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Advice on best upgrade path for a Mac Mini setup

Hi all,

My beloved PWT transport was shipped out for service last week, so in the mean time I decided to experiment with the Mac Mini which usually resides in my 2nd system. It was no surprise that it doesn't even come close to the PWT, but it sounds OK, and now i'm curious as of what I can achieve with it without spending another $2K.

It's a stock Mac Mini about 2 years old with an SSD drive.
I'm using it to stream TIDAL Hi-Fi.
I have it hooked up to a Schiit Wyrd USB re-generator via a Pangea silver USB 2 cable, which in turn is feeding my DSD via a WireWorld Starlight 7 USB 2 cable.
My thinking was that the Mac-to-Schiit path will be less critical in terms of cables, as it gets regenerated anyway, but I'm open to listen and learn...
That "Wyrd Schiit" re-generator did make quite a noticeable positive impact when I hooked it up in my 2nd system.

My question is - what will be the best bang-for-the-buck upgrades? 

I guess the switching power supply is a weak link so I looked at Mojo Audio stuff and those prices seem unreasonable - they want more for their power supply than what I paid for my PWT (including its superb power supply).
Any other recommended power supply upgrade kits?
I'm good with DIY and can probably do the upgrade myself.

Perhaps go with much better cables? Better isolation? Better re-generator?
What did you guys try that proved to really do the "magic" for similar setups?
Perhaps it is a 'losing battle' and it will never sound nearly as good as my PWT without spending $2K in upgrades?

Thanks for your advice!

Ami

128x128ami
59 responses Add your response
sbank's avatar
sbank
3,378 posts
 
@ghosthouse  Yes, you should still get a clearly audible improvement with a good LPS whether the booster, the Aurelic one that comes with the higher priced Aries or one of many others. The Aries threads on computer audiophile discuss LPS comparisons. 

iTunes doesn't imbed art into each song file. If you bought any music from iTunes store it will be missing art when you look in Lightning or any other software that isn't iTunes. Doug's Scripts has a cheap (~$5) download that will help imbed the art. I use the Mac software Yate which is flexible nice tag editing software. You should still be able to use your mac and find the Seagate drive on your network to edit metatags of music stored there. Cheers,
Spencer
ghosthouse's avatar
ghosthouse
4,306 posts
 
@sbank  - Thanks for your comments, especially the tips on the album artwork.  I need to see if I can identify some common denominator between the albums that are missing artwork via the Lightning.  I don't have any purchases from the iTunes store, so it's not that.  

I've been trying to read what I can about the Aries.  There's a recent (Sept) Mini  review on CA.  There was a little LPS discussion in the comments to that review  but nothing extensive.  I might try the iPower wall wart ($49) from Music Direct in the interim.  It's still a switcher but supposedly very low noise.  Just don't know if it will give the "bigger sound" some have reported from LPS use.    

Thanks again.  


jond's avatar
jond
5,796 posts
 
@ghosthouse Thanks for the heads up on the CA review, it's quite well done and informative.
ghosthouse's avatar
ghosthouse
4,306 posts
 
Hey @jond  - glad to return a favor.


Post removed 
dctom
110 posts
 
It may not make sense but it is the case.
It is generally accepted a ssd will decrease the noise within the computer's environment helping SQ. The music is contained in an external HD.
I used the same playback software on the Mac with OSX  and when the machine was converted to linux, my dell also used the same software  (Jriver).
I am not alone finding linux can produce a better sound, Lukas at lamizator uses linux.
nmolnar
38 posts
 
You may wish to consider the Small Green Computer's SonicTransporter as a replacement for your Mac-based computer configuration scenarios. This work as a very flexible (audio) purpose build LINUX based computer for the application described. It is setup to work easily & seamlessly via web interface with the microRendu (these can be purchased as a pair from Small Green Computers). It can be configured with large amounts of solid sate storage (built-in) and USB drives can be attached to it directly to access your existing disk-based music libraries. Starting price for a smallest configuration is <$400.
I am using this configuration (SonicTransporter i5/microRendu)  with a 10 TB Synology NAS on a dedicated switched Gigabit network.
BTW, according to the Sonore website and my own experiments, an optical network does not work well with the microRendu.
randy-11
1,913 posts
 
the 2014-on mini's can output higher bit rates


whatever you do, be sure to do a blind test and if you hear no difference be sure you can return the replacement

I'd expect that there are several other areas that will make a much greater SQ improvement, likely suspects include:

speakers; room interface
better recorded source material
MQA
DEQX
DAC
sunandmusic
27 posts
 
A Mac Mini with the Uptone Audio board mod to 12V DC is worth the effort for sure. Then add SSD, more memory and power it from a decent LPS. Take out everything that is not needed, turn all software off that is not required. Turn off Bliuetooth and screen share it via a router. I use Audirvana+ latest version in Direct / Asnyc mode.
Coonect it to your DAC viua Ethernet, don’t use USB it is terrible as an audio medium. I use a Rednet 3 and it sound incredible, bears any CDP I have tried (at any price).
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