MacMini as a Music Server

[relocated]

A very comprehensive statement there.

One thing you have certainly got wrong is " hereford costly) amplifies and speakers". Not true at all, pro monitors are nothing like the cost of 'hifi' kit and yet they are happily used in the music production process before it ever gets to cd etc., etc.

Not quite sure what your reply is intimating nor why you have a problem with me stating that transparent equipment is costly, it is. There was no reference to it being "pro" gear, indeed, it is clear, given the context ( ie sufficently revealing to identify the sometimes subtle - though sometimes obvious depending on the nature - changes/differences caused by jitter) the assumption is home hi-fi. Genuinely baffled by your response!

As you are 'genuinely baffled' I shall try to make things clearer, for your benefit and anyone elses [jd?].

Transparent enough product DO NOT have to be costly. SOME sound engineers and recording studios use comparatively inexpensive monitors to determine what gets on to the cd. That doesn't mean ALL pro gear is inexpensive in relation to domestic hi-fi but that is the tendancy, as far as I am aware. As someone else said, those very same engineers, BUT NOT ALL OF THEM, go home and listen domestically to pro monitors that once again are generally less expensive than their hi-fi equivalent.

So no absolute statements made or was ever intended in this or my previous post. Unfortunately I had forgotten that if you refer to pro gear in a post you have to be very very careful how you say something. Otherwise, as has happened on this thread, there is always going to be someone who will jump to the wrong conclusion/misinterpret your post and generally acccuse you of being absolutist, WHEN YOU HAVEN'T BEEN.

So in short, you don't need gear to be expensive to be transparent and revealing you just need the right sort of gear.

My apologies for the length and complexity of this post, I am not having a go at you. I am merely attempting to give a sufficiently full and non-absolutest response so that some muppet doesn't chime in with a needless criticism based on their own predispositions.

:wall: :wave:

 

[relocated]

Not pedantry really, just correcting an oft-repeated generalisaiton that pro audio is cheap and domestic hifi is a rip off.

Which is not close to what I wrote JD.

We have had this discussion before and it is a shame that you still criticise posts because of what other people say and not what has been said in the post you criticise. You may well get jarred off with certain things but that shouldn't determine your reaction to individual posts that are not saying what you think you are.

Thank you for your time.

 

[daveh75]

find a hifi equivalent of preamp, DAC and headphone amp at those prices.

http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/summary.php?PID=872&Title=DacMagic+Plus+Digital+to+Analogue+converter+

http://www.beresford.me/mainsite/home.html

http://mglaudiolabs.com/en/products/precision-dac/

Rather the exception than the rule.

As for the MGL, do you not need to add the optional headphone amp board and also a case? Then assemble when it all arrives? Fully completed components were implied in my statement

Your post implied you couldn't get a 'hifi' dac/pre/headphone amp at £400 (to me at least).

Just pointing out that you can, and those were just three examples OTTOH.

 

[John Duncan]

SOME sound engineers and recording studios use comparatively inexpensive monitors to determine what gets on to the cd.

Not in my experience. The last studio I was in (a very modest one) had some Augspurgers in the wall that looked as if they cost about 20k and an £8k Avid interface, IIRC. Also, take a look at this:

http://www.proaudiodesign.com/Main-Monitor-Systems

My point is, that some people are apt to say "pro audio is cheaper" when actually professional audio equipment is very, very expensive, just as professional hammers and drill bits and cameras and scalpels and musical instruments are very expensive - why risk your livelihood on 'cheap'? It just so happens that some kit sold in so-called "pro audio" shops happens to be quite good value for money, as well it might with all the functionality they have crammed into a cheap plastic box. "Pro" they are most certainly not.

 

[mykspence]

Not in my experience.

Nor in mine, they want to produce the best sound possible. What the end user does with it isn't their problem.

 

[Overdose]

SOME sound engineers and recording studios use comparatively inexpensive monitors to determine what gets on to the cd.

