Naim System based On Mac Mini

It is easy. MAC MIN to USB cable to DAC V1 to Nap 100. Add speakers of choice or headphones and your done. If you are headphone alone, delete the NAP 100.

Not only easy, but really good!

ATB from George

Halloween Man posted:

sharik posted:

 

which one is best in terms of sound quality, mac mini or macbook pro?

 

they should sound exactly the same if using usb 2 output to dac. perhaps one emits more RFI than the other which might explain any sonic differences. btw use usb 2 if possible as usb 3 has known RFI issues.

They don't sound the same.  I've had a Mm, MacBook Pro, a PC laptop and a PC server into a Hugo on the same system with the quality of sound following in that order.  The pro was good but not as good as the MM.  With the server you could actually hear electrical noise within the music.  All this guff about digital sources sounding the same into the same dac is utter rubbish in my experience - every source I've tried, including a number of streamers has sounded different. 

digital is just that, on or off, bit perfect or not, black and white - the digital data is the same. any audible differences may be due to rfi\emi but if the neccessary precautions are taken and the dac has a galvanic isolation then i very much doubt there would be any audible difference in blind listening tests. not guff.

One reason the MacMini and MacBookPro may not sound the same could be due to which USB is selected. It's important to select a hi-speed Bus not shared with another function such as IR or Bluetooth. 

On my MacMini I have USB hubs which are free for the DAC connection.

..but on the (older) MBP I don't.

Looking at this thread, James N's post makes real sense as a starter.  Also, only USB seems to have been considered.  Optical SPDIF outs from the MBP and MM have low jitter and optics doesn't have the RFI and EMI issues.  So, that is also a route, if the OP doesn't mind the 24/96 ceiling. Check out posts from Guido Fawkes on the MM.

Halloween Man posted:

digital is just that, on or off, bit perfect or not, black and white - the digital data is the same. any audible differences may be due to rfi\emi but if the neccessary precautions are taken and the dac has a galvanic isolation then i very much doubt there would be any audible difference in blind listening tests. not guff.

I won't argue with you because I have tried it and heard it - regardless of what causes the differences there have been differences in every different digital transport I have tried, otherwise I would be using my WD Live streamer at a cost of £80 and not a Mac Mini with assorted adaptations and cables.  Lots of people on here will talk about the differences in Naim streamers via a dac let alone different makes and computers.  We'll be saying cables can't make an audible difference next 

what is perhaps telling is that chord included a very basic (but fine) usb and optical cable with the tt - i suspect they dont think you really need much else. my wife and i did a blind listening test (my wife is very tolerant and understanding!) between usb and optical and neither could tell the difference. she has better ears than me.

i used to have wd my cloud and thought it was great but upgraded to the mac mini to store and play my itunes library and control it using iphone.

when using hugo i used optical, with tt ive gone usb.

If it works for you it's all good.  My findings, in my system, are different but that only really matters to me.  As long as we are both happy with the sound the getting there doesn't matter

Steve J posted:

One reason the MacMini and MacBookPro may not sound the same could be due to which USB is selected. It's important to select a hi-speed Bus not shared with another function such as IR or Bluetooth. 

On my MacMini I have USB hubs which are free for the DAC connection.

..but on the (older) MBP I don't.

I can confirm that this is also the case on my 2013 MacBook Air... there's no option to allocate a free USB out for the DAC.

Mayor West posted:

Steve J posted:

One reason the MacMini and MacBookPro may not sound the same could be due to which USB is selected. It's important to select a hi-speed Bus not shared with another function such as IR or Bluetooth. 

On my MacMini I have USB hubs which are free for the DAC connection.

..but on the (older) MBP I don't.

I can confirm that this is also the case on my 2013 MacBook Air... there's no option to allocate a free USB out for the DAC.

I may be missing something here, but is it necessary to 'allocate' a free USB port - that sounds like you have to go into some settings menu I'm not aware of and configure it? I'd have thought it was just a case of making sure no other USB ports were in use at the time. 

