Connections to a MAC Mini.

used to be mini toslink on the last range and on checking its the same on the new range

neil

Dear Neil,

That is very helpful.

It is one heck of a lot cheaper than using a Macbook, and as I own a serviceable monitor, the only additions I would need are a suitable mouse and keyboard.

This brings the possibility of setting a MAC/DAC arrangement very much closer. Possibly even this year! It shares with a Macbook the crucial element of portability, which is one reason why I would be reluctant to make a major investment in a desk-top PC based arrangement ...

Thanks for that.

ATB from George

George,
viz-à-viz portability, don't forget that you will need a monitor at the other end unless you add the extra cost of an iPod Touch / iPhone to act as a remote. Am not sure where you would place the Mini at home, so the same may apply unless it would remain permanently linked to the monitor.
Huw

George your best bet is to run the mini 'headless'

This mean there is no screen attached. if you need to administer the mini then simply VNC into it from your main PC.

In this way the mini can sit on the hifi rack and not look like shit.

Dear Huw, and Gary,

The headless approach appeals as an iTouch to drive it is in the ball park of the cost of a new monitor [especially if I were to buy new mouse and keyboard as well].

The source is the only place where I actually like a remore control, as the music can be set off after I am ready - sitting confortably - to concentrate on the performance, rather than rushing back to the seat having set the needle in the groove or whatever ...

If I went headless with the Mini then the portability thing is no problem. Otherwise the requirement would be to use a spare monitor at the other end if I went on a visit overseas with it.

There is a lot to be said for the headless apporach in my view!

You can be sure that should I run into problems, I shall be back asking for help!

ATB from George

PS: Question: I suppose that it would be possible to set up the Mini using an old monitor [I have three knocking round!] and then run headless from then on?

If I did this, I would not aim to use the Mini as anything other than an extraction engine [of music from CDs] and HD server for a DAC. I would keep on running my current PC for other things, and keep the music 100% discrete from everything else.

320 Gig as an HD with lossless would be more than enough capacity for me, as I only want "so much" recorded music at any time. Strange as it may sound, I am quite happy to part with recorded music, and once I had had the value out of it would be quite happy deleting things from the HD if the music or perfomance concerned no longer held much significance for me. The radio is still my number one source ...

Yes that would be fine to do.

Dear Gary, Thanks. ATB.

George,

Please take my post in the spirit in which it is offered (ie. an objective appraisal of the situation). Just food for thought. It's none of my business of course, but...

Your logic escapes me. I understand your desire to rid yourself of the clutter of CD's, and to make your music collection portable. I understand that you are heavily constrained by available budget for new purchases. It seems to me that there is something of the "sledgehammer to crack a nut" approach in your reasoning. Especially as you say that radio is your primary source - why consider spending hundreds of pounds, when money is so tight, on a SECONDARY source? Indeed, spending money in this situation on your primary source would be unwise surely, but to invest large amounts into a secondary source seems to me to be absolute madness. Macbooks and Mac minis are expensive machines. You will only be using a fraction of their functionality as you will only be storing music on them. The rest will be a complete waste - money down the drain. How important is the portabilty issue? Do you spend very long periods of time away from home? Could not an iPod or similar, with a docking device or into the AUX input of your Tivoli not suffice for such times? As for hard disc storage, if your PC won't suffice, there are hard disc machines from Cambridge Audio and Acoustic Solutions etc. which, used with your Lavry, would in all probability be just as good as what you are listening to now or even better. This solution would be a fraction of the cost of a Macbook. You very much give the impression in your posts that money is very tight for you. This is why I can't understand your eagerness to throw away hundreds of pounds on equipment you just don't need, and which is only of secondary importance to you anyway. If you are intent on spending more money on hi-fi then surely you would gain infinitely more by saving for a used Naim tuner, as this is what you get most of your musical enjoyment from?

