Mac Mini As A Streaming Source

I don't know for sure but I think you can connect the phone or iPad directly to the amp via USB. You may also be able to stream the phone through the Mac Mini. 

I control my Mac Mini with a keyboard and mouse, hooked up through my TV so I can see what I'm doing. I don't use Roon or anything like that. Just straight from Apple Music, or Youtube when I'm listening to that. I don't know why a different streamer would make a difference in terms of tone, finesse, and musicality. That's really weird and the causes for why that might be happening have not even been close to reasonably explained but it may be happening with some setups. 

The promise of Apple silicon is to be able to run the same apps across all hardware devices, so, I certainly hope that they will produce a version of the Apple Classical app that runs on the Mac Mini. 

I can't connect my iPhone to the USB input on my DAC, as the Mac Mini is already connected to that input. Besides that, it is awkward to have to connect a phone to my stereo to stream music. The same goes for streaming through the Mac Mini. 

I have a Bluetooth keyboard and Magic trackpad that I can use with the headless Mac Mini. Generally speaking, I don't need to do a lot on the Mac Mini when it is in headless mode. The Roon app running on the iPad does everything I need. 

I could connect it to my TV though, I just haven't done it, Thanks for reminding me. 

There's no easy way to control your Mac Mini for playback.  You can certainly remote into it from another Mac or use a wireless keyboard as someone said above and have the Mac connected to your TV or an external monitor. None of these are pretty.  Look into an Innuos Zen or Zenith. It has built in storage for music and the ability to use Airplay from Apple Music Classical from your phone. Quality won't be tops but it will sound very good. It would make sense for Apple to have other solutions down the road as this seems like just the first step. Sound quality on the Innuos is better than a Mac Mini. As an FYI, Apple has locked down or the chip forces the HDMI output of new Mac Minis to 48 Khz, rather than 44.1, 192, etc.

I think I've been down this road before with you, the HDMI road, lol. My DAC does not have an HDMI input, although it has many other inputs. Look up the Aqua Formula. The thing sounds great, by the way. 

Roon does an excellent job of controlling all my playback so I don't have to struggle with apps running on the Mac Mini. 

I can't believe AirPlay provides good quality playback. I tried to stream from a dedicated streaming app for a radio station over AirPlay to the Mac and it dropped all the time so I gave up. 

I use a M1 Mac Mini as a Roon core tied to a home network. I have a Lumin U2 Mini as the streamer. I run the whole thing with my iPad. It works perfectly. No issues streaming Qobuz, Tidal, or accessing all my Ripped files.

I have a separate SACD player to handle all the CDs and SACDs that i still own and purchase.