2. pc-audio
  3. 1363240771

Novice needs Mac Mini and DAC advice

Stereo Boys, I really really need some advice. In the past 18 months, I've loaded all in on this hobby and in that short time span have gone from birth to a full blown, fairly high end system and now I'm integrating a Mac Mini server into the mix. My mind is blown with too much information and I'm losing it over which DAC will give me the best bang with a budget anywhere from $800 to $4000. I'm told that the Ayre and Wavelength don't really outperform the lower cost DACs by a huge margin. I need a shot of the truth. And I'm looking for plug and play. I'm not that conversant with all the technical science involved in all of this. I just want a clean, high res sound. Please help!!
moonshot
jdodmead
257 posts
 
Thank you Steve, I was able to install Remote and it works exactly like I was wanting. Baby steps, now I have to work on the memory, dac and media player. Something's wrong with the Amarra site right now, I will check again tomorrow.
Thanks
Jeff
jdodmead
257 posts
 
I must be doing something wrong with Splashtop. I can pull up my Mini desktop on my Ipad, but when I play music it streams to the Ipad and doesn't play from the Mini to my processor.
abruce's avatar
abruce
246 posts
 
You need to go into your settings, when I get home I'lll walk you through it
jdodmead
257 posts
 
I've made a lot of progress, Splashtop is fixed.
I have a Wyred4Sound dac2 on it's way to me, I set up a Buffalo 2 drive RAID and I installed XLD for ripping. I've been ripping a few discs today, but on playback I have some skipping and I don't know why. Is it the external drive, the ripping software or did I mess something up? I am ripping AIFF, I tried FLAC, but that won't go into ITunes, should I be using another format? I'm so close to being there, I just need to clean up some things and it would be nice to be able to talk to someone with more experience.
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