Computer Do Over

Actually there are quite a few PCs that are as small or smaller than a Mac Mini. All of them are cheaper as well.
This one of them Acer Aspire.

Here's another called the Fit PC

Since you're using a wireless head unit, I'm not sure there will be a real difference in using any of them. I suspect not.
There's quite a few others out there as well. You could go with a full tower and just store it away using it as a server. Noise wouldn't be a factor in that setup. That takes the equation out of it having a fan or not.

For a server, I would opt for a more powerful full tower machine. And yes they can be whisper quiet as well if need be. Reason being you may in the future find more uses for it, other than just a music server.

I know many here are hell bent on a Mac, but there's always more than one way to skin a cat.

For a main computer...I would just build one or have someone
to build one for me. Linux is another great option as an OS.

It's free and performs solidly. Virus protection isn't
really necessary with it either. My favorites are Linux
Ubuntu and Linux Mint. You can have a very fast, high
quality, stable computer with future expansion capabilities
not found in most manufactured computers.. that includes
Macs.

Plus no need to worry about all the proprietary stuff that
Mac users have to deal with either.
Good luck with your search.

Rbstehno,

When I mentioned tower, I was referring to a media server
not just a music server. And in that world a Mac Mini isn't
the best machine for the job.

Why does a tower have to be a Mac? Is it the only PC on the
planet that can do what a person needs or wants?

I run only one internal drive in my main media server. All
of the other HDs are external.

For the cost of a full blown Mac mini, you can build a much
better PC.Higher quality memory, CPU and more hard drive space are just a few things. The tower is nearly infinitely
upgradeable. A Mac Mini is not. Let's face it, there's only
so much you can do with it before you'll need to buy a new
one.

I can drop in a new MOBO,video card, CPU or power supply
when the time comes and continue to rock without worrying
about proprietary parts. You can't do that with a
Mac..sorry.

Rbstehno...I never said you couldn't use the mac mini as a server. I do understand what your getting at about the streaming... I do something similar .. except its with all Windows units.

Comparing manufactured units ...the Macs may rate well, compared to something built specifically by an individual that's using premium parts of choice..you would have a hard time coming to the same conclusion about getting what you pay for. ;-)

I have a good friend who uses a Mini for his HTPC. He likes the Itunes for audio, but I recently turned him on to XBMC as his audio/video front end. It is a different level of media server open source software. XBMC is by far the front end of choice for guys doing the media server thing on Linux or Mac over on AVSforum.com. It gives you eye candy that the plain vanilla Itunes front end just doesn't match. It's also highly configurable.

If you haven't tried it, you're missing out on one neat program. I use Windows Media center with the Media Browser plug-in along with XBMC on a secondary HTPC.

The one area Mac OSX seems to lack in.. is having all around Media front-end playback support. There's no 1080P support for Mac nor is there automatic Meta-Data retrieval for movies/TV shows ripped into a Mac server. All of this has to be done manually . Even the ripping process is more complicated to play DVDs back on OSX from hard drive compared to Windows.

For a hardcore Home-theater/audio PC guy it's not the best option unless you plan to run Win 7 dual booted. This is one area where Windows performs admirably and there's no question about that if you look around.

In a nutshell, if all I were doing is playing music..the Mac Mini is fine. For all around playback, a dedicated Windows HTPC/server can't be beat IMO. No single OS does everything well, that's just the nature of the beast.