Naim System based On Mac Mini

I suspect a 1.4Hz processor might be just a tad slow, and might only handle infrasonic music...

However, assuming an invisible M, The straight answer is I don't know - it seems very slow, but I'm not overfamiliar with Macs. Re audio, I would have thought if it is a 64 bit processor running OSX9+ without problem it ought to be able to work with Audirvana, but to be sure ask them. Audirvana locks on play, so you can't do video at the same time. If question is video alone, that will depend on many things including resolution and frame rate, and someone else to answer not me!

simon, good points and i totally agree with you. i didnt think timing in digital audio was so much of an issuse these days, any decent dac should manage timing so you dont have to worry about it. the timing is also digital, on or off. 

i agree there's not much u can do if u sit your amp and hugo next to a microwave emitting rfi but the usb galvanic isolator means pc signal is clean and should not have no bearing on sound.

Hmm - the galvanic isolator won't clean a signal other than  it will prevent an earth loop with the PC which in itself will most likely cause a 50/60Hz induced voltage into the ground. High frequency/radio frequency electrical noise that is conducted in common mode will not impeded by a galvanic (DC) isolator. 

Also i might have mis understood your point on time - but time is certainly not digital - it is a dimension - but quantum physics is not a strong card of mine...

ChrisSU posted:

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. 

Chris,

It's easy to open the windows I showed above. Click the Apple logo in the top left hand corner and select About This Mac, in the window that opens click System Report and et voila. Search for USB in the left hand column.

Steve

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, I compared Audirvana 2 to JRiver and prefered the former.  Audirvana optimises the Mac anyway when playing and captures the sound system.  I don't use it in Itunes mode because a) I hate iTunes and b) it sounds better not in iTunes mode.  Just to save time any posts in favour of iTunes and how great it is won't change my view.   I bought my Mac to try it out against a couple of streamers and so bought a fairly basic spec but it works just fine and I have kept it and not the streamers.  With hindsight I would get more memory if buying again which would allow a larger buffer to be selected but even with 4 gb I can play DSD and 24 bit easily.  Initially I only used the Mac for music but it is so good for video I now use it for that too and have moved by WD live box upstairs.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Hmm - the galvanic isolator won't clean a signal other than  it will prevent an earth loop with the PC which in itself will most likely cause a 50/60Hz induced voltage into the ground. High frequency/radio frequency electrical noise that is conducted in common mode will not impeded by a galvanic (DC) isolator. 

Also i might have mis understood your point on time - but time is certainly not digital - it is a dimension - but quantum physics is not a strong card of mine...

According to Mr Watts, designer of Hugo, isolating usb will lower rf noise into the ground plane of Hugo. Clean enough for him to consider USB better than optical as a result. If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me (I could not actually tell the difference between usb and optical).

I meant the audio clock is digital, most obviously not time itself

surely if itunes, jriver, and audirvana all output bit perfect they should all sound the same? sorry to bang on again about this, maybe it's my ageing ears! i did try bit perfect but got issues, soundwise no different to itunes.

 If you have lots of processes running in a PC and hard drives and USB ports being accessed etc etc it will generate noise.  I have less experience of other players but Audirvana kills those background tasks and uses particular playing processes that undoubtedly improves the sound.  It's very easy to check 

i see but if going optical or isolated usb the noise isnt going anywhere anyway?

I wouldn't know, my USB is not isolated as I am using a Hugo.  If Simon is correct, and he usually is, perhaps an isolated USB does not stop all types of noise, I can't really comment.  What I can say is that it make more sense to me to stop noise at source rather than further down the chain.  On my Hugo using Audirvana was a very clear improvement on other players and adding in a USB regen, which regenerates the signal and cuts the voltage from the Mac and replaces it with a cleaner feed was something of a revelation for it price.  If you find you can't hear a difference and you are happy with what Itunes gives you then you don't need any of this but others do seem to hear a difference in players for whatever reason that may be.

I found that the Audirvana Mac Mini Dedicated USB output into Hugo didn't sound as good as my reference (ND5XS), the difference consistent with RF noise. I added a USB isolator/spdif convertor (Gustard UQ12) as mentioned in an earlier post, which improved it dramatically, to be better than the reference.

Evident in previous threads is that not everyone seems to have experienced the same degree of RF effect, and very likely individual MMs vary, and location may have an effect. If it sounds good direct then fine, but be prepared to add a usbSPDIF convertor/isolator, or something with similar effect, if the sound quality isn't all you desire. May be different with different DACs.

I wonder if someone can advise me on the best way to connect a MM and an nDac?

Many thanks

Steve J posted:

ChrisSU posted:

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. 

Chris,

It's easy to open the windows I showed above. Click the Apple logo in the top left hand corner and select About This Mac, in the window that opens click System Report and et voila. Search for USB in the left hand column.

