Mac Mini Front End Vs NDX

Thanks Graeme - I think I'll give an MM a go. I've been reluctant to try macs because I just don't understand them, but there must be lots of advice on the net. I'll report back.

And there's always you and Wat (and others) to fall back on if I can't woRk it out for myself! :-)

Nick

You can choose whether JRMC keeps tags only in its own database, or in the files themselves as well - it is a property of each tag. There are fancy facilities for deriving computed or programmed tags which I found useful for classical music. It can be handy telling JRiver to just keep a tag in its database - especially when you are playing with views and so on - a library based tag updates almost instantaneously, whereas a tag stored in the file could potentially involve a lot of writes if you are updating a lot of files, so I found it best to do all my playing with library only tags, and then when I was happy, flip them to be stored in the files.

Thanks for your info in Audirvana - I've been a fairly happy user of JRiver on a PC, but found myself detesting PCs so bought a Mac Mini the other month for non-Hifi stuff and am absolutely delighted with it. I shall try JRiver and Audirvana on it shortly and see how my Hugo gets on.

To anyone who is thinking of trying a Mac mini, I say just do it. It just works and is very pleasurable to use. And highly resellable too, in the unlikely event it's not your cup of tea,

Nick

if i can get it working anyone can trust me.

Amara site has an optimisation app available and Audirvana has a user manual that is worth a read especially P.38

But as you say lots on the net, depends how obsessive you want to be.

let us know how you get on

Hi Graeme (Foxman50)

I'm currently using ND5xs with Hugo (I really couldn't tell much difference between ND5xs and NDX on home demo through my active ATC50's - although this was prior to Hugo)

Based on your experience, do you reckon Mac Mini will be an improvement over ND5xs in my set up using Hugo?

Regards 

From my recent experience of buying a mac mini there's nothing to understand. It's a mac. Buy it. Plug it in. It will work. There will not be 378 security updates to Windows every night. The screen will not go blue. You will not need to spend money on security software to cure the diseases that it otherwise might get infected with. The Help will actually help. You will not have to hunt about for how to do simple and obvious things. You will kick yourself for not buying one earlier. 

Help theres help, not found that yet. I think you still need to click about when your a complete noob at OSX, but your right i should have bought one earlier.

Mr Frog

i went from ND5 to NDX which i did think was worthwhile, though not a big leap. I then added Hugo which was a huge leap forward, and now the Mac has completed it i think.

To answer your question, all i can say is i'm very happy now without a Naim front end. Only you will know if it suites you by trying one, but i'd be surprised if you didn't think it was an improvement over the ND5

Graeme

Just found a great resource for optimisation on the Mojo Audio site

https://mojoaudiofiles.wordpress.com/ 

Then optimising OS X Yosimite, on the left hand side

obviously proceed with caution, especially if like me you don't know what your doing

Whatever program you are in there is always a bar for that program at the top of the screen. Help is invariably the rightmost option in that bar. I've also found that just typing into Safari "How do I do xxx in Yosemite" will usually get you a choice of well written articles from apple and third parties. Sure you need to click about, but if you are even half as dim as I am you'll get there! Have fun

Memory is more important than processing power. 8 gigs of RAM is ideal. 

@Mr Frog. One way to do it with iTunes 12:

- manually 'Open Stream...' from the 'File' menu or use the ⌘U keyboard shortcut

- paste in a url, for example Radio Paradise: http://stream-uk1.radioparadise.com:80/aac-320 

- iTunes will create a playlist called 'Internet Songs' You can leave the station there or drag it to another playlist

- If iTunes doesn't create the 'Internet Songs' playlist. Select 'Music' if you are not already there, and click on 'My Music' where you should see your 'Recently Added' music. Drag the station you just opened to your chosen playlist.

- Using the Apple 'Remote App' on iOS select playlists and you are good to go.

Nick

Go with Steve's advice as to be honest I don't know. All i can say is when i look in activity monitor hardly any hardware is utilised. I don't recal exactly but I don't think ive seen it go over 4gb ram and 10% cpu

Mr F

as Greg has said above its very easy. In JRiver just search the net for the radio station URL and paste this into the app. You can create a playlist folder for radio stations. Dead simple.

i suppose the downside is you don't have a browse list to try out, but im sure there must be something like this on the net