Mac Laptop & Sound Cards

Ckorody, thanks. I need to talk more with John about all of this, but I suspect he must have a processor within his chassis with the big hard drives. If so, I would not be an Apple processor. Then my dilemma would be to just use it as he makes it or to pursue other means using Apple.

TBG - wish I could find what you are looking at - send me a link if you like. This is obviously an add in card that he makes or mods.

Keep in mind that Mac is and has been the computer of choice in recording studios for many, many years. There is a ton of pro and semi-pro stuff out there, including a wide range of I/O (input output) cards some of which no doubt utilize AES/EBU. Others are used for mixing, for effects processing, for managing time code (used to sync double system audio and video) Whether or not there is one to meet your needs (besides Johns) I couldn't say.

If you want to poke around a bit, Apogee and Lynx are two mfgrs you might look at.

Before you go too far down this particular rat hole, keep in mind that the only tricky thing you are talking about is going from the drive to the DAC without coming back to the computer.

At the end of the day it might be easier to put the computer at that end too, then control it with Front Row, a Sailing Clicker etc. Take a look at the current thread "Music Server vs. PC vs. Transport vs. ?" - in particular the comments of Rbstehno for some good ideas.

nas is the way to go for storage. imo, get a 4 drive nas system and use raid-5 to setup the nas. this will allow you to use 3 out of the 4 drives for data. even if you go with nas, you will still need a backup. any computer piece can and will fail. if you don't back it up, be sure you won't lose anything valuable.
here is what my den setup consists of:
totem speakers, definitive technology supercube sub, nikko fm tuner, sony dvp9000es dvd/cd/sacd player, dk design vs-1, adcom gda-700 dac, audio alchemy dti, mac mini running itunes, and airport express in multiple rooms. i go from the sony player and the airport express into the dti unit (cleans up the jitter), then out of the dti to the dac. sounds very good. there was a big improvement using the external dac and an improvement again using the dti.
as for distributing music to other rooms, i have airport express unit hooked up wired and wireless to other systems and i currently control them with my macbook. the macbook allows me to control the mac mini from other rooms to run selections from itunes. i am in the middle of buying an ipod touch which i will use to control the mac mini running itunes from other parts of the house instead of using the macbook.