Steve

Hi Steve,

I realise you can view USB hub info in in this way, so I see you might be able to use this to check how things are connected. I suppose I was idly wondering if the USB selected, chosen, turned off or whatever but obviously that's not the case, and all you can do in System Report is view info (unsurprisingly!)

Take my MacBook Pro, for example; it has 2 USB sockets. It doesn't make any difference which one I use, System Report shows the same info. So I take it there's only one USB bus, and everything is on that. On the other hand, I have an iMac with 2 USB Buses. Depending on which of the 4 ports I use, an external device can be connected to either. On one, it will be shared with the Face Time camera and Bluetooth controller, or on the other, with the IR receiver and card reader. So there's no way to give your audio device 'exclusive' use of a USB bus.

Maybe this doesn't matter in practice, I don't know. If you have a dedicated music-only Mac Mini you wouldn't be using these built-in USB functions, and Bluetooth, at least, can be turned off.

OK, I'll shut up now, and go back to my Unitiserve  

Perhaps thats one of the reasons why the Mac Mini seems to be most recommended and most popular for this use, as well as being small, silent, cheap, and able to run 'headless'...

Audirvana's manual does have a note on selecting USB port, though I'm not sure it's any more than mentioned above.

Davidr, probably the best is to use a usb - spdif converter. There are many options, from cheap to expensive. I am using a cheap one called hiface (about 50 euro at the moment) and it is very good. It is true that mine has a small mod regading the power supply (it is powered from the naim dac usb port instead of the computer). The computers motherboards are build with eficiency and cost in mind and they do not provide the cleanest current. It is a good ideea to find one powered externaly by a battery or an external power supply if you do not want to get involved in diy. I tested the hiface against another converter called audiophileo (used by naim as well in dac v1) but there is something special about the m2tech technology (initial one with custom fpga code not the latest hiface 2 based on xmos chips). But there are many converter to choose from that are newer (amanero technology based seem to be highly recommended).

Davidr posted:

I wonder if someone can advise me on the best way to connect a MM and an nDac?

Many thanks

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...-for-naim-dac?page=1

Davidr posted:

I wonder if someone can advise me on the best way to connect a MM and an nDac?

Many thanks

I'm perfectly happy with Audiophilleo2+PurePower

Instead of MM I would use a MacBook (Air, Pro) as this can run on battery and the noisy powersupply can be removed for serious listening

p. posted:

Davidr posted:

I wonder if someone can advise me on the best way to connect a MM and an nDac?

Many thanks

I'm perfectly happy with Audiophilleo2+PurePower

Instead of MM I would use a MacBook (Air, Pro) as this can run on battery and the noisy powersupply can be removed for serious listening

That might not guarantee lack of RF, as although it removes the primary switch mode power supply source of noise, I believe there may be other noisy power supply regulators on the motherboard, and other sources of RF associated with the high frequency bus and its associated. But it is easy to try if you have a MBP already.

DavidR. If you use a USB external hard drive the bestt solution is via firewire or thunderbolt use a Weiss interface.  If you use a FireWire or thunderplt drive then usb via a convert. I use the former.

Innocent Bystander posted:

p. posted:

Davidr posted:

I wonder if someone can advise me on the best way to connect a MM and an nDac?

Many thanks

I'm perfectly happy with Audiophilleo2+PurePower

Instead of MM I would use a MacBook (Air, Pro) as this can run on battery and the noisy powersupply can be removed for serious listening

That might not guarantee lack of RF, as although it removes the primary switch mode power supply source of noise, I believe there may be other noisy power supply regulators on the motherboard, and other sources of RF associated with the high frequency bus and its associated. But it is easy to try if you have a MBP already.

Did anyone compare Mac Mini with MacBook Air? I don't have a MM so can't do the comparison - would be curious to learn more about the performance of the different Macs

just found out mac mini has no remote but then how do i operate it?

sharik posted:

 

just found out mac mini has no remote but then how do i operate it?

 

To set it up ititially, a screen and keyboard are essential, install VNC Remote control software (the free version works fine), then you can disconnect averything and control it from any other computer (after installing VNC Viewer), including an iPad - it's just like having a Remote Desktop.  VNC is a bit odd on an iPad because you have to remember that your're using a touchscreen device to move a mouse cursor on an non-touchscreen device, but it works fine. If you use Audirvana there is an iPad/iPhone app available, which once all is set up is slightly simpler than using VNC, going back to VNC just when you want to do anything with the MM settings, or install updates etc.

The apple 'remote' app will control a headless MM via and iPhone/iPad o long as you stick with iTunes. 

Innocent Bystander posted:

install VNC Remote control software (the free version works fine), then you can disconnect averything and control it from any other computer

even from a macbook?

sharik posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

install VNC Remote control software (the free version works fine), then you can disconnect averything and control it from any other computer

even from a macbook?

 

Yes, I'm sure you can. Ive used on a desktop PC and a PC laptop,  and an iPad. Check VNC website to be certain.

However, I have in mind that macs might be able to control each other without bothering with VNC, though as I don't have another Mac computer to check.