Acer Revo or Mac Mini?

[Gareth82]

Hi everyone, i thinking of getting a mini pc to playback my music via iTunes and a external DAC. Out of the Mac Mini and Acer revo 3600/3700 which would be best for this purpose?

I would like something that is:

(1) Quiet in operation (as it would be in my front room next to my hifi)

(2) Reliable and fast

(3) Be able to rip my CDs via FLAC

(4) Offer the best user experience

(5) If i go for a Mac Mini i would be buying second hand so which would be the best one to go for?

(6) If i go for a Acer revo, would i be best getting a second hand 3600 or go for the newer 3700?

(7) Would i be better going for a cheap netbook and external hard drive?

My budget would be £200 for the mini pc/netbook and hard drive

Any advice and recommendations would be helpfull, Thanks

 

[MajorFubar]

Both a Mac or a PC will meet most of your requirements but...

(4) Offer the best user experience

...that one there is the most difficult, as it's the one which polarises opinion, and no one else can really answer it but you because it's totally subjective.

 

[Overdose]

First off, I would say that £200 is not going to get you too far. My recommendation, going on my own experience, would be the following and based on the assumption that your AV is next to your hi-fi.....

Sell off the AV speaker package and make do with the Xarus 5000s for now and MS sub.

Sell the Arcam amp and CD player

Sell the Sony BDP

Buy an ASRock Vision 3D for universal disc playing duties and music streaming. It has a BDP built in and HDMI out. The digital audio out could also go into the Arcam 250.

The result is much less clutter and boxes, with no extra outlay for the HTPC because of the kit sold.

This is just my opinion and a bit lateral to what you had in mind, but it works as a solution.

 

[Paul.]

Not familiar with the Acer. If you do go for the mini, your £200 won't stretch to the new unibody models. If you can it's worth the extra money as it's significantly easier to upgrade ram and hd.

 

[Gareth82]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I can get a used Mac Mini from ebay for £200 or less and can get a brand new Acer Revo 3700 for £200 from ebay or ebuyer. I would rather keep my AV and H iFi as two seperate systems as space isn't a problem and this way i can get the best possible system i can afford for AV and Hi Fi.

The Mac Mini is my preferd choice but the spec you can get with the Acer Revo seems much better than the Mac Mini.

Whicever system i decide to buy would purely be for music play back, i don't want to stream any movies are use it as a media player, i prefer to buy Blu Rays to be honest.

I did think about buying a Squeezebox Touch or Sonos systems but i would only be needed to playback music in one room and for the price it would cost me to buy either of them plus a Nas i think i would get better quality and value for money going for PC based music.

 

[Paul.]

To be honest, if all you want to do is stream music and browse the web occaisionally, I cant see spec being a major desiding factor. Go with the one you like!

 

[MajorFubar]

If you need a housekeeper then it’s difficult to fault iTunes. And if you want iTunes, then not surprisingly it integrates best imo with a Mac (though others may disagree). The only downside is iTunes doesn't support FLAC. But it does have it's own FLAC equivalent: ALAC.

 

[Gareth82]

Thanks for the replies.

I am pritty much stuck as the Revo has better spec for the money but i prefer the look of the Mac Mini and i know that macs are more reliable and less prone to viruses than windows PC's.

Would i need to worry how much RAM the Mini/Revo has if i am only using it as a music player?

I was going to choose iTunes as i already have loads of music imported on there for my iPod. Can anyone recommend a good alternative to iTunes that supports FLAC and also displays cover art etc.. like iTunes?

 

[MajorFubar]

WMP can be made to support FLAC, and it supports cover-art, and to a certain extent it will work as a librarian if you set it up that way. But I'm not sure if it stores the cover-art in the same way a iPhones, because I don't have an iPhone to check it against.

Winamp is another popular player round these parts.

RAM? Well to use purely as a music-player, anything over 1GB will do. Seriously. Most PCs are stupidly over-spec'd for what people do with them. My wife's laptop has a 64-bit processor, 4GB of RAM and half a terrabyte of hard-drive space yet all she uses it for is browsing the net and keeping contact with her FaceTube buddies.

On the other hand, look for the biggest hard-drive you can afford: you need plenty of space for storing uncompressed or lossless files.

 

[Anonymous]

and i know that macs are more reliable and less prone to viruses than windows PC's.

Would i need to worry how much RAM the Mini/Revo has if i am only using it as a music player?

1. Don't believe the hype. I have run windows for years with no viruses... just download one of many free Antivirus products and you'll be fine. See http://www.techsupportalert.com/ for recommendations for free software. Also. the reliablity thing is also nonsense. A recent link I saw, saw Asus PCs (not Acer, but they come highly recommended), failing far less than Apple. In the end your observations are 100% true...You get far less for the money with Apple. Not that they are bad machines, they aren't, but they are more expensive to buy and fix (something to consider when going 2nd hand).

