Some thoughts on an Apple setup

[iMark]

After buying a Cambridge Audio DACMagic in the UK to improve the sound quality of my MacBook I decided that the easiest way to get the signal from the MacBook to the DACMagic was to get an Airport Express. When I got this last October I was very impressed with the sound from iTunes (ALAC). Much better than my old Sony MD-DX3 or my Pioneer DV 565. I was very unhappy with the performance of Airfoil (to stream Spotify Premium) but that was solved in November by a firmware update for the Airport Express.

At the moment I'm busy ripping our entire CD collection to ALAC. This will take another couple of weeks.

My partner bought an iPad a couple of weeks ago and we are only just beginning to see what the incredible opportunities are of this gadget. We have installed iTunes Remote on it and we now can manage what we want to hear from iTunes through the iPad. Better still is installing the iPhone app (no iPad version yet) of Spotify. The iPad can stream any audio directly to the Airport Express and the DAC. iOS 4.2 with AirPlay is a cracking addition if you have an Airport Express or an Apple TV.

There is still one more thing to work out: how to download tunes and podcasts from the shared library. My partner's Mac can see all the files on my computer but she can't download them to her iPod or iPad. The iPod can be synched with my computer but the iPad can't because it's already synched to her computer. Apparently there is solution for this but this involves delving into terminal settings. I will try to set this up later.

The Airport Express is one of the most versatile gadgets in we have. We took it to the UK when we stayed with relatives who have a cable connection but no WiFi. I managed to set up a WiFi network using the Airport Express. Last night we took AE to friends, plugged it into their stereo and we were playing music from laptops, an iPhone and an iPad within 10 minutes. It was no problem to join the existing WiFi network and it even improved the signal strength in their living room.

With the DAC I discovered that you can plug in more devices than there are inputs. The Airport Express is connected through Toslink, the Pioneer DV 565 is connected to coax input of the same input. Our DVD recorder is connected to the second coax input. We don't use the Airport Express and the Pioneer at the same time so there is no problem there. When they are both on at the same time, the Toslink takes preference over coax. This setup saved me buying a Toslink switchbox and could be useful to others too.

Regards from from a Windows free zone in Amsterdam.

 

[Helmut80]

very interesting read for me, as I am about to embark on my hifi journey, with the only thing set in stone being a Mac-based household and 500+ CDs being ripped in ALAC. I am at the moment trying to work out if amp + DAC + AE/ATV2 is the easiest, or if any of the 'all in ones' (uniti, qute, arcam solo neo) are worth a consideration.

It turns out I have all these gadgets and don't know how to use them (mostly because up until now I didn't have a need for these capabilities), so I will fire a few questions.

when you use the iPad or iPhone as iTunes remote, I presume you have to have your Macbook open/Mac turned on at the same time? ( I guess this makes sense with iMac in another room. With my Macbook I am not sure what the benefits would be).

can you then just browse your 'home' itunes library on the iPad? Or is play, pause, skip all you can do?

A specific area of concern for me is what to do when I run out of space on my internal HDD? I don't want to plug in an external HDD everytime I open iTunes, but I am unsure whether it is possible to keep entire iTunes (and iPhoto) library on a separate HDD (and whether this would have to be a NAS?), that could then be accessed from any Mac in the house.

Here's my thread in case you want to have a look

http://community.whathifi.com/forums/t/556483.aspx

 

[Craig M.]

yes, the itunes remote needs the mac with itunes running. you can browse the full library by album, artist, genre, or all songs, you also have access to your playlists and can create new ones.

i think you can store your music on any of your macs and access it from the others, i might be wrong, but think you just make the library folder available to other network users - i can access the itunes library on my mac mini (which is on an external hdd) with my macbook, although i haven't tried playing music this way as my mac mini is connected to the dac.

 

[Helmut80]

Craig M.:
yes, the itunes remote needs the mac with itunes running. you can browse the full library by album, artist, genre, or all songs, you also have access to your playlists and can create new ones.

i think you can store your music on any of your macs and access it from the others, i might be wrong, but think you just make the library folder available to other network users - i can access the itunes library on my mac mini (which is on an external hdd) with my macbook, although i haven't tried playing music this way as my mac mini is connected to the dac.

no matter which constellation I think of, I always come back to the mac mini. Now I was worried that I would have to turn the tv on with the mini to be able to see iTunes, but of course I could do that from a Macbook or iPhone/iPad. great.

 

[iMark]

Here the answers to your questions.

The Mac has to be running when you you use an iOS device as the remote control. The remote app gives you complete control over the iTunes library. You can even change Macs you want to control. You can browse the library, use genius etc.

At the moment I use a Samsung S2 (640 GB) USB drive for my iTunes library. I think it is big enough to hold all our CD's in ALAC. The HDD on my Mac is not big enough. I have a complete backup on another drive and when all the ripping is done I will make an extra copy of the library that we will keep in a safe place outside our home. Your biggest nightmare is that you have to rip all your CD's a second time. So a good backup strategy is a must. Getting a NAS is of course another option but there seem to be issues with formatting hard drives to HFS+ and the network connections. An external HDD and home sharing are much easier to set up.

 

[Helmut80]

iMark:
Here the answers to your questions.

The Mac has to be running when you you use an iOS device as the remote control. The remote app gives you complete control over the iTunes library. You can even change Macs you want to control. You can browse the library, use genius etc.

At the moment I use a Samsung S2 (640 GB) USB drive for my iTunes library. I think it is big enough to hold all our CD's in ALAC. The HDD on my Mac is not big enough. I have a complete backup on another drive and when all the ripping is done I will make an extra copy of the library that we will keep in a safe place outside our home. Your biggest nightmare is that you have to rip all your CD's a second time. So a good backup strategy is a must. Getting a NAS is of course another option but there seem to be issues with formatting hard drives to HFS+ and the network connections. An external HDD and home sharing are much easier to set up.

