Mac Mini Headless - help required

Posted by: dayjay on 07 June 2015

After spending mcuh of yesterday listening to a mac via my Hugo I am seriously considering purchasing a mac mini and running Audivarna.  I've completed a forum search but am struggling to see if there is a way of running the mini headless, controlling it from my Ipad, whilst using Audivarna without using Itunes.  Any advice woudl be very much appreciated

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by Foxman50

Did you find the bit about plugging the DAC into its own dedicated USB hub made an improvement in sound quality. It certainly did on my 2012 model

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by dayjay
Originally Posted by Foxman50:

Did you find the bit about plugging the DAC into its own dedicated USB hub made an improvement in sound quality. It certainly did on my 2012 model

Yes, it did make a difference, a number of changes made small differences but they all added up. Audirvana makes it very easy to apply most of them.  The database interface is pretty good too, a little basic but it does the job without any drama

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by Foxman50

I had hoped the iOS app would have been released, then it would have made it useable for me.  really keep turning the tv on every time i want to select an album

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by dayjay
Originally Posted by Foxman50:

I had hoped the iOS app would have been released, then it would have made it useable for me.  really keep turning the tv on every time i want to select an album

I started off with the same view and was planning to run it headless but I actually quick like it on the big screen and would be happy running it like this although I'd need to buy better wireless keyboard and mouse.  The app will be a plus but to my surprise I quite like this stripped back approach

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by Foxman50

Well you've twisted my arm, installing it now. Well its scanning my NAS. This may take some time

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by james n

Audivarna is good - took me a little while to get used to some of it's ways of working after coming from iTunes integration on this and Amarra but it sounds great in my system. 

 

James

 

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by Foxman50

Allen very interesting way to get a Fusion drive i like it 

 

Well 5 mins into Audirvana and it is certainly a step up from JRiver. Thats the good bit, but what the hell is its album ordering logic. Its all over the place

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by dayjay

You can change the way it orders music Foxman, I have been putting it in file order and then sorting by group and then album, works really well for my needs and is very fast.  Allen, I also went with the basic new model and have had no problems with the memory or processor speed so far.  Could you hear a difference with the USB lead over a standard one?  I'm using the supplied one with my Hugo.  At some point I will try  a Thunderbolt drive and see if I can hear an improvement over my Nas over ethernet but all in all I'm impressed

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by james n
Originally Posted by AllenB:

So, having returned to the MacMini fold not too long ago, I thought I might add my experiences.

 

I perplexed on whether to go with a new 2014 Mini or source a late 2012 from somewhere, all to do with upgradeability. What I decided in the end was a get the base 2014 model, whipped out the meagre hard drive (yes, warranty went for a burton too), replaced that with a 2TB Samsung spinner, but here's the cool bit (well in my view, of course). I bought an external 120GB SSD Buffalo Mini Drive, set up that and the internal Samsung as one logical drive, and hey presto I have a Fusion drive, that is fast and has plenty of storage to hold all my music. The lowly 1.4GHz i5 and 4GB RAM do not seem to matter, it has not missed a heartbeat of music.

 

I first tried BitPerfect (cheap App Store application) which was OK, but I then purchased and installed Audirvana+2 and played around with that, great sounds and I was mostly playing everything on 2x up-sampled. Thinking, I like this and waiting patiently for the iOS app to be released, had hoped it might surface for Munich High End just gone, but no nothing.

 

Then Roon happened. 

 

Now I have already exalted Roon for it's navigation and Tidal integration, but what about SQ stakes? Well A+2 still has the edge, helped no doubt by the DSP enhancements that can be made over core audio and basic iTunes.

 

But Roon will bring in their own DSP enhancements fairly soon, and it's possible this might revolve around the highly regarded HQ Player.

 

MacMini outputting on Chord Signature TA USB cable to Devialet 200

 

Sounding blooming marvellous, and thoughts creeping in my head to take it one step further with the various UpTone Audio upgrades for the MacMini. Although, like Graeme, I am seriously considering the Aurender (not that I have heard it yet) but it would now have to be capable of Roon in some way or another. That is not negotiable, Roon is bloody marvellous. There is a good chance that Roon will come to Aurender, but for the time being the MacMini / Roon is doing a great job.

 

All of this sitting on two shelves of Fraim as well!

Good to see you've finally come out (so to speak) Allen  and glad you're enjoying the new setup. My Regen from Uptone should be here later this month so i'll be interested in what it does. I've also got a linear PS on order to replace my external power brick.

 

Next thing to try is room correction...

 

James

 

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by nickpeacock

In my Glorious Rule there will be only one user interface common to all playback and library management software (which will basically be a bit like Sonos).

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by Foxman50
Originally Posted by dayjay:

You can change the way it orders music Foxman, I have been putting it in file order and then sorting by group and then album, works really well for my needs and is very fast.  Allen, I also went with the basic new model and have had no problems with the memory or processor speed so far.  Could you hear a difference with the USB lead over a standard one?  I'm using the supplied one with my Hugo.  At some point I will try  a Thunderbolt drive and see if I can hear an improvement over my Nas over ethernet but all in all I'm impressed

Cheers maybe i should read the manual 

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by Steve J
Originally Posted by dayjay:

You can change the way it orders music Foxman, I have been putting it in file order and then sorting by group and then album, works really well for my needs and is very fast.  Allen, I also went with the basic new model and have had no problems with the memory or processor speed so far.  Could you hear a difference with the USB lead over a standard one?  I'm using the supplied one with my Hugo.  At some point I will try  a Thunderbolt drive and see if I can hear an improvement over my Nas over ethernet but all in all I'm impressed

A Thunderbolt WD Drive makes life very simple. 