Best regards,

Peter

NB. Hard disc storage is not the only answer to making a CD collection compact and portable. DJ style flight cases cost very little money and will hold many hundreds of discs with an indexing system. The ideal way to rid your shelves of CD's AND make your entire collection easy to carry down the road or on an aircraft on holiday with a portable CD player. Much cheaper and simpler than bothering with hard disc!

Dear Peter,

I am earger not to throw away hundreds of pounds for all the reasons you suggest.

Radio is certainly my primary source both in terms of time duration and occasionally also on musical quality, as I listen to Radio Four as my main news, and entertaiment provider, and Radio Three occasionally provides the most sublime concert relays. I have a very fine tuner of the old top line from Rotel [RT 850-AL], which I cannot fault, though an A/B against a NAT would be a mistake as it might raise my expectations and therefore will not be done.

But it would be idle to pretend that listening to chosen recordings, and going to concerts are not every bit as important even if they are relatively less frequent. For example it is quite possible to conceive of me not listening to any music at all in a given twenty four hour period. It is inconceivable that I would ever go a week without some serious quality listening to musical recordings.

So whatever replays my recordings has to meet a certain minimum standard. In CD replay terms I would say that the acceptable minimum for me is at about the CD 5x standard. Certainly I no longer get existed about the CDS series of machines in relation to the 5x for the cost benefit for me is not great enough.

I would happily run a CDS/S2/S3 if money were no object!

You rightly ask therefore why I seem set on the MAC/DAC route. The answer is simple. I have never been one to aim for an unheard item of replay. It would not matter how fine someone said a Krell CD player was if I had never heard one, I would not buy any CD player without having heard one for myself.

So having heard the musical results of a MAC/DAC last summer, I knew it ticked the performance boxes for me, and came at a price that was in the ball park of a CD 5x, which I do beleive I would have bought if I had not determined the idea of Hard Drive music storage did not have long term advantages, advantages with the compactness [physically] of the stored music, advantages with access to the music without sometimes hunting for a disc that somehow was not in its case, portability, ability to easily back-up against loss of original material ... The list of advantages does go on, and there is also one of disadvantages, but that is not the point here, beyond acknowledging the fact.

So price and performance wise the MAC/DAC is sufficient for me - a good plan. If I had fifteen hundred pounds spare today I would buy the best Macbook and that would be the job done ... [with the requsite cabling, back-up external drives, etc.].

It would still be cheaper than a CD 5x plus Hi-cap!

On the other hand if I can get to the performance of the Macbook for about half the money with the Mini, then that is splendid. It brings the day when it becomes possible forward!

But if you have a suggestion for a server type machine that can output nicely to my D10, for less and that is reliable, and easy to use, then I am all ears!

Necessarily my progress will be as magesterial as the money is slowly earned, so no rushed decisions are on the cards. If you make a suggestion for a server that will perform as well as a MAC onto my DAC, then I will definately be hunting out the chance of demonstrating the unit!

All the best from George

PS: I have on two occasions [over the last forty years] entirely lost my baggage on a flight. I would never take unique or deleted CD in baggage. I had one irreplaceable one ruined in the last two years this way as the disc was deformed by the way the bags was transported, and so rendered unplayable. Fortunately I had made a copy of the three out of twelve tracks that I especially valued as a concert disc that amounted to a nice small Bach recital from various artists. I have never liked the physical format of the CD. Only liking it marginally better than LPs. I found iTunes extremely fine to use in terms of searching out performances either by composer or artist. Very nice cataloguing method.

MAC mini connections

Check what type of connection your monitor has , and if the MM can support it.

Dear Howard,

Please send me an email.

Stu has my address.