Basically, for highest quality = minimum interference from anything, it is best to have a USB port doing nothing else. Mac Mini allows that. mm also readily allows running 'headless', with no video output creating electrical noise, nor keyboard or mouse, and is chap enough to consider allowing dedicated music use (but available for other things when not playing music - mine doubles as a video server through Apple TV to projector for home cinema). Also if running Audirvana, best quality is using Its own library and ditching iTunes.

All the talk of isolators and SPDIF comnvertors etc is just to get highest quality - by quite a few estimates on this forum capable of exceeding the quality of Naim streamers when also using Hugo as DAC, which considering the cost is quite something. But it will also work quite satisfactorily at every stage from this down to using the iTunes library in Audirvana and MMs audio output into audio input of an amp, which creates range of upgrade options, so you don't have to start at the top, but can rest assured that any investment is capable of getting to a very high quality level.

Other Macs can work, but concensus seems to be that there may be greater electrical noise for a variety of reasons, while possibly the cost makes dedicated music use less financially jjustifiable, all limiting potential maximum sound quality.

So the answer to which Mac is better depends on your quality desires - though if you already have a Mac other than a Mini nothing is lost starting that way, as everything can always later be transferred to a MM if you decide to go the whole hog.

There’s nothing wrong with unmodified iTunes in a Mac Mini. I sometimes think that the persuit of quality tends to put people off! It is quite easy to arrange for Mini to provide a really good digital source either by SPISF or USB to a competent DAC without any further fiddle than simply plugging it all together and pressing play on your favourite music.

Set the iTunes volume to full output, and “Bob’s your uncle.” Job done ...

ATB from George

point taken... btw, not only on this forum but elsewhere, those who had an opportunity to compare the both would claim that mac mini betters macbook pro.

Halloween Man posted:

digital is just that, on or off, bit perfect or not, black and white - the digital data is the same. any audible differences may be due to rfi\emi but if the neccessary precautions are taken and the dac has a galvanic isolation then i very much doubt there would be any audible difference in blind listening tests. not guff.

Halloween Man.. just a point of note - digital encoded signals in many audio transport protocols are indeed logical bit representations using different voltages, phases or light levels - and typically more voltages than two - 100Mbps Ethernet uses three voltages using a Manchester encoding at around 31 MHz  for example .. however with realtime audio like with many USB protocols, SPDIF and UDP Ethernet transmissions its the timing of the digital data is as important as the data itself.

So digital transmission usually has three values.. On, Off, and Time, and the 'On' and 'Off' values are physical abstractions.

Time can be the hardest one to manage... so ultimately its not black and white - which in why data comms several protocol layers are used to recover or present the data into a suitably reliable form. A static digital representation of information - I agree is black and white - when you move it - it becomes less so.

Finally you quite correctly mention RF/EM interference - and then Galvanic isolation. Galvanic Isolation has no way of preventing EM or RF unless it purely resides in a noisy ground. The sole purpose of Galvanic isolation is to prevent earth loops by breaking the DC path between two devices and only allow the higher frequency or AC elements across it - which can include RF.

There are precautions one can take to mitigate and minimise RFI from Ethernet and USB for example  (as per a Texas Instruments Ethernet interfacing engineering design guide I have posted several times on the forum) but ultimately it is exceedingly difficult if not impossible to eliminate entirely. From an engineering point of view - you can work to reduce it so its affects are in or close to the noise floor. However that still doesn't mean its not noticeable by some.

Simon

George Fredrik Fiske posted:

There’s nothing wrong with unmodified iTunes in a Mac Mini. I sometimes think that the persuit of quality tends to put people off! It is quite easy to arrange for Mini to provide a really good digital source either by SPISF or USB to a competent DAC without any further fiddle than simply plugging it all together and pressing play on your favourite music.

Set the iTunes volume to full output, and “Bob’s your uncle.” Job done ...

ATB from George

Yes, as I indicated in my previous post an advantage of the Mac Mini approach is that the setup can be quite basic, or through judicious setup can challenge some of the best sources around for quality, and with several levels in between someone can pick a level of simplicity or sound quality, and either stick there of have a simple upgrade path if they wish to improve. I found quite a noticeable difference in quality between using the Mac Mini's own soundcard output (optical) to Hugo and allowing Audirvana to bypass it to USB, the former being a retrograde step for me, but for someone presently only using the MM's audio output direct to an amp, the simple addition of a DAC is likely to work wonders, the better the DAC the better the result (and the greater the potential if a few other minor changes are made).

