2. pc-audio
  3. 1105542684

Mini Mac as audio server?

OK, I've existed in blissful ignorance of the OSX world, being a Windows dude. But, this little miniMac thing might change my world. Small enuf to stick next to the stereo... Cheap enuf too... With DVI and DVD, probably eliminates my DVD player as well. Check it out:

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore/

Sooo, someone wanna educate a non-OSX user on audio via Macs? Right now I'm 70% through ripping over 1K CDs to WAV files. I'm thinking the files will eventually end up on one of the Buffalo Terabyte NAS RAID 5 devices when they become available next month. So... the questions...

- Can I play the WAV files via iTunes?
- Is iTunes smart enuf to recognize that I've dropped the files into /Artist/Album directory format and create tags?
- Anyone using an Edirol UA-1D via USB out of the Mac? Any compatibility issues?
- Anything better to do PCM output from the Mac than the Edirol?
- If I watch a DVD, and output the video to my plasma via the DVI port, will the Apple media software recognize that I want PCM output, not multichannel?

Any help appreciated.
edesilva
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
Hey Ed,

Mac-Curious?

Welcome aboard, heheh.

So you saw the info coming in from MacWorld and their new announcements, eh? Cool!

I'm not sure, but I think you should have no problem playing WAV files through iTunes. I downloaded an album from Magnatunes.com in WAV format and burned it to CD. I never played it through iTunes though. Every CD I import through iTunes I do so in Apple Lossless format, and that's what gets burned onto my iPod.

RAID 5?!! Wholly shit! Not taking any chances with speed or loss of data are you?

On initial launch, iTunes will ask you to locate the library from which you want to import all your songs from. In OSX, just navigate to that folder and import those songs. You'll then be able to organize them according to genre, artist, album, etc. in iTunes.

As for the Edirol, I'm no help there. I've been hearing questions about how best to interface it with a Mac, but still no answers.

I use a fast multi-processor machine at work for Photoshop retouching, but at home a hotrodded Apple Cube works fine for me when using iTunes, iDVD, iMovie, and sometimes even Maya. But, this Mac Mini occupies about one fourth the volume of my little Cube. Pretty neat. I can see it being an ideal web hosting machine, data or music server.

I'm waiting for an announcement that a university is buying 10,000 of these little fellas to cluster into the fastest computer on earth.
edesilva OP
768 posts
 
Thx Gunbei... I think I'm going to pull the trigger. I like the DVI output->EDTV Plasma/iTunes concept. I've been using Edirol UA-1Ds for USB audio, but this seems like a good opportunity to pick up a waveterminal and do a comparison (I gather the U24 does not, like the Edirol, resample to 48 kHz sampling rate). Should be fun to play with in any event.
Post removed 
edesilva OP
768 posts
 
By iPod mini, do you mean iPod Shuffle? That is the new one--the iPod mini has been out a while..

iPod Shuffle has no display -> no track selection -> :(

Gunbei, RAID 5 is a lot more efficient than mirroring and gets you redundancy... B'sides, given how bloody long its taken me to rip 700+ CDs (I'm about 70% of the way done), I am *not* doing this again. $1K for the new Buffalo thingamajiggie (don't worry Tvad, more computer talk) seems a small price to pay for piece of mind... Hot swappable drives, etc. With the RAID 5, it only nets you 700 GB of storage or so, but it is NAS as well, so I can get at 'em from anywhere on my home ethernet...
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