Dummy Guide on What's Needed to hook up Mini Mac

"I did some looking at the Apple web site and saw the Mac Book laptop. It has it all. Does this seem like a good option?

I can get a Mac Book laptop for $1099 and a PS Audio Link III USB DAC for $995. Is this a good option?

Can I send a signal wireless from the Mac Book to the USB DAC or is there sound quality loss? "

That's what I have as of last friday. The PS Audio sounds great. I do have twin Western Digital 500G HDs for storage and backup. You can use a sonos or Squeezebox to get the music to the DAC wirelessly but this does add some more hardware. I found the squeezebox on its own in stock form did not sound as good as the Macbook directly into the dac. If I'm not ripping music I can not hear the Macbbok.

Next will be top get an ipod touch to remote control itunes.

The advantage of the MacMini and MacBook and iMac is that all are very quiet. The latest Mac operating system requires 512mb just to run the OS, so you need a gig of ram to really run smoothly. MacBook should work just fine, but native hard drive space is a bit more limited. That should not matter if you are ripping your iTunes to an external drive. I don't know anything at all about the PS Audio DAC you mentioned. I can tell you that in general, and in my experience, you get more bang for you $ buying from small, passionate manufacturers who don't spend big bucks on advertising and frills (fancy packing and slick hardware). On your recap of what you need: yes, keyboard and mouse necessary with MacMini and come with iMac. None necessary with MacBook. USB cable needed if one does not come with DAC. Not sure what you need a second one for since the peripherals all have them included (keyboard and mouse). Analog RCA cables to go from DAC to amp. My suggestion was that you get two external hard drives, one of which is for backup of your music library. I don't suggest you store you music library on your native hard drive if it is of any significant size and you are ripping lossless files. It tends to grow, in my experience. I haven't owned any external hard drives that have been so noisy as to bother me when listening to music. I don't think you need a firewire drive for storing and accessing a music library via itunes, but that interface is certainly fast. iTunes and music streaming are not at all very demanding on a computer or memory. A USB interface hard drive, even USB 1.0 should be more than adequate on a Mac, especially if dedicated to music. I say that in light of someone's recommendation for firewire in that a Firewire drive is likely to cost more. It would be my preference too, but if I were trying to save money, I'd just look for a quiet USB drive. There are plenty out there.

On the question regarding a G5 tower and soundcards; it is my understanding that it is best to do all your conversions outside of the otherwise noisy electronic environment of your computer in a dedicated converter as opposed to using a sound card inside the computer. For your upsampling question regarding the G5 I'd suggest asking Steve Nugent at Empirical Audio, and or checking out what he has to offer in that realm. Definitely take the conversion outside the computer, though. This is not specific to the question of the original poster though - a USB DAC suits this purpose in your case.

Marco

IMO, don't use a laptop for a music server. imac's are great (i got my wife a new 24" imac, very fast) but i think a little mac mini (a g4, g5, or an intel based) would work better. most servers (music,file/print/etc..) are dedicated machines. if you get a mini, you can store it in a closet, you don't need a keyboard/mouse or monitor. you can use another mac to control the mini. the best option would be to look for a used powermac or newer macpro, those are designed to be a file server.

also, you can always use a toslink cable from your mini to an external dac. that is what i use. you have many more DAC options if you use toslink instead of usb. another option is to use an airport express unit wired or wireless to hook up to your stereo system using a toslink cable to a dac or using rca output directly into your preamp. i also use this method.
try to pick up a used mac mini g4 for around $300 and put 1gb ram in it and attach a couple of large drives to it for your shared data (music,files,etc..) and backup the 1 drive to the other every couple of days. the other option is to purchase a NAS unit (network attached server) that hooks up to the network and stores your files in 1 location. (this is the route i'm going to).
it is not that hard to accomplish, and you don't have to go new, there are plenty of older macs that you can get to accomplish this.

Marco, great info and advice. Concerning FireWire, IME a FireWire drive will cost more if it has a USB interface as well, but a drive with only FireWire is comparable in price to a USB-only drive.

I recommend FireWire for a laptop because in the past some Apple laptops--just like some Windows laptops--have had an issue with the USB port not supplying enough power for an external drive. Anyone who is considering such a setup should IMHO make sure this is not a concern.

Good points, Tobias. One other might be that you will be taking up one USB port with your DAC and if you only have two on a Mini and need one for keyboard and the other for a DAC...may be time for a hub. Anyway, I'm a Mac guy and have had two iBooks. Never had an issue with any USB externals. YMMV.

Regarding using the Toslink on a MacMini or Tower - wouldn't be my choice. I'd do that conversion (to SPDIF) via USB inside the DAC rather than inside the computer. Again, Too much going on in the lively electronic environment inside a computer. Take it out of the box and give it to the folks who are all about audio - that's what I'd do. Just one opinion though.

Marco