Not in my experience. The last studio I was in (a very modest one) had some Augspurgers in the wall that looked as if they cost about 20k and an £8k Avid interface, IIRC. Also, take a look at this:

http://www.proaudiodesign.com/Main-Monitor-Systems

My point is, that some people are apt to say "pro audio is cheaper" when actually professional audio equipment is very, very expensive, just as professional hammers and drill bits and cameras and scalpels and musical instruments are very expensive - why risk your livelihood on 'cheap'? It just so happens that some kit sold in so-called "pro audio" shops happens to be quite good value for money, as well it might with all the functionality they have crammed into a cheap plastic box. "Pro" they are most certainly not.

A little bit disengenuous don't you think?

Pro audio is equipment used to capture, reproduce and generally tinker with sounds, for the benefit of an audience, be it live or recorded. Just like in hifi (and any other industry) there are sliding scales, only the hifi sliding scale seems to carry on where 'pro audio' equipment tops out in monetary terms. So pro audio might be a cheap sub £100 audio interface and a pair of £200 monitors (or less I suppose), it doesn't mean that that sort of equipment is going to be used in a bespoke, high budget, multi room studio. That said, the BBC make extensive use of Dynaudio monitors, the AIR series in particular I believe, but they may be the BM series as well. Whatever, they are not the megabucks that have been suggested are used in all top studios. The last studio I was in, used Quested monitors, unsure of the model, but they were not multi thousand pound beasts either. Monitors can get expensive though, particularly the farfield monitors. The ATC300 actives are around £30k, but that's a lot cheaper than a lot of high end statement speakers that cost in the hundreds of thousands and not mere tens.

So yes, pro audio is generally cheaper and arguably offers more bang for buck in terms of performance. The aesthetics however....

If you are in any doubt as to what monitors are used in any given studio, just look for the equipment listing for each studio (any studio worth their salt will have one). Try Abbey Rd Studio 2 for example.

 

[John Duncan]

pro audio might be a cheap sub £100 audio interface and a pair of £200 monitors

Which because it's "pro audio" must by definition be really good value and sound great, right?

 

[Overdose]

pro audio might be a cheap sub £100 audio interface and a pair of £200 monitors

Which because it's "pro audio" must by definition be really good value and sound great, right?

Err, why?

It's only my assertion that generally pro audio is better value than hifi. For comparisons you would need to match similarly priced equipment.

 

[Paul.]

Will somebody please think of the Mac Minis!

 

[Overdose]

pro audio might be a cheap sub £100 audio interface and a pair of £200 monitors

Which because it's "pro audio" must by definition be really good value and sound great, right?

If your point is that pro audio isn't if it's cheap, then what price point constitues 'pro' and using the same rationale, when does hifi become lofi because of cost?

 

[John Duncan]

My point is that statements like

Not true at all, pro monitors are nothing like the cost of 'hifi' kit and yet they are happily used in the music production process before it ever gets to cd etc., etc.

are nonsense.

 

[bigboss]

Will somebody please think of the Mac Minis!

+1

This thread is going waaaay off topic now.

 

[Overdose]

Well that does depend on what sort of costs are in mind, but many studios use sub £1K monitors, even well respected studios, but between say, £300 and £1k, that's very much budget/mid range hifi, at a guess.

 

[bigboss]

I never thought of the Mac Mini as a music server before. Makes sense though. Its compact size also helps. I do not expect it to be any inferior to other options, although there are products offering better value for money in the market.

 

[Overdose]

Will somebody please think of the Mac Minis!

+1

This thread is going waaaay off topic now.

Bit late for that!

I think the OP has all he needs in terms of Mac mini info though, the poor little underperforming things. :boohoo:

 

[carter]

One of the guys who hosts the podcast (the ht guys) set up a media server using mac minis, I think he did a talk about it at some mac confrance,I'm sure he did a podcast on it,could be worth a listen on iTunes.

 

[carter]

http://www.htguys.com/mac-mini-video-server

 

[AnotherJoe]

Well (back in time) my point was:-

that for the price of a 4GB macmini with 750GB drive, you could get a Synology DS412+ with 8TB of storage.

Given they would both probably end up running plex,xmbc or whatever - the DS is a better option. Thats probably more true when u look at it as mediaserver not just a musicserver - but thats the next logical step.