Regarding iTunes, Audirvana allow use of iTunes as an interface, presumably because so many people will be familiar, however they claim the best sound quality in their app requires abandoning iTunes, but I get the impression the difference may be marginal. I haven't compared myself as I was never a fan of iTunes and quite happy not to have to use it, but I agree,  those familiar with, or even liking, iTunes don't have to change, and only if everything else is set up as well as possible might it be worth comparing the alternative interface.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Regarding iTunes, Audirvana allow use of iTunes as an interface, presumably because so many people will be familiar, however they claim the best sound quality in their app requires abandoning iTunes, but I get the impression the difference may be marginal. I haven't compared myself as I was never a fan of iTunes and quite happy not to have to use it, but I agree,  those familiar with, or even liking, iTunes don't have to change, and only if everything else is set up as well as possible might it be worth comparing the alternative interface.

Yes it made quite an appreciable difference removing iTunes integration with Audivarna. I'd always used the iTunes interface as my mini ran headless and i could control the library via the Remote app on my iPad. Removing iTunes integration meant using my laptop and VNC to screen share my mini and the increase in SQ made up for the less slick interface. There is now an app available to control Audivarna directly. I've not used this app myself as i don't use the Mini as a direct source anymore but i hear from others that it's good. The USB Regen is a great tweak too and worked very well in my system but as i mentioned in my previous post, get the DAC first and then worry about the icing on the cake tweaks later. 

James

Mayor West posted:

likesmusic posted:

Computers are inherently incredibly electrically noisy devices, and DACs are potentially very sensitive, so I reckon that if you want to use a mac or pc with a DAC then either your DAC should be galvanically isolated or you should use a box like the Intona USB isolator to achieve a similar goal.  The DAC V1 and a Hugo TT are galvanically isolated, a straight Hugo isn't.  Elsewhere, Rob Watts has said that the Intona "looks like an interesting and useful device." There are other isolators available, but afaik none support USB 2.0..

FWIW, I prefered the Hugo over the 2Qute via USB despite the 2Qute having a galvanically isolated input. I know they're different DAC's but I would have expected the 2Qute to have the edge.

Haven't tried a 2Qute, but the Hugo TT that replaced my Hugo was a much bigger improvement than I was expecting. Whether it was the galvanic isolation or the other features that Rob has mentioned recently elsewhere I don't know, but it is absolutely splendid. iirc Rob has also said ithat he could hear differences between pcs with the Hugo, so it's possible that people's experiences will vary - and of course as he has also said, some may prefer the brightness of an unisolated source.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Basically, for highest quality = minimum interference from anything, it is best to have a USB port doing nothing else. Mac Mini allows that. mm also readily allows running 'headless', with no video output creating electrical noise, nor keyboard or mouse, and is chap enough to consider allowing dedicated music use (but available for other things when not playing music - mine doubles as a video server through Apple TV to projector for home cinema). Also if running Audirvana, best quality is using Its own library and ditching iTunes.

All the talk of isolators and SPDIF comnvertors etc is just to get highest quality - by quite a few estimates on this forum capable of exceeding the quality of Naim streamers when also using Hugo as DAC, which considering the cost is quite something. But it will also work quite satisfactorily at every stage from this down to using the iTunes library in Audirvana and MMs audio output into audio input of an amp, which creates range of upgrade options, so you don't have to start at the top, but can rest assured that any investment is capable of getting to a very high quality level.

Other Macs can work, but concensus seems to be that there may be greater electrical noise for a variety of reasons, while possibly the cost makes dedicated music use less financially jjustifiable, all limiting potential maximum sound quality.

So the answer to which Mac is better depends on your quality desires - though if you already have a Mac other than a Mini nothing is lost starting that way, as everything can always later be transferred to a MM if you decide to go the whole hog.

Hi, any experience or recommendations with a C2009 iMac? 

I compared mac os using various audio softwares (Audirvana, Pure Music, Amarra ..) to windows (using Jriver ks) and to linux and windows system was better (as much as I wanted linux to be the best it was not the case, even in a minimal configuration it was still third). Even further, because you can switch off the user interface and have a minimal system (Audiophil optimiser is realy good, highly recommended) the audio quality from windows is the best you can get from a computer (to my ears). You can easily install windows on a mac mini. 

I also compared optical output (using various cables chord, qed, van der hul) vs coaxial (using a usb converter) and there is no contest, coaxial was better in all cases. 

cristianr posted:

I compared mac os using various audio softwares (Audirvana, Pure Music, Amarra ..) to windows (using Jriver ks) and to linux and windows system was better (as much as I wanted linux to be the best it was not the case, even in a minimal configuration it was still third). Even further, because you can switch off the user interface and have a minimal system (Audiophil optimiser is realy good, highly recommended) the audio quality from windows is the best you can get from a computer (to my ears). You can easily install windows on a mac mini. 

I also compared optical output (using various cables chord, qed, van der hul) vs coaxial (using a usb converter) and there is no contest, coaxial was better in all cases. 

Interesting cristianr, thanks for your wrap-up! I would be interested to know which players have you tested in which linux distribution. Best, nbpf

Cheekymonkey71 posted:

Hi, any experience or recommendations with a C2009 iMac? 

I don't know that machine at all. For any Mac the minimum spec for Audirvana is 64bit, running  OSX 9 (preferably 10+), and minimum 2GB RAM, pref 4+. Audirvana loads each 'song' fully into RAM before playing, so needs enough free RAM to be able to do that with the longest of songs (which could be a whole piece in the case of some classical or prog rock music), and at whatever might be the highest resolution, so the more RAM the better.

Nbpf, I used a debian based distribution called voyage mpd. It is a minimal install without a graphical interface. I also used another purposely build audio distribution called audiophile linux (it is based on arch) with deadbeaf as audio player (a regular distro would have been the same, just wanted something tuned a little out of the box). I think the problem with linux audio quality is alsa and I wonder how good oss is. I would be very interested to test oss but it is difficult because there are no drivers for most modern interfaces. Freebsd has oss as the default sound system.

cristianr posted:

Nbpf, I used a debian based distribution called voyage mpd. It is a minimal install without a graphical interface. I also used another purposely build audio distribution called audiophile linux (it is based on arch) with deadbeaf as audio player (a regular distro would have been the same, just wanted something tuned a little out of the box). I think the problem with linux audio quality is alsa and I wonder how good oss is. I would be very interested to test oss but it is difficult because there are no drivers for most modern interfaces. Freebsd has oss as the default sound system.

Thanks cristianr! There seems to be little consensus about the differences in sound quality of Windows, OS X and Linux based systems. Short before Christmas I received an assessment from a dealer (not a Naim dealer) who had compared Linux/MPD to  Windows/Audiophile-Optimizer/JRiver. His finding was that the first was "significantly better" than the latter. Your findings are exactly the opposite. I have no findings. I came across posts in this forum arguing that there is something like an MPD sound and another sound (I do not remember whether JRiver or something else) and that they are different. I am also wondering how much of these assessments can be explained in terms of different subjective preferences or habits. If I remember correctly, you were not very fond of the new DAC firmware upgrade, for instance. I found it to be an improvement over the previous firmware. I agree that it would be nice to have more systematic comparisons between the many options but this is a difficult and time consuming enterprise, I'm afraid. Best, nbpf

It is a very subjective assesment indeed, best is to test yourself. We each look for different characteristics (I am looking for flow, involvement, the need to turn it louder and sing along in detriment of stereo image, details ..) Testing linux is quite easy using live distros that can be booted from a usb stick so at least a linux - mac or linux - windows should be easy to do.

Innocent Bystander posted:

For any Mac the minimum spec for Audirvana is 64bit, running  OSX 9 (preferably 10+), and minimum 2GB RAM, pref 4+.

ok, and what is minimum requirements for the processor, say, would 1.4Hz be enough to play audio & video without pops/gaps etc?