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Advice on best upgrade path for a Mac Mini setup

Hi all,

My beloved PWT transport was shipped out for service last week, so in the mean time I decided to experiment with the Mac Mini which usually resides in my 2nd system. It was no surprise that it doesn't even come close to the PWT, but it sounds OK, and now i'm curious as of what I can achieve with it without spending another $2K.

It's a stock Mac Mini about 2 years old with an SSD drive.
I'm using it to stream TIDAL Hi-Fi.
I have it hooked up to a Schiit Wyrd USB re-generator via a Pangea silver USB 2 cable, which in turn is feeding my DSD via a WireWorld Starlight 7 USB 2 cable.
My thinking was that the Mac-to-Schiit path will be less critical in terms of cables, as it gets regenerated anyway, but I'm open to listen and learn...
That "Wyrd Schiit" re-generator did make quite a noticeable positive impact when I hooked it up in my 2nd system.

My question is - what will be the best bang-for-the-buck upgrades? 

I guess the switching power supply is a weak link so I looked at Mojo Audio stuff and those prices seem unreasonable - they want more for their power supply than what I paid for my PWT (including its superb power supply).
Any other recommended power supply upgrade kits?
I'm good with DIY and can probably do the upgrade myself.

Perhaps go with much better cables? Better isolation? Better re-generator?
What did you guys try that proved to really do the "magic" for similar setups?
Perhaps it is a 'losing battle' and it will never sound nearly as good as my PWT without spending $2K in upgrades?

Thanks for your advice!

Ami

128x128ami
sbank's avatar
sbank
3,379 posts
 
@jond Yes, I have the microRendu USB output connected directly to the USB input on the back of my Schiit Gungnir Multibit, with the hard adapter that is included with purchase. You can see pic on my system page. It's smaller than a deck of cards. 
Heard good things about Sbooster psu, but haven't heard it myself. Cheers, 
Spencer 
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jond's avatar
jond
5,899 posts
 
@sbank Great looking room and system thanks for sharing and love the title! That's some badass looking power supply you have for the microRendu, similarly the Sbooster dwarfs the little Aries 10x5x3 and 4 pounds where the Aries is like two cd's stacked.
ghosthouse's avatar
ghosthouse
4,318 posts
 
Gents - FWIW, have ordered the Aries Mini.  Hoping set up is not too problematic.  Downloaded Lightning DS to my iPhone.  Plan to the feed ALAC files to the Aries from a an external powered USB Hard Drive and output via Coax to my Gungnir.  A bit anxious about set up and time to index the hard drive files.  Going to live with the stock power supply a while before any move towards a PSU upgrade.  
jond's avatar
jond
5,899 posts
 
@ghosthouse  congrats! Setup was very easy should not take long at all plus Auralic has a good support staff who answered a few questions I had quickly. It sounds fine with the stock power supply, one thing I would recommend run it on the 5ghz band, that's what I do and have not had a single dropout since setting it up. I can't remember how long it took to import and index my library but I feel like it was much quicker than Sonos which I had before the Aries. Happy listening!
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