Mac Mini vs. Macbook Pro as a server

I have an I7 Mac Mini with 8Gigs of Ram using Amarra. The Mini is optimized for music. I have as much stuff turned off as possible. Herman my point is very valid the Audio Research DAC accepts USB in fact it has one of the best USB input receiver of any DAC. Its performance is one of the best I have tried in my system. I have tried so many DACS look at my prior post. You have so much stuff going on in a computer that you cannot see. All that stuff running down in the operating system uses resources that take away from the sound. To get off a personal computer based music server will be a huge step in the right direction. The price will soon drop on dedicated music playback systems and the Mac Mini will not be the answer. At this point the Yamaha NP 2000 sounds much better than my Highly Modified Mac Mini with out having to buy a DAC with a USB input. I tried the Mac Mini with the best I could find USB cable and with the good optical cable for my comparison. The other inputs I used SPDIF coaxile and AES balanced. My system is very resolving and it will tell you if something is not right. The Mac Mini is very good but it is not world class like my Turntable or the other music servers I have tried as of recent. I just bought a Krell CD player the S350A at $2500.00 Retail it blows the doors of my Mac Mini. I bought the CD player for clients that come over with CDs just for the quick and easy demo. I found much more air and presence around the instruments and the voices to be more correct than with my Mac Mini. I cannot wait for the newer music players to come down in price and increase their performance.

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You have so much stuff going on in a computer that you cannot see. All that stuff running down in the operating system uses resources that take away from the sound.

That is typical audiophile nervosa. It sounds logical but you have no idea if it is correct because you have no way to test it.

How do you know that DAC is so good with USB? Sounds like it may not be if the others are feeding it spdif and they sound better, and I don't think the Mini optical is a fair comparison.

There are too many of us that are getting world class performance with the Mini and Pro and other DACs. I have no doubt you like the other servers feeding the DACs you tried but there are too many other possible ways to do it to make a definitive conclusion based on your limited experiments.

A few months ago you said your Mac Mini was almost the equal of your vinyl. Now it is getting bested by servers.

It has come very close to my turntable. I cannot convey how deep and wide the soundstage has gotten,how perfect the tonal balance and did I mention the detail stuff I have never heard in the digital domain

That's a bit different than today when you say

The Mac Mini is very good but it is not world class like my Turntable or the other music servers I have tried as of recent.

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I now have a better turntable and I have upped the performance of my system by a good bit with upgrades. Also keep in what happens with technology and time? I think technology gets better and these new music servers have been developed for a specific purpose and that is what happens with technology. I hope that continuing strides in performance continue to happen. To me it sounds like you are attached to you Mac Mini. Being attached to equipment is not good because you are then putting an emotional attachment to a specific item in your system that might not be the performance you could have if you were to try something new. Do not get me wrong I am assuming that you use Pure Vinyl for ripping your records and that cannot be done with all the other music servers I mentioned above than the Mac Mini with Pure Vinyl. They all have a purpose but what I am hearing right now is what I said is better. So Herman do think that technology does not change over time? I did not even know about the Aurender S10 and the Yamaha NP 2000 until I got to RMAF last week.

USB to spdif converters like the JKmk3 , Audiophileo or Offramp make a drastic change to the Mac Mini USB performance. Most USB implementations in dacs are poorly optimized compared to their spdif.

Mac Mini with one of these should match your CDT. The USB cable has little bearing on sound I found.

There are too many of us that are getting world class performance with the Mini and Pro and other DACs.

I wandered around RMAF for a couple of days recently and heard a few rooms that had systems in them the cost of which could otherwise buy a house or put someone through college. The best of them used all matter of front ends, including digital. In fact, my vote for best sound would probably come down to three, and in that group is a room using a MacMini source (with SSD - actually it was modded by a company called Mach2Music, which were in more than one room - I have no knowledge of what else they do to the Mini but you can google it and find out) - the Empirical Audio / YG Acoustics room: Just a beautifully sorted out system and the sound, throughout several cuts of diverse music on more than one occasion, was spot-on. Nothing to flaw, and I did not want to get up and leave. There were many rooms that had me leaving after a brief listen as well.

I'm very happy with the sound from my digital front end. Don't know if it's "world class" but it certainly sounds great to me. Haven't had the experience of CD players surpassing the sound, and have done a bit of comparisons, though not enough to write home about. The better vinyl rigs would probably take my vote, but I don't think the gap is such a chasm as many make it out to be. I guess it depends on the individual. I don't miss vinyl.