Cheap Blu Ray Player + DAC for hi fi ?

Keep in mind that a regular DAC connected via coax or toslink (as opposed to HDMI) will not decode BlueRay audio.
So in the context of your budget, I would recommend to set priorities. Your Mac Mini can double as a CD player, even DVD player if it has a DVD drive. For now, I would focus on getting the best DAC possible for the money you have, and then later lurk around this site for a decent used BlueRay player (such as Oppo BD-83).
For your Mac Mini, I would recommend a dac with an asynchronous USB input-or other dac design with very low USB jitter. However, in your price range, the options are quite limited, but I would look into HRT Music Streamer II+ and CEntrance DacPort LX.

Thanks for all the replies guys! Ah Fiio - the cheap and cheerful brand I remember for all their head-fi stuff. Haven't looked at their products and lately and this looks surprising for the price.

Thanks Arni for the tip on BR audio. Does this mean that audio will not work at all via the DAC? I'm not using a 5/7.1 channel setup, just a traditional 2.0 - cuz music is a much higher priority and I don't have the space nor budget for a full fledged HT.

I'm reviewing my options right now. Budget is a bit of a constraint given how much we've spent on furniture and wallpapers etc. Haven't bought the Mac Mini actually. So if I buy brand new it's gonna be the new one, which means no CD drive. Was thinking of a Blu Ray player - cuz the mass market brands are pretty affordable right now.

I could save some money and plug in my Macbook Pro to the computer instead. But it'd be a hassle to keep plugging and unplugging everything every time I want to actually get some work done on the computer.

Yes, Blue Ray audio material will not output via the players coax and optical out, only via HDMI and analog. CDs and DVDs can, however, be played via most higer bits traditional DACs.

If you have not pulled the trigger yet, have you thought about a DAC that has a volume on it (like the Emotiva DAC they are closing out on special from their website) and going with a power amp instead?

I use this unit and found my Samsung bluray player to be a very decent transport...better than my philips CDR.

The emotiva DAC's volume control will result in loss of fidelity. They had initially promoted this as a no loss of resolution volume control, but they have since gone back and said that since the volume control is in the digital domain that you lose resolution.

My experience with the DAC is that it sounds best when the volume is set above about 65, and I use a tube buffer after it.