Mac Mini As A Streaming Source

I don't know for sure but I think you can connect the phone or iPad directly to the amp via USB. You may also be able to stream the phone through the Mac Mini. 

I control my Mac Mini with a keyboard and mouse, hooked up through my TV so I can see what I'm doing. I don't use Roon or anything like that. Just straight from Apple Music, or Youtube when I'm listening to that. I don't know why a different streamer would make a difference in terms of tone, finesse, and musicality. That's really weird and the causes for why that might be happening have not even been close to reasonably explained but it may be happening with some setups. 

I upgraded to an M2 Mac Mini and it works great as a streaming device to my Aqua formula DAC. Roon is quick, much quicker than on the 7-8 year old Mini I was running.

I use a Luna dongle to send video to an iPad so I can run the Mac Mini in headless mode.

I stream from Tidal and Qobuz under Roon. The Mac mini runs my Roon core. 

I’m curious how you would stream from Apple Classical as I thought they only had an iPhone version and not a version for the Mac Mini. If they had a version for the Mac Mini, I would run it.

My dream is that one day the Naxos Music Library will allow themselves to be integrated under Roon but I guess that is unlikely.

I’ve used mac mini as a streamer for years. I had Roon on it and was streaming Qobuz and local files in AIFF, FLAC, ALAC. Wasn’t a fan.

Both streamers I purchased as upgrade, the Auric Aries G1 and Limin U1 Mini easily beat it on tone, finesse and musicality

I now use my mac mini as a Roon core only. Very happy with.

I would not recommend using it as a Roon core and streamer all at once. If you read up on Roon’s guidelines for core, they don’t recommend using core as a streamer.

@jbuhl +1

Ahhh the old Apple lock in at play.

People have success with Mac Mini’s.

Personally I would not run a Roon core on a Mac Mini. Not after having experience with it. I switched off a Mac Mini to a Small Green Computer ST with a Bryston Pi endpoint. You could get a SGC ST with a Sonore endpoint to run the Roon core and play ripped files. especially the optical Rendu

The boat anchor is the Apple Music. Maybe do a trial run with Qobuz or Tidal music service and see if there classical offerings have your content. Here is a link to how Roon manages Classical, advance to about the 4:10 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N3RZM_JfL0

If you can find a Roon endpoint that uses another of your 6 digital besides USB input you could use a iPAD mini and go USB into your ML.

It was a happy day when I said goodby to Apple music and my mini in the chain.

Yech.

And don’t worry about playing SACD. Much easier to play ripped files.

And you can’t be seriously considering tethering your phone for some more bad SQ.

???

Also, can I just use my phone (latest android running apple music and Tital) or ipad as my digital source and connect the USB C output to the USB-B input on my amp's DAC?

Thanks!  How do you control it?

I use a Mac Mini as a streamer. Probably USB output would make the most sense since the Mark Levinson accepts USB input, and a new Mac Mini has no other built-in digital audio output capability except HDMI, which I don’t see listed as an input option for the Levinson.

If you get an older Mac Mini it might still have optical digital audