New Mac Mini, version to choose?

People who think such things matter, run with only the software on SSD and stream the data from elsewhere. I can't say whether it matters. My data is local on HDDs. They are effectively silent. The fan only rums when I'm doing something other than than playing music.

A choice of HDD or SSD will make no difference on sound.

Why are people talking about 8GB / 16GB of memory as if a valid parameter to streaming? A lossless file is going to be <50MB and you don't even need the whole lot in memory at once.

A machine as basic as the ZP80 streams with a 20-second buffer. Recall that you are only streaming not delivering the whole track at once. What will you do with the extra memory exactly? 

A Raspberry Pi with a 5400 RPM HDD could stream music. I wouldn't bother with a Mac Mini unless you want one anyway.

My mac mini is on 2GB RAM and has never skipped, or struggled with music playback. My iTunes has now more than 2000 lossless CDs on it. It would be interesting to find out how efficient it would be if it had 5000 or more, but so far so good.

Occasionally I may even use the browser (via screen sharing), if I need to correct metadata or play releases on bandcamp. Having said that my DAC uses Firewire output, which should in theory be more efficient than USB and decidedly more than optical out.

As a lot of current DACs (USB or Firewire) have adopted the asynchronous playback, jitter should no longer be an issue, so any mac mini should be fine. I love the look of the newer mac minis and IMO they are the only computer device that can sit comfortably amongst hifi kit (placing my Lenovo there with its 25 LEDs switching constantly makes the whole thing look like the openning titles to lost in space :-) 

The mac mini 2010 has the extra benefit of a CD drive so you can rip your stuff too, which IMO makes it a direct competitor to UnitiServe at a fraction of the cost.

I also feel that it is safer to have the music files on an external disc. For one I can put the disc on another machine if I need to do so, but I also feel that as iTunes continuously accesses that disc on payback, there are no bottlenecks, and the mac never gets hot.

Playback Control is the biggest issue for me. 

There are solutions :

A keyboard and a mouse (a big no for me). 

Remote App on iPad is really good, but requires owing an iPad, and it's one way only.

Screen sharing mentioned by winkyincanada earlier, is fantastic and superfast if you configure a private ethernet network on the mac mini and then have your client connect to it with a wire (thus freeing wifi). But like all streaming solutions I wonder how many people can figure it out. (I do have a degree in IT). If one relies on wifi to control the mac mini the chances are that sooner or later they will run into connectivity problems, which is boring and kind-of embarrassing when in company of others.

Hence I still keep my CD player around.

I agree, simplicity and elegance is key, assuming everything else works fine.

HDMI out works fine but you will still need keyboard and mouse, UNLESS you use Front Row for your playback, in which case all you need is the tiny remote that comes with the mini.

SSD is super silent but makes no difference sound-wise and prices for 1TB are prohibitive at the moment.

um, guys, Guy down the pub said Naim is garbage, you gonna believe him.  He has never owned one but he read that all English stuff is rubbish, so don't waste your money.  Must be true hey!

The OP is running a 12 thousand dollar DAC and you are quibbling about a hundred dollar SSD.  

Gees, you would get one just to enjoy the faster boot up, forget any possible audio benefits.

I took the questionable path of buying a MacBook Pro in 2010 for my music system solution.  It's got more "possible" reasons not to sound good than a 2010 mini.

I ran an external USB hard drive containing my music, 4 gb RAM, Audirvana direct, Weiss Int202 FireWire with Weiss PS,  NDAC.  No 555, but I run a Valhalla power cord to tidy up DACs performance.  Nice improvement in my experience.

I added the 8 gb RAM and a replacement SSD system drive, did it myself, cheap as chups and easily better sound quality. Detail improvement was immediately apparent.  Boots in 15 seconds, in my experience.

something else I have heard on a MAC mini circa 2010 is a Paul Hynes power supply.   dynamics, bass and detail all up significantly.  I can give you the names and addresses of 5 skeptical, argumentative audiophiles that heard it.  Half were not paying attention at the time and broke from audiophile conversations about whatever to say " gees that's better, what did you change".  I was paying attention, but I must have been mistaken cos modern low jitter computers are immune, just like NDACs don't benefit from 555 power supplies I guess, or do they, I don't know, I have not tried a 555.