2. No. It will come with plenty. And will support FLAC if you choose one of the myriad media players. See above link for recommendations again.

 

[Craig M.]

i think i'd buy a 1st gen apple tv from ebay, and stick a 500 gb hdd in it, don't know if one can be made to play flac though. i'm gonna sell my mac mini to go this route. works with the remote app on a ipod touch/ipad, too.

 

[Paul.]

Do belive the Hype, if you dont it will make Steve sad!

Have a look at this...

http://firecore.com/atvflash-black

Amongst other things it alows using Nas drives with the £99 Atv2. Enables many different video codecs and web access. Im going to wait to have a punt after the iOS5 anouncement, just in case something awesome gets added.

 

[Gareth82]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I am thinking of going for the Acer as (a) i am familier with the os and (b) it is good value and spec for the money.

However

The Apple TV and NAS/External Hard drive route does interest me!

I would like to know abit more about this so here are a few questions please.

(1) Which Apple Tv is best to go for ATV1 or ATV2?

(2) Can i connect the ATV to my Arcam A65 via phono cables?

(3) Can iTunes be installed and run from a NAS drive?

Thanks, further more help and tips would be great as i have thought about getting SB Touch or other type of streamer but think that a PC based music system would be far more cheaper, flexible and reliable.

 

[rjb70stoke]

If you can get your hands on one the Apple TV1 is a great device when you have enabled certain missing features 8)

I have all my music and movies (about 250gb) stored on an external HD connected to it and it is truly excellent, especially when used with the Remote App on iPod or iPhone. You also have the possibility of making a very reliable multi room system when streamed to Airport Express'.

Drawbacks are no FLAC, but my ears can't tell the difference between FLAC and Apple Lossless, and of course the limited movie format support, but, if music is you main agenda, Apple TV is an easy to use system that is hard to beat.

 

[John Duncan]

Important question: have you already ripped your music to FLAC or are you *going* to?

 

[Anonymous]

Important question: have you already ripped your music to FLAC or are you *going* to?

Is it that important? I can set dbPoeramp to whizz through my entire collection and transcode and it'll be finished when I wake up.

 

[ReValveiT]

Drawbacks are no FLAC, but my ears can't tell the difference between FLAC and Apple Lossless.

And so you shouldn't. There isn't any.

 

[MajorFubar]

I agree.

By definition they are both types of lossless file compression, like ZIP for audio.

To give an absurd but understandable example, that means if you used them to compress the number 12345.54321, what you'd get when you uncompressed it again is 12345.54321. Yet some people still maintain they can tell the difference between the original 12345.54321 and the reconstructed 12345.54321. Looks to be the same number to me.

Watch out for the snake-oil.

 

[Gareth82]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I haven't ripped any of my CDs to FLAC/Apple Losless yet, the only CDs i have ripped have been at 320kps and they have been for iPod use only.

I have currently been using the original CD played back through my Arcam CD72 when i want to listen to something but the only problem with this is that Cds just take up too much room so i plan on getting either the Mac Mini or Revo, ripping to FLAC or Losless and then storing the CDs in the loft to save room and clutter.

 

[Anonymous]

Yet some people still maintain they can tell the difference between the original 12345.54321 and the reconstructed 12345.54321

that's because certain magazines imply that there is a difference:

"Apple Lossless is a minimum, with uncompressed formats such as WAV the ideal"

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I haven't ripped any of my CDs to FLAC/Apple Losless yet, the only CDs i have ripped have been at 320kps and they have been for iPod use only.

I have currently been using the original CD played back through my Arcam CD72 when i want to listen to something but the only problem with this is that Cds just take up too much room so i plan on getting either the Mac Mini or Revo, ripping to FLAC or Losless and then storing the CDs in the loft to save room and clutter.

Much as I would always advocate streaming myself, some people like the physicality of CDs...The other option is to buy a couple of big CD folders and store the cases only in the loft

http://www.amazon.co.uk/CD-DVD-Media-Organiser-Wallet/dp/B000OR2N4A/ref=pd_sim_ce1

 

[dannycanham]

An uncompressed format may be theoretically ideal compared to a compressed one. Back to the zip file analogy. A file from a zip takes more processing power to read than one unzipped. Processors create noise. Processors ramped up create more noise. The 0s and 1s leaving the computer won't change but there is a possibility the noise from your computer affects the analogue part of the hi fi.

I would say that being a loony and thinking you hear a difference is more likely than there being a difference though.

In some kind of DAC/FLAC/WAV/storage in a box player, a processor cramped in the same box as the analogue electronics and a power supply that could be affected as well. There could possibly be an audible difference between compressed and uncompressed music files. A lack of understanding as the "Why" could taint a magazines opinion into thinking that compression in general is audible.