Mac Mini as transport to DAC (Apple lossless)

[Peter Larsen]

I have heard, and tried myself, to use my Airport Express as a transport from my iMac.

It works great, but it is quite annoying having to turn on my iMac, which is in another room, whenever I want to listen to music, so I thought about buying a Mac Mini and connect it directly to my DAC via the optical out. This way I can boot it together with the rest of my stereo.

I will only use it to play Apple Lossless files.

My question is: is it worth a go now the Mac Mini only has optical out? Will I actually gain anything in SQ compared to my setup now where I play CD's on a Cambridge 650BD which is connected to a DacMagic or via my AE from the iMac?

 

[Craig M.]

hmmm, don't know about sq improvements. a mac mini works brilliantly but in your situation might not be ideal. if you plan on turning it off at night, the next time you boot it up it will need a mouse plugged in or it won't start. i leave mine on all the time, it goes to sleep if not used for a while, and just needs a tap of the power button to wake up. you'll also need it hooked up to a screen and mouse + keyboard, or do screen sharing, for the odd occasion it wrongly names an album or doesn't get artwork. i use screen sharing with my macbook.