So what do I recommend to improve playback from my direct experience:

audirvana direct memory play with system optimisation  - yes

Mountain lion over snow leopard - yes

SSD and RAM - yes, but I did both at the same time so can't say which did what

itunes 11- yes, I did not expect this one at all, especially was I was still using audirvana.

linear shunt power supply on mac, yes, but Paul has been crook so you will be waiting a long time for one.

The above is personal opinion based on stuff I have heard and compared myself In a revealing system.  

last I looked a 1TB SSD 2.5" drive was selling for 3 grant, which, with today's standards is at least 300 CD worth of music. Maybe I should check again, but anything less than that and you will be replacing in a year's time. unless of course you are downloading mp3s from slsk @128kbps, which makes the rest of kit redundant anyways.

When I read of all the benefits of optimising a computer for sound quality, it doesn't make me want to do it too. It makes me question the the way I perceive sound quality improvements generally, and makes me reluctant to invest any more money in any components based on a recommendation. Somebody tells me that a new power supply for computer makes it somehow sound better, or that extra RAM which remains essentially unused makes a difference, and I wonder what sonic benefit I would experience from such investment. I feel it would likely be negligible or non-existent (in my perception). And therefore it will be.

A useful experiment to do when testing new tweaks is to download a test tone CD, and play some test tones from around 40Hz-100Hz in your listening room. Now walk around the room as each tone is playing, and notice how they get louder and quieter as you walk through the various peaks and troughs of sound amplitude. You'll notice that you don't have to move your head (ears) far to get a completely different volume, when absolutely nothing is changing at the hi-fi end volume-wise.

Now realise that every time you move your head a few inches to the left or right on your listening chair when you're listening to music, your ears are experiencing the same thing. My system can sound completely different, depending where my ears are in the room.

Peter

Interesting thread....

My rationale was this: I had an opportunity to get a Mac mini fully maxed out for audio (2012 model, server version 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD + 500GB 7200HD) at about half the price new. So I bought it.

On a DAC/555PS/252/SC/300/s400 system I can hear the difference between different audio software (iTunes, Audirvana+ etc), quite reproducibly, and so can my wife (also an audiophile).

Even though everyone says optical from a mac is rubbish and I should get an NDS, I'm actually rather pleased with the sound quality and have no desire to spend 000s more...

What bit about the Mac Mini is important... No idea, but something clearly works!

Which is interesting as it is complicated, expensive and hence inelegant.

A full-blown operating system to stream a few stringy music files. Man alive.

What I admire most about Apple is the beliefs the marketing creates. If people just want a Mac Mini anyway that is fine and another matter entirely but to suggest it is some sort of fundamental standard for streaming is really not to understand the task in hand at all.

This is some of the worst twaddle I have ever read. Just for starters, you can hear the difference between operating systems?

Given a standard lossless file of circa 40MB and throughput on home network = 10MB per second you might:

1) transfer entire file to DAC memory in 4 seconds then play in entirety; or
2) smooth stream over 5 mins at 0.13 MB per second (approx 1/80th of operating throughput) adding a bit on for buffering; or

3) some hybrid of the above.

You think you need 8 GB for the above. At 0.13 MB per second in the 2nd example you would have 8192 MB RAM available and at a moment in time need 0.13 MB for the audio stream. Yet it sounds better??

Just complete twaddle. Utterly ridiculous.

what isn't twaddle is this:

"The OP is running a 12 thousand dollar DAC and you are quibbling about a hundred dollar SSD."

True, true/

Neither I suspect is this - "...something else I have heard on a MAC mini circa 2010 is a Paul Hynes power supply.   dynamics, bass and detail all up significantly..."

Having equipped my DAC exclusively with Paul Hynes regulators I'm seriously impressed with his kit and Paul offers an excellent guarantee plus money-back if you don't like it deal. 

My music is off board on a USB HDD. My SSD is 250 GB, it does not contain my music, but it does remove a spinning drive from inside my MAC

You can call shenanigans or twaddle if you like.  At least I have tried these things, 

if someone is asking about optimising their MAC it is legitimate to share my experiences.

 The only thing that is twaddle is claiming someone's experience is invalid, particularly when you have none of your own to share. 

It isn't completely out of the question that different versions of an OS handle audio differently.  An extreme example would be running XP without ASIO, i.e. not bypassing the "KMixer".  I can speak to what or how Mac OS does things, but it isn't IMPOSSIBLE.

-Patrick

If you remove the 8GB RAM added and still hear the large improvement previously noted then you will have proven to yourself that a HDD inside a Mac causes sound quality to deteriorate.