Airport Extreme to DAC

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Most people advocate an SSD drive and maximum memory of the newest versions. Older Minis were limited to I think 3 GB but newer ones go to 8. You can order it that way from Apple but it is cheaper to get the extra stuff elsewhere and install it yourself.

I would get the cheapest one and upgrade it myself. Or watch the website and wait for a refurb to come up.

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Regarding which mini, not sure that it really matters. I've seen folk that say the older ones (with the drive and Snow Leopard) can be better for audio, but don't recall why or really believe it. If I were starting from scratch, might also consider a Mach 2 Mini conversion. (Google mach2music). They do stripped down and modified Minis for music servers. No experience, but look intriguing. Ultimately, a big premium for stuff you could do yourself, (but it's a pile of stuff I likely won't be bothered to pull off myself....)

I use a FireWire 800 drive on the mini in the rack with all of the lossless and high def rips on it. Took a while to find one that worked there -- ie, quiet enough to have in the rack -- but ended up with the Oyen Digital Datatale PAIR portable RAID. It's configured as a 1tb redundant RAID and it's wonderful (dead silent, damn sexy tech). Also keep a 2tb minimax under the airport extreme (in another room, the drive was way too loud to keep with the system) for backup purposes. Takes about 35 hours to backup 1/2tb to the wireless drive, which is fine, but also convinced me that streaming lossless/high def for playback might not be ideal. It will work in a pinch, but can be a little glitchy and far less than ideal. (Actually have three iTunes libraries in the house, on three separate computers, two of which are lossey AAC only. Each can see and stream from any of the others wirelessly (2 Mac, one PC), which is convenient for playlists and casual listening, but wouldn't use anything other than the hardwired drive and lossless material when I care what I'm listening to.).

Finally, before you spring for a fidgety (and pricey) PITA like PM or Amarra, check out bitperfect. There's a long thread on it over at Computer Audiophile. $5, automatic bitrate switching for highdef material, and a seamless overlay for iTunes. For years, I refused to spend hundreds, or thousands, on a clunky, overwrought iTunes proxy, when all I wanted was simple, transparent functionality, automatic format switching, and some dedicated device hogging for optimum playback. Apparently, the author felt the same way, and wrote it. Worth a consider. Hope you enjoy the Ayre as much as I do. Cheers.

Thanks Mezmo - I have done alot of research and decided on a used 2009 model mini with a 128GB SSD drive ( no moving parts in my rack ). I concluded that it should be better because of the solid state drive and the detached power supply. I snagged it for a total shipped price of 550.00 and the Crucial M4 128GB costs 209.00 just buy itself. I will get into a oyen digital 2 or 3 TB external HD later on. I'm awaiting my mini and USB cable which should be here early next week. In the meantime I paid 24.95 to put my iTunes collection on apples new IMatch service which transfers my whole library ( of 16,000 songs ) apple doesn't care how you got your songs weather you got them by loading your own CD's or from napster or sucking iPod HD's with iRip or touch copy. I Match puts them into Lossless format and gives album art and allows using " iCloud " to sync the whole library. I should be able to access my whole library and control my stereo from my iPhone or iPad . With this reply to this thread that everyone has help me think and come up with what I hope is a great set up, I hope everyone starts thinking. One last thing. I will dabble in HD Tracks and other Hi Rez venues also.. Happy New Year !!!

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you sure about that iMatch lossless thing?

I think it converts everything to 256K AAC compressed format.

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I am not totally sure yet. Still downloading all my songs over 20 hours now so I'm kinda thinking there's something higher than ACC going on. Here is a link

http://www.macworld.com/article/160651/2011/06/how_to_find_and_play_high_resolution_audio_on_the_mac.html

Don't forget to google iMatch also.