Yes I agree that external HDD is simplest option at this point. And if I am honest, I don't need to take my Macbook to work so there the rest of the family shouldn't have trouble when I'm out.

I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that you know your Macs because of your username

Question:

I keep coming back to splashing out on a mini rather than ATV2, but I am unsure of connectivity.

ATV2 straight forward: HDMI to tv, optical out goes into DAC.

The mac mini only has one of those headphone jacks right? can that go into DAC or is there some kind of 'adaptor'? And of course, would it mean a difference in sound quality?

 

[axman]

About external HDD:

there is no need to get NAS because no matter what, you still need itunes to be running on your Mac. The benefit of a NAS, i.e., not having to have your computer on to be able to access your files, disappears.

If you need to share your media files with other macs at home, then I would suggest getting an airport extreme and connecting a HDD to it via USB. This turns your HDD into sort of a NAS drive. Of course, if you leave your Mac on all the time, its drive can also be accessed by other Macs.

I was considering getting an apple mini to be my media server. Then apple released Apple TV2 and I decided to get that and connect my HDD to my airport extreme instead. Less clutter in the living room. My mac is now on all the time (unless it is sleeping), instead of leaving the macmini on all the time.

I recall that the MacMini's audio out is also an optical out.

 

[professorhat]

Helmut80:The mac mini only has one of those headphone jacks right? can that go into DAC or is there some kind of 'adaptor'? And of course, would it mean a difference in sound quality?

Yes, just needs one of these adaptors attached to any standard optical lead.

 

[Helmut80]

axman:
About external HDD:

there is no need to get NAS because no matter what, you still need itunes to be running on your Mac. The benefit of a NAS, i.e., not having to have your computer on to be able to access your files, disappears.

If you need to share your media files with other macs at home, then I would suggest getting an airport extreme and connecting a HDD to it via USB. This turns your HDD into sort of a NAS drive. Of course, if you leave your Mac on all the time, its drive can also be accessed by other Macs.

I was considering getting an apple mini to be my media server. Then apple released Apple TV2 and I decided to get that and connect my HDD to my airport extreme instead. Less clutter in the living room. My mac is now on all the time (unless it is sleeping), instead of leaving the macmini on all the time.

I recall that the MacMini's audio out is also an optical out.

oooh, I did not know that. So I could just get an AE and plug in an external via USB, keep my itunes on there and set to to shared to the missus could access it from her Macbook. Sounds like the ideal solution to me. (disregarding the fact that mac mini is the only way to get around converting all movies into iTunes friendly formats)

EDIT: the missus would only be able to access it from her macbook if mine was on as well of course. Is there no way to have a shared external itunes library that can be accessed from various Macs?

 

[iMark]

I suppose I do know my Macs. I have been using Macs since 1998. My first Mac ran on OS 8.0. I have used every version of iTunes since version 1.

From what I have been reading in your posts I think a Mac Mini would be an excellent idea for your needs. It has HDMI and optical out. If you put your iTunes library on the Mac Mini you could share the library with all Macs on the local network. You could always attach an external USB or FireWire HDD to the Mac Mini. If you get a very big HDD you could partition the HDD to both hold your iTunes library and use it as the Time Machine backup of your Mac Mini. With the Apple Remote Desktop software you would even be able to manage your Mac Mini from another Mac.

http://www.apple.com/uk/macmini/features.html

http://www.apple.com/uk/remotedesktop/

 

[axman]

Helmut80:

oooh, I did not know that. So I could just get an AE and plug in an external via USB, keep my itunes on there and set to to shared to the missus could access it from her Macbook. Sounds like the ideal solution to me. (disregarding the fact that mac mini is the only way to get around converting all movies into iTunes friendly formats)

EDIT: the missus would only be able to access it from her macbook if mine was on as well of course. Is there no way to have a shared external itunes library that can be accessed from various Macs?

No, your missus can access the library even if your Mac is off. So this is the way to have a shared library.

You can also have a shared library by connecting your HDD to your Mac directly. You need to go to preference and tick the box for "wake up for network". So even if your Mac is sleeping, your missus can access your HDD. However, this means that you cannot switch off your Mac at all, unlike the extreme version

I'm not sure what you mean by "mac mini is the only way to get around converting all movies into iTunes friendly formats". I have been using handbrake to transfer all my DVDs to my HDD, and they all work ok.

 

[Anonymous]

Do you want to share the songs / podcasts on the shared library directly to the iPad and bypass the iPads host mac or do you just want a way to share the files within the network?

iTunes supports Home Sharing, all your computers sign into 1 master iTunes account and all media within your local machines iTunes library can be shared with a total of 5 macs present on your network (that must also be signed into the same iTunes account). Apps, music, movies, music videos, podcasts can simply be dragged and dropped from 1 computer to another (they appear in the source list in iTunes - where you see your iPhone / iPad when they're syncing).

From there "your" content can be synced to your wife's iPad by simply selecting it from the sync menu when she docks her ipad.

 

[iMark]

The idea is to have all songs/podcast in one library which is managed from my Macbook while retaining all her apps/photos when synching to her own computer.

My partner's iPad is synched to her MacBook Pro because she has her own iTunes account to manage her apps. The problem (so far) is that Home Sharing is on but we can't drag files from the 'central' library to her iPad when when it's connected to her computer. If we connect the iPad to my computer it wants to sync with my library which doesn't have her apps. I will investigate the settings for Home Sharing further because you seem to have worked out how to do it.