Turn an Intel macmini into a music server

@mrjayvoper 

I use Kodi to turn my 2014 Mac mini into a music server as part of a living room system. It's free, under active development, and has a plugin system to extend its capabilities. If you plan on using an external DAC with the Mac, automatic sample rate switching should work fine. Otherwise, the Mac will resample the audio based on the setting in the Audio MIDI utility when using the analog output directly. I control Kodi using the Yatse app from my phone.

For the basement setup, I use a Raspberry Pi 3B+ with moOde connected via USB to a Benchmark DAC3 B to stream music from a shared folder on my Mac. I've also tried Volumio and piCorePlayer, but found moOde to be the most reliable and easiest to use. You don't need to touch the command line to install any of these OSes, just write the image to the SD card and you're in business. I use BubbleUPnP to stream other content (YouTube, Qobuz) from my phone to the RPi.

Don't worry about power supplies, cables, or USB tweaks. The only job of the streamer is to feed the right bits to the DAC. Digital errors sound like pops or static during playback. Large amounts of jitter sound add harmonic distortion to the output. If you don't hear any artifacts during playback, then your setup is fine.

Hope this helps!

+1 RP > MacMini. Fighting noise in a Mac is pushing a rock up a mountain....you can do it, but why waste the energy.

Many use Volumio with PI. diyaudio.com has many threads on point. Allo hat or similar is a nice upgrade, but I would save $ for linear power supply with any streamer first. Cheers,

Spencer

@sbank +1 RP > MacMini. Fighting noise in a Mac is pushing a rock up a mountain....you can do it, but why waste the energy.

Precisely!!

Charles

Well, it all depends on whether OP looking for something approaching audiophile quality or only for convenience. Just do the mini or Rpi he already has, do minimal cost free upgrades and compare the two.

The Rpi would be superior if willing to put out minimal amount of cash for upgrades, mini will require large outlay of cash.

Almost forgot, I owned Okto Dac 8 stereo with built in Rpi streamer, compared to my Musetec 005 going through SOTM SMS200Neo (both used mini as server only), Dac 8 was very, very nice, far better than my expectations at the time. While I was only using rpi as streamer, vs SOTM, rpi acquitted itself quite well against the $450 SOTM.

I would not use the RPi3+.  It has the USB and the Ethernet running on the same bus.  It is very noisy.  Even with something like an isolator/noise reducer and an IFI power cleaner, I still found it noisy.  When I switched to a custom build with a linear PS the difference in noise and background was substantial.