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by nickpeacock

I am (well was - being temporarily hugoless) trialling Audirvana+. I'd quite like to stay outside iTunes, as I haven't used iTunes as playback software for many years. I'm assuming, but it's not intuitive, that the Audirvana playlist function is akin to the iTunes playlist function...

 

Being used to programmes which use a play queue system (Sonos, Naim app, even Synology DS Audio) this feels like going back to school. My brain hurts...

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by Foxman50

Allen, i wish i had tried this while i still had the Aurender. I will try to do my best to compare the two and do some words tomorrow. Ordering all sorted although it clearly has issue with around 30 albums. I have just tried my one and only DSD128 album and this played a couple of tracks without issue. In fact you can see the loading progress in the play bar. takes a few seconds so don't understand why the Aurender has an issue. 

 

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by dayjay

I had a look at Roon earlier, it looks interesting and the cost wasn't as high as I thought it would be - twice what I pay per year for my virus protection.  If it gets to the same sq as Audirvana I would probably give it a try.  I believe that Audirvana sounds better not in ITunes mode but have compared it because I hate ITunes.

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by Steve J

The 'modern' iTunes isn't too bad now. I use it for CD quality files, the majority of my collection with AV 1.5 in iTunes Integrated Mode, but switch this off to play DSF and HiRes FLAC dragging the files directly into AV. I trialled AV 2.0 but preferred to manage my files with iTunes. There was no appreciable SQ improvement with AV 2.0 over 1.5.

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by Foxman50
Originally Posted by AllenB:
 

Ahh well, hopefully, the Aurender performance is still fairly fresh in your memory banks. But you did seem to have a few problems with it initially, thought you sorted it, but did something else not work as expected?

No all was good except playing DSD you would get a couple of pauses during the album. Paul at HiFi Lounge contacted Aurender and suggests its the network. Thing is the Auralic Aries and mac work fine. Anyway theres an easy work around for it. Have to say this is pretty bloody good though.

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by Foxman50

Is there a way to add iradio stations to Audirvana ?

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by Foxman50

Don't really want to get into itunes. No big thing would be nice though. It's definitely not on the same level as the Aurender to be honest but maybe it could be if the power supply mods etc. i wonder what the full uptone audio works would sound like. 

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by Foxman50
Originally Posted by AllenB:

Apparently a linear PS upgrade to the Mini makes a big difference, hopefully James can report back on this soon. The full works from Uptone, i.e. JS2, MMX and Regen (on USB) will set you back quite a few pennies, but potentially pushes the modest Mini to a very potent source. By all or many accounts.

 Indeed, i had previously enquired about this although i would expect the shipping on the PSU to be prohibitively expensive. But then again if the cost hassle of all this maybe gets it on a par with the Aurender is it really worth it. Very hard to say really

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by dayjay
Originally Posted by Foxman50:
Originally Posted by AllenB:

Apparently a linear PS upgrade to the Mini makes a big difference, hopefully James can report back on this soon. The full works from Uptone, i.e. JS2, MMX and Regen (on USB) will set you back quite a few pennies, but potentially pushes the modest Mini to a very potent source. By all or many accounts.

 Indeed, i had previously enquired about this although i would expect the shipping on the PSU to be prohibitively expensive. But then again if the cost hassle of all this maybe gets it on a par with the Aurender is it really worth it. Very hard to say really

The conversion board is pretty cheap but their psu was damned expensive

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by Foxman50

Meant to be one of the better sounding ones though. And can power the Regen too which is meant to improve it also

Posted on: 10 June 2015 by likesmusic

Wat, instead of spending money on what might end up being a rats nest of USB purifiers/split cables etc. why not put the money towards a Hugo TT which has a completely galvanically isolated USB input? I believe Rob Watts has said that the USB input of the TT is the best sounding. (I am asking myself the same question BTW)

Posted on: 11 June 2015 by likesmusic
Originally Posted by Wat:

Agree Likes .... I'm waiting for Dave before deciding if its Hugo TT or Dave. 

 

Already have iFI gadgetary. Used it with Naim DAC & 'twas even more of rat's nest as had Stello U3 USB to S/PDIF converter in mix too. So MM, Wireworld USB, iFI iUSB PS, Gemini, iPurifier, Stello U3, MG Coax, DAC, 555PS. For a while, used a TEAC UD501 DAC because it could play DSD & gadgetary transformed UD501 (no isolation in TEAC async USB). Then Hugo came out & the game changed. 

 

My attitude with Hugo was "have this gadetary so why not use it" but doesn't look as nice as MM into Hugo TT. I'd definitely do as you suggest & was going to when along came Dave. So decided to wait & hear Dave vs Hugo TT. Hopefully, I'll prefer TT 

 

Just thought gadgetary adds up to more than price of 2Qute ..... No wonder those two men in white coats keep hovering by my door. 

 

 

Cheers Wat. I am on horns of similar dilemma .. have a very decent offer from a dealer of a TT for £2k + my Hugo and am very tempted... otoh DAVE is more money than I should spend, but then life is finite and what's money for ..

Posted on: 11 June 2015 by Foxman50

Waiting for my TT to be delivered