Thanks from George

George,

I take your point about the advantages of hard disc storage over CD's to you, and that is perfectly reasonable. What I find difficult to understand is that, being blunt, you have in your Rotel tuner what is surely a mediocre source in the context of your amplification. You acknowledge this by your reluctance to compare it to a Naim tuner, which you know would simply wipe the floor with it. Now you spend most of your time with radio - it is your primary source of entertainment, musical and otherwise. You say that your minimum standard of CD reproduction is a CD5x. Are you saying that your Rotel sounds as musical as this? I would find that hard to believe. This being the case, you are settling for an inferior standard of musicality from the source which is most important to you. You say that you would have bought a CD5x if the Mac/Lavry had not impressed you. Why on earth did you not save you hard earned pennies and buy yourself a Naim NAT05? Surely you would be in heaven with this? You could have had this for barely more than the price of the cheapest Macbook, never mind the Lavry as well! No doubt your Rotel is good "in Rotel terms", but it is surely no Naim NAT05. Your amplification was, at one time at least, very near the top of what Naim had to offer. It deserves better than a Rotel as its primary signal source. Indeed, IMO you would be far better served with a Naim NAT05 feeding a £250 budget amp and using a £250 CD player as a secondary source. All this is just my own opinion of course. It's just that, especially when money is tight (as it is for me also), I would always try to optimise my primary source before all other considerations. This would give me the best musical enjoyment possible for my money. All else, convenience etc., would be very much a secondary consideration. Of course, those with the financial means are lucky enough to be able to have their cake AND eat it!

Best Regards,

Peter

Dear Peter,

I do how a great tuner can sound on a great set. The best radio I ever was lucky enough to listen to was a NAT 01 [serviced shortly before], and drawing the VHF signal off a Smith Galaxy, onto a 552, 2 by 300s actively powering SL2s! A mint set of my favourite Naim pieces.

What I can tell you is that the Rotel does is proivide a stable [birdie free] output that in every way is as fine as the CD 5x in its fatigue free listening quality. I realise that the NAT 01 is quite possibly a better piece than the CDS3, going on what I was luck enough to hear! The Rotel is not in that league of course!

But I don't find myself frustrated by the Rotel, even if it is hardly a nominal thorough-bred! Its last owner happily fed it through a top line Naim set somewhat less old than mine, and he now has a NAT 01 - I think!

But I am deeply frustrated by CDs. CDs that are certainly not immune to age related deterioration [alluminium rot beneath the lacquer] in some cases, and that is frustrating when one considers that the loss can just as likely occur in deleted issues ...

That the jewels cases are so feeble - especially the slimline doubles - that even reasonable care can result in CDs spilled out of a the case to take the chance bumping onto the floor!

Discs that ought to be there but are not, and then remembering that I loaned the thing to some kind person who never returned it. Then I am not sure to whom exactly I made the loan, so off to Amazon to see if this rare and long since deleted issue may be had even at some silly over-price.

No the issue is how to store the music files and then permanently store the CDs as the ultimate back-up if ever everything were lost in a fire, or whatever. In other words in a different building.

Not one person who has heard my set failed to note what a splendid tuner the Rotel is. Some of these older pieces have a fine level of performance, and IMO the Rotel 850-AL is among the best of these older machines from a mass maker. I know one or two tuners that are less old, and were highly recommended, such as ones from Denon, that were miles inferior to this veteran Rotel, for example.

ATB from George

PS: Aim me at an HD server to feed my Lavry with and I will certainly try to demonstrate it though.

George,

I guess we'll have to agree to differ here, as try as I might, and I accept that the Rotel tuner is a good one, I simply can't follow your logic as regards settling for it when you could have had a far superior Naim tuner to enjoy music on every evening! As regards CD's, I have never found storage space to be a problem, probably because I own relatively few well chosen ones. I have never felt removing the discs from their cases to be difficult - removing the booklets without damaging them is another matter! As for loaning discs out the answer is simple - DON'T. Bitter experience from loaning discs to so-called friends has tought me that few of them take any level of care over how they handle them, and many of them once in possession of the disc seem to suffer memory loss and forget all about them. Many a time, rather than confront people over a damaged or non-returned disc I have simply re-bought it like yourself. My attitide now is if someone wants to hear a disc they buy it for themselves as I've had to. Also don't fall into the trap of those people who are persistently eager to lend you CD's or DVD's and who then EXPECT you to return the favour. Why don't you at least investigate the Cambridge and Acoustic Solutions machines I mentioned? I know they don't have the pedigree to look promising, but feeding your Lavry, who knows? Getting a dem may be difficult but I think Argos sells the A/S machine and you can return it within 14 days if not happy, provided it is packaged properly. Best of luck with your quest.

