mac mini streamer

James, I like iTunes also, but alas, it will not play FLAC, a requirement of the OP.

I like the Mini playing AIFF using iTunes, through the DAC of your choice, in my case, the Naim DAC and 555ps.

I used a cheap M-Audio DAC before:  it was way better than the cost indicated.

Lots of good options.  A Mini is very capable and flexible.  

Nick

I use a MacMini with iTunes and Audirvana with no problems and AV plays FLAC. AV could be crashing due to lack of memory on the Retina which would be solved by buying a MacMini. Which version of AV are you using Tom? The latest version does have some bugs but will work better when Yosemite, which it was designed for, is released. 

Tom in amsterdam. I agree the jriver interface is an abomination, its amazing what PC users think looks great.

However one of its advantages is you never need to look at it, just pick up your android or mac phone/table and control it with ipeng or similar.

I'd love a mac table

Seriously, though, I am looking to do the mac mini thing too. Do you need to have it permanently linked to a screen, or, once set up, is it possible to operate it via ipad without a screen, keyboard etc.

The lowest spec MacBook Retina has I believe 8 GB of RAM.  I managed to run the previous version of Audirvana on an iMac with only 2GB without it crashing.  Audirvana recommend 4GB for version 2.0.

Like you, I'm hoping that the new Mac Mini/Yosemite/Audirvana 2 will become a robust platform though it mike take a few months for the initial bugs in both sets of software to be fixed. 

Yes, will try to convert and see how that pans out. Less could be more indeed (one of the reasons why I want to go the mini-hugo route :-)

I'm not sure it's memory related, my retina macbook has 16GB of ram (I'm a software engineer for my profession)

Yosemite could make it work I guess. Suppose it will ready for download any time now. Will try that also when it's available. Thanks

Hi Alan,

Did you mean Exact audio copy with EAC? It doesn't seem to have a version for mac.

Kr,

Tom

My mistake Tom! I meant XLD for Mac ... I started with EAC on Windows, switched about a year ago, and just revealed how ingrained my thinking is lol. Ironic that I've only ever tried this "transcode from folder as disc" method in XLD...

Anyway, the only trick is to ensure you provide a new path for the outpu, so that you are building a separate library, rather than putting two versions together in your existing library. If you specify the "automatically add to itunes" folder as the output, it moves things around automagically just as you'd expect (provided you have itunes configured to manage collection, of course) pretty neat, actually. I've been exploring this as a way to up the quality of my iTunes library for portable use...but must note that there was little or no difference streaming FLAC from my NAS versus just playing the ALAC directly from the Mac mini via optical out. 

Regards, alan 

Hi Tom,

my MM is set up purely for music as advised by Wat. There are no extraneous programmes running, no email, no Time Machine etc. This works for me.

When using AV integrated mode with iTunes FLAC files get converted to ALAC but if this is turned off you can drag the FLAC files from the HD into the AV playlist and play them. I think they do sound better than ALAC, but it's marginal.

Steve

Loki,

I used a small flat screen TV with HDMI input to initially set up the MacMini but thereafter use it headless, either via Screen Sharing on my MacBook using the Bluetooth connection, or using the iPad with the Remote app via wifi. I also use the iPad/Remote app to stream to the Mu-so via AirPlay.

The whole setup has worked flawlessly for about six months now and the SQ is excellent.

Good luck.

Steve

Thanks Alan, XLD was very easy to configure indeed. I really like the possibility to "rip" directly into iTunes. 

What's more, I quite like the revamped Remote app from Apple (last I tried was about 3 years ago). For further integration with my Hugo I've purchased the Bitperfect app and that seems to do the job fairly well.

Hi Steve,

I didn't know about integrated mode and while I was working with Allen's suggestions I purchased Bitperfect (for just 8 euro's) which does seem to do the same. 

I'll definitely compare the two against each some later time. 

One tip - make sure software updates are turned off. Get to a known working configuration and then leave it alone. I've used a headless mac mini in various forms (Mac n Dac, UPnP source and now iTunes server) for the last 4 years with no real issues. I've setup automated scripts so that it mounts the NAS drive on switch on and only runs iTunes and the Devialet streaming app. XLD is used for ripping. VNC or screen sharing from iPad and other Macs in the house if i need to do any maintenance. 

I do this also.  If you use screen share to your laptop definitely spend $15 on this:

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/pro...00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Good idea. Ordered. Thanks.

i use jriver 20 on my macbook pro retina. The UI was horrendous and unbearable until ... I enabled retina mode! From then on its perfect. I like the feature on jriver that shows the 'audio path'. Basically jriver tells you whether it is doing anything to modify the sound. Highly recommended.