Turn an Intel macmini into a music server

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.

@jgoldrick Good catch, forgot about that issue with some RP

@jgoldrick

I’ve run an RPi 3 B+ for over 4 years now with no noise issue to speak of either on headphones or speakers with the volume turned way up. Maybe you had a defective unit. I use whatever power supply was recommended by Adafruit.

sns

2,484 posts

08-07-2022 at 04:29am 

External lps and internal dc power supplies, in my case Uptone MMK and JS-2. Jitter is only part of the problem with using the usb out, noise on motherboard, especially with stock power supply and no OS optimization.

TL;DR -  in my experience a headless stock M1 Mac mini is superior to a 2012 i7 mini with Uptone JS2 LPS & MMK. 

I had been running a 2012 Mac mini, with Uptone JS2/MMK linear PS and fan mod, with Roon server for years.

I also use HQPlayer as the output renderer for Roon. Back in 2020 I bought an M1 mini to experiment with and tried various combinations including running Roon all-in-one (control/server) and HQPlayer on the M1. I  settled for retaining the 2012 mini as the separate Roon server and running HQPlayer from the M1 mini - both connected to an Uptone Etherregen switch with the 'B' side of the Etherregen going to a Sonore UltraRendu then to my DAC. 

However I did notice that using Roon in any combination of the above was inferior in SQ to streaming direct from the HQPlayer app on the M1 without Roon. The HQP player interface/functionality is vastly inferior to Roon's, so this was a source of frustration for me. 

Anyway, as an experiment I acquired a second M1 mini (cheapest basic config) and substituted it for the 2012 Mini/Uptone combo. The second M1 mini was run headless like the 2012 Mini, using the same generic cat6 ethernet cable into the Uptone Etherregen switch. 

Roon Server running from headless M1 mini, with HQPlayer running on my other M1 mini and both connected to the Etherregen switch, sounds fantastic and indistinguishable from streaming direct via HQPlayer alone.