Yes you need a player - most people would just use their existing tv/receiver. If not, a 1080p mediaplayer would be around £70

Then people starting arguing about the quality of a computer as a music player....

 

[professorhat]

Unless they wanted to use iTunes (some people like it ) and use the Apple Remote app to control it. Then the DS would be no good at all.

Don't get me wrong, I see your point, but I also see others' points that the Mini Mac is a good little unit and a "neat" / tidy solution (i.e. all-in-one music / media server and client with a small form factor and an easy setup / interface), especially if you have other Apple products already (e.g. iPod Touch / iPhone / iPad).

I have both a Synology and a Mini Mac in my setup now and they both have their uses.

 

[philipjohnwright]

JD - do the decent thing and lock this thread to put it out of its misery

And apologies to all for flanning the flames a bit earlier, I knew it was a mistake as my fingers flew over the keyboard (the old adage of never sending an email when you're even the tiniest bit grumpy!)

 

[relocated]

pro audio might be a cheap sub £100 audio interface and a pair of £200 monitors

Which because it's "pro audio" must by definition be really good value and sound great, right?

AND YET AGAIN John you attach meaning to a statement based on your own BIAS and annoyance. For god sake read what people say and don't twist the context and don't falsely or mistakenly interpret when there is no need.

I shall not follow this thread any more because we have gone a long way from what was asked and experienced some particularly unpleasant people on it. Also it is clear that JD has got stuck in a groove and will, seemingly, misinterpret what some of us say.

:wave:

 

[Anonymous]

Jason36, Hope you got some useful info from all the replies to date. As you may have found by now Mac Mini will work fine as music server. I wanted to find a cheap way to experiment with streaming and used Apple TV on wireless network with desktop mac running itunes. HDMI from Apple TV to TV set and optical out to Quad CDP2. Worked fine, can either control with logitech remote (after a bit of fiddling about) or with Apple remote app on ipad. Other eqpt is Quad CDP2/Quad 909 power/Quad2805 speakers. There is a difference in sound to CD, in the same way that there is a difference when swapping any source component. Sound is still good, possibly slightly more forward. For me the big advantage has been convenience and the fact that I now tend to play more music and not just the CD's that happen to be left out on the coffee table or are otherwise easiest to find. The slight inconvenience has been needing to turn on the mac which is in another room. Because of that I may go down the same path as you and use mac mini as music server, but contriol with ipad.

 

[Anonymous]

Perhaps my use case can shed some light on whether the Mac Mini woudl be good choice as a media server.

I have an older (2010) mac mini (dual core, 4GB Ram), connected to a drobo (16tb).

This serves music to 5 airplay clients (airport express) - for a whole house audio system.

It also serves video (SD and HD) to 3 Apple TV's

The airports are all wireless (5ghz N from an airport extreme) and the Apple TV's are all conected via 200Mbps Homeplug networking.

Ialso have a lone gen 1 apple TV which is a nice little backup server for music.

The mac mini can serve content to all these devices simultanoeusly, so 3 HD video streams and a seperate audio stream to the 5 speakers, with no drop outs or glitches, and has done so for 3 years.

My video data is a combination of iTunes purchases, DVD rips (SD) and 1080P Blu Ray rips, all my music is 320kps MP3.

My system can also handle a variety of iDevices streaming content tdirectly to the nodes via airplay at the same time.

sTeVE

 

[Anonymous]

Whoops - double post!

 

[MajorFubar]

Good post Steve and thank you for taking the time to make it. It's a shame this thread degenerated because there is lots of useful info in it; your post, for example.

A recent thing I've found out as well (which may well be common knowledge to everyone else but wasn't to me) is that the Mac will happily run Plex Media Server.

So if you have a load of films in your Mac Mini and a device like my cheap Samsung BD-C5500 blu-ray player which wil run Plex Media Centre (aka just 'Plex'), you don't even need an Apple TV: Plex will stream video from your Mac straight to your BD player, using the BD player's remote to control it. I think that's amazing, but some say I'm easily amazed.