Which mac is better?

[stpierre76]

Hi everyone..

M about to purchase a mac and want to use it to store all my music and play it thru to an amp having a USB input.I was wondering out of all the mac model which one is better in terms of music, noise, output....thanks

john

 

[AlmaataKZ]

The new MacMini?

 

[Anonymous]

A new PC?

Get double the spec for less than half the price. But I do like the looks of the mac.

If its only for music ect. I would say a macmini as well as I had one and they are great little machines, but no HDMI I think.

Or just a simple macbook

 

[Anonymous]

The new mac mini does have an HDMI Port. it's also very quiet, is very nicely designed and has very low standby power consumption.

It is very expensive though. ( like all things Apple ), as the price has slowly crept up since launch.

If you do go for that , dont forget to budget for a display ( unless you intend to use your TV.. but I think that could get a little annoying ), keyboard and mouse as it doesn't come with one!

The iMac is an excellent all in one computer, and they have gorgeous displays. Obviously you can't stick it on your AV rack like a mini though.

I have an MacBook Pro which I use for the same purpose. Again, though it is very expensive. It is portable though 🙂

If you have the space and budget..i'd go for an iMac.

why usb? why not optical? I could be wrong, but I think USB is more limited on sample rate than optical...

-Rab

 

[SnowyJohn]

canada16:
A new PC?

Get double the spec for less than half the price.

By double spec you could only be referring to storage space, which is possibly the least important factor (as it's easily upgradable and very cheap / GB)... If only all things where measured by quantity, I'd swap my 2-litre focus for a 1.6 lotus elise.

EDITED BY MODS: discussing moderation is against House Rules, too

 

[AL13N]

The new Mac mini looks great. However, it's a shame they don't offer the SSD option like they do for the MacBook Pro. Especially considering that the mini is basically a laptop without screen/keyboard/trackpad.

A small (64GB) SSD drive would be enough for the OS and programs. All files could then be stored on a NAS.

 

[SnowyJohn]

SSD is most benefical in portable devices where low power consumption, boot times and durability are key... Whilst it would be nice to have the option when customising your own Mac Mini, the benefits of having a SSD would be fairly small to the masses - certainly, if using as a home audio/visual hub. The performance advantages of handling large files with SSD over conventional HDD's are slim.

If you're intending on using a NAS as a server of music files, I would imagine an alternative approach (Squeezebox, Sonos) would be a better option - unless you want the functionality of a computer.

 

[Anonymous]

NAS and a streaming device instead of Mac Mini perhaps ?

I'd also try and plump for a quiet PC, I've experience of Acer Revo (very quiet and can be mounted on the back of a monitor - looks cool !). I'd looked at but didn't go for ASROCK 330 ION so unsure about the noise levels.

I currently use a Shuttle PC, HP WHS, HP NAS and Roku.

Subject of SSD's (which is off topic). SSD's will benefit any PC, especially underpowered or slow one's. There is a HUGE performance difference over HDD the two are not comparable, downside is sizes only up to 1TB and anything over 128Gb is expensive. My experience of SSD is Crucial, Corsair, Samsung and Intel, my HDD experience WD Raptor, Cheetah SAS ... don't bother with RAID 0 and SSD they are so fast anyway that it won't make any significant difference.