you some grief. In fact, that can happen even if you use a NTFS file system on the Mac or even under Linux. The file system will allow you to write files onto it that Windows simply cannot read.

 

You can minimize that by mounting a share from the Mac on the Windows machine, rather than trying to use MacDrive. There is always some way to fix the issues that may occurr, but unless you take great pains to make all the files Windows compatible - great pains - you will inevitably run into issues. This is especially true with classical music, where album titles or artist names are often long and contain Unicode characters.

 

Paul

[Frederic Vandeputte]

There are some caveats to that. Windows has much stricter limits on file names and the path length for files. That can give you some grief. In fact, that can happen even if you use a NTFS file system on the Mac or even under Linux. The file system will allow you to write files onto it that Windows simply cannot read.

 

You can minimize that by mounting a share from the Mac on the Windows machine, rather than trying to use MacDrive. There is always some way to fix the issues that may occurr, but unless you take great pains to make all the files Windows compatible - great pains - you will inevitably run into issues. This is especially true with classical music, where album titles or artist names are often long and contain Unicode characters.

 

Paul

How could i share the files stored on my external thunderbolt WD my book drive when i use bootcamp on the same Macbook pro to boot into windows 7.This wouldnt work i guess because i can only use one OS at a time.

Man,this is getting complicated.

On the other hand i found out that using the exFAT file system allows me to read/write on both Windows 7 and anything equal or above OSX 10.6.5 Snow Leopard so that should do it right?

[orgel]

Man,this is getting complicated.

On the other hand i found out that using the exFAT file system allows me to read/write on both Windows 7 and anything equal or above OSX 10.6.5 Snow Leopard so that should do it right?

 

Hate to say this, but to keep it simpler, once you get all your hardware and software set up, why not just take some time to evaluate which OS works better for you -- in terms of both sound quality and usability of the software -- and then settle on one OS?

 

There's certainly nothing wrong with being able to switch between Windows and OS X, and the disk-formatting complications can be overcome, but if complexity bothers you, well, using multiple OSes is always going to be more complicated than picking one and sticking with it.

 

--David

[Paul R]

How could i share the files stored on my external thunderbolt WD my book drive when i use bootcamp on the same Macbook pro to boot into windows 7.This wouldnt work i guess because i can only use one OS at a time.

Man,this is getting complicated.

On the other hand i found out that using the exFAT file system allows me to read/write on both Windows 7 and anything equal or above OSX 10.6.5 Snow Leopard so that should do it right?

 

There really isn't a good answer, and exFAT is definitely NOT a good answer. It has even more limits than NTFS. I guess what I would do is buy a second external drive, format it as NTFS, and keep a copy of the music library on that. You can write to it from a Mac using Paragon NTFS or something like that. (Buy one of the Seagate GoFlex drives, it comes with the Paragon driver.)

 

You can use several utilities, or just plain old rsync on the Mac to keep the file systems synchronized.

 

A slightly better solution would be to reuse an old PC as a fileserver, stuffed away in a closet somewhere. Then you could simply share the same disk between Windows and Mac, but- caveat - you run into the same filename and path length problems.

 

You are right, melding Macs and Windows without issue, and without using a hypervisor and virtual machines, is not a simple task and is fraught with little gotcha's all over the place.

 

-Paul

[Paul R]

(I am actually home today with a miserable allergy attack, so I needed to distract myself.)

 

I am pretty careful these days in how I load music files, so that they are pretty much compatible with JRMC as well as iTunes on Macs and PCs. But even being careful.... here is the result of loading my base iTunes library into JRMC. This doesn't include a lot of the music that isn't commercial.

 

Also, this is out of something like 15K tracks,so it isn't bad, but it still has problems - as in you can loose music. If you really intend to use JRMC and iTunes, I strongly suggest using the Windows partition to manage the library, as the Mac will handle more file name oddities from Windows than vice versa. Wierd stuff isn't it?

 

-Paul

 

 

Failed to import:
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[/Code]

[EvilTed]

Use a NAS and export NFS shares.

Mount the NFS shares in Windows or Mac, file system considerations are then irrelevant except on the NAS itself.

Ext4 is my choice until BTRFS becomes stable.

 

ET

[Paul R]

Use a NAS and export NFS shares.

Mount the NFS shares in Windows or Mac, file system considerations are then irrelevant except on the NAS itself.

Ext4 is my choice until BTRFS becomes stable.

 

ET

 

Hey Evil

 

I still prefer Resiser, but even with NTFS, you can still run into path length and filename problems using a NAS. It solves some issues, but often you wind up having to publish a subfolder, mount it on Windows as a drive or near the top of the file system hierarchy, and copy the files to a more Windows friendly location. It's insane for a popular OS in 2012 to have this kind of issue, but, then I know people who claim it is insane to have long pathnames, or long filenames, or even even filenames longer than 8 characters. To each their own I suppose.

 

-Paul

[MemoryPlayer]

I use exFAT for more than a year with Windows 7, 8, SL, Lion and ML and never had an only issue.

For music and movies libraries, exFAT is the right solution!

[Mercman]

I've had great results with my MBP running Windows 8 in Boot Camp. The external drive is a G-RAID Thunderbolt formatted HFS+. In Windows 8, I use MacDrive Pro 9 to recognize the drive. No issues.

[gsquared]

Steve, how much memory does it take to run Windows 8 on a partition via Boot Camp? I have the same computer with the same RAM but with an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD 240 GB and I'm considering trying Windows 8/JRiver/Jplay based on your review of JRiver/Jplay on AudioStream.

 

Gary