I do not like mac mini as a streamer it just doesn’t sounds good. Tried it. It’s now my Roon core.
I know you said you are not interested in streaming music from internet but a network player such as Lumin U1 Mini or Auralic Aries G1 will sound better than the mac mini or the laptop. Just connect your hard drive to the back of these units and you’re set. Used these can be picked up at a reasonable price.
Better music player alternative to Mac Air / laptop
I am currently using Apple Macbook Air and/or Ms. Window based laptop as the hardware player, and pairing either “Foobar 2000” or “VLC” with the Mac/laptop for music playing. I prefer Mac Air to laptop because it has no fan. I collect lawful 16/24 bits, 44.1/88.2 khz flac and good recordings from Youtube and store them in a solid state drive as the source.
Although I felt the noise floor from this combination is quite dark and satisfactory, I am open to a possibly “cleaner” music player alternative/device (with display preferrably) than my current Apple Mac/laptop that the audiophiles continuously claim to be “dirty.” The “player” may include both hardware and software because the software I am currently using may not be able to run on the new device. I heard Mac Mini is a good choice so please share your experience if you had it. I do not stream and I do not intend to invest in the streamer in the near future. Thank you.
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Travel similar road as @ghdprentice. Still buy vinyl .....rarely. have hundreds of ripped CDs and play them ......rarely. Stream most of the time. |
I was in your shoes too like @ghdprentice and @jbuhl except I didn’t give up my digital files collection for streaming. I stream in addition to listening to my collection. Do a search for Melco audio and familiarize yourself with their music players then look on line for a used Melco N1A or later music server. Although not a streamer, it will refine your streaming if and when you decide to go that route. It is SOTA and one of the best out there, much better than my tricked out Mac Mini. They are built to last. You won’t regret it. |
Thank you all for the advices. Before proceeding with streaming route, I would like to explore the use of the streamer / file server for playing music out of the HDD / SSD. Based on my research, most of the streamer comes with the USB port for connecting with the HD and support the PCM file up to 24/192 and/or DSD (vary in res.) I only need a streamer / server do two things and do them well, which are (1) deliver the digital signal from HD to the DAC and (2) convenient file retrieval / management. I read the user reviews on several more affordable streamers with good feedback, including ifi Zen streamer ($400), BS Node 2i ($600) and Cambridge CXN v1 ($800). If none of these more affordable gears sound good, I will consider going with (much) more pricey options as you have mentioned. Your opinions in terms of the sound quality, friendliness of the sever, etc.? Do these options stand up to the challenge? |
If you're using an external DAC with the Macbook then there's no reason to switch to something else.
If you're using the onboard audio and are considering a Mac mini, you might want to get a late 2014 model. The latest M1 based model doesn't support any sampling rate besides 48 kHz. See this link for more details. |
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