Best Regards,

Peter

Dear Peter,

It is not really a question of disagreeing. My set has come as the chance brought each piece in turn.

I know where there is a NAT 101, which the owner knows I would like to buy one day. I can wait for the right time to get this one or another.

On the other hand the CD replay situation is in urgent need of sorting out.

What I am using as a transport - a Marantz CD player/recorder - is a very fine sounding machine via the Lavry, but it is suffering from flaky tracking on some discs, and must be getting towards transport failure. I hope it staggers on long enough to get me to a point where I can make a satisfactory replacement.

I did look into getting a second hand Meridian CD transport, but really this solves nothing as they are older machines, and by no means inexpensive considering the possibility of failure due to age.

So the search for a CD replay solution has been ongoing for whole period since I sold the CDS2 more than two years ago. I gently worked out that the CD 5x was my CD player of choice within the possibility of ever affording it.

Then I heard the MAC/DAC arrangement and immediately saw what it could bring to the table - a lot more than merely fine enough quality.

But apart from the Lavry which I soon purchased on account of finding a fine deal, I certainly had never had an unmovable concrete plan for how to feed it!

So I will investigate the AS and Cambridge machines.

They may well yet yield a fine enough quality for me!

ATB and thanks for the probing postings and suggestions, from George

George,

All the best and please do post your findings if you get to hear the AS and Cambridge machines.

Best Regards,

Peter

Wilco ... over, and out!

Dobranoc, i dziekuje z Georgiu

[Roughly Dobranots, i jenkuien je Georgiu -> Goodnight and thanks from George]

Hi George,
Forgive me if I seem to be stomping in on this thread, I mean no offence.

Is there any reason for you to go down the MacMini route, besides the fact that you have heard one of these combos in action?

As you are planning on using a DAC the MacMini would essentially be just a dumb "transport", so in the same way as the performance of a budget CD player can be lifted by a good DAC you don't need an expensive front end.

As you are already have a PC, (or two or three judging by the spare monitors!) why not rip and store your music on the PC, and use a Squeezebox as the front end.

You can control the Squeezebox with the supplied remote, or from a web browser on any PC on your network, it uses far less power, and has no moving parts to create physical noise.

You could pick up a new Squeezebox for under 170.00 gbp, even less for a second hand one, I even picked up a current SB3 for 83.00 inc postage!

I'm just moving over to Naim amplification, but I have been running a SB3 into a MF X-24K DAC for about 18 months. After about 3 months I sold my very nice CD player as I just didn't use it.

Occasionally if I want to put a CD on immediately I just pop it in the CD-Recorder, which also links by S/PDIF to the DAC.

Cheers for now,

John

George,

In a similar vain to Fixedwheel an alternative would be an AppleTV. It works in same way as an iPod, but with loads more storage space, and runs free of a PC in normal use.

The 160GB version will hold as much lossless music as a person would need, and can be synced to different play lists as the mood takes you. It can be controlled by an iPod touch and has either analogue or optical digital outputs.

I am very pleased with mine after just a few days use.

Jono

P.S. Fixedwheel if this indicates your cycling orientation then good luck. I always forgot at least once during a ride.

quote:

Originally posted by Jono 13:
P.S. Fixedwheel if this indicates your cycling orientation then good luck. I always forgot at least once during a ride.

I only forget for about 0.2 seconds at a time. ;-)

It's when I ride gears after a break that I think the bike is broken!

Cheers

John

quote:

Originally posted by fixedwheel:

I only forget for about 0.2 seconds at a time. ;-)

John

That's all it takes to put your nose on the front wheel!

Back on topic, have you tried an AppleTV? It is a product that appears to have no real function until you have one.

Jono

First things first.

A picture for fixedwheel, taken especially only a few minutes ago!



It is certainly true that I am happier setting up a bike or an old car engine than trying to get a computer to work.

The problem with the PC method is that in spite of attempting to follow advice given here I have acheived rough sounding rips with EAC, and completely failed to make anything at all of media monkey.

I know iTunes works, so therefore I am prepared to save up and obtain a workable system.

By now I can definately say that no PC based system will ever have any part of a replay set for me after my failed efforts to make it work.

The reason is simple. I need to be able to fix it, and not just drive it. From what I have seen I could get a Mac going again in many circumstances.

All the PC monitors I have come from PCs that have died in service with me ...

I am curious about any method [apart from PC based on Windows] of making a digital feed from lossless or WAV files. So the Apple TV may be a route. How do you load the music?

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by Jono 13:
That's all it takes to put your nose on the front wheel!

Nothing that serious, although my longest ride on fixed was a 600km Audax.

Have hit 215rpm for a brief period, usually ride 67", with a bail out on the other side of 64". Both fixed.

quote:

Back on topic, have you tried an AppleTV? It is a product that appears to have no real function until you have one.

No, I haven't. My hifi is on the opposite side of the room to the TV, and no room desire for a PC/Mac in the hifi stack. I have far too many PCs as it is!

The thought of 649.00gbp for a 320gb MacMini shouts "sledgehammer/nut" to me, especially as you would probably want the data on another hard drive or machine if you have gone to that much trouble ripping them.

My collection of FLAC files isn't massive, approx 90Gb, 260 albums with 3,500 tracks, that means the 40gb is not even a contender, the 160Gb model would limit future expansion.

For instance, when a friend comes to visit, he brings a hard drive with about 250Gb of MP3s to listen to, they get dropped on to the server whilst he is here, and wiped off straight after he leaves!

How much user space is available on the 160Gb Apple TV? And even more importantly, can you operate it *without* a monitor/TV attached?

Cheers,

John

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
A picture for fixedwheel, taken especially only a few minutes ago!

Ta, the Carlton looks very nice, but a tad big for me. Looks about a 23.5 or 24"? (Puts you about 6'00"ish)

quote:

It is certainly true that I am happier setting up a bike or an old car engine than trying to get a computer to work.

The problem with the PC method is that in spite of attempting to follow advice given here I have acheived rough sounding rips with EAC, and completely failed to make anything at all of media monkey.

I know iTunes works, so therefore I am prepared to save up and obtain a workable system.

So use iTunes. You don't have to use EAC, mediamonkey, or anything else. My best mate uses iTunes and rips to Apple lossless to use on his Squeezebox.

I use dbpoweramp to rip to FLAC. I like the automatic way it looks up 4 databases to get the right track info, the album art, and tells you the quality of the ripp that it has done. If you have a prob with a track you can tell it to re-rip just that track in a couple of clicks.

quote:

By now I can definately say that no PC based system will ever have any part of a replay set for me after my failed efforts to make it work.

The reason is simple. I need to be able to fix it, and not just drive it. From what I have seen I could get a Mac going again in many circumstances.

You are going to be SOL with a MacMini or ApppleTV then. They are not designed to be taken apart, so if the hard drive fails you're stuffed, if you want more ram, you're stuffed.

quote:

I am curious about any method [apart from PC based on Windows] of making a digital feed from lossless or WAV files. So the Apple TV may be a route. How do you load the music?

OK, use squeezecentre on a PC running Linux, or on a Mac, or on a NAS box, or whatever you are using on your desk.

It really doesn't matter. As long as the rip is bit perfect, the file will be transferred, by wireless or wired ethernet, bit-perfect to the squeezebox and then out on your choice of analogue, optical digital or co-ax digital to your choice of DAC.

The only things in that chain that influence the sound are the bit perfect rip and the quality of the DAC. Computer technology is very good at delivering bit perfect information, otherwise they would be useless. Think random changes to word processing or spreadsheet documents if they were not.

All you really need to try it out is a digital out on your existing computer. It really doesn't matter whether it runs Windows, Linux or MacOS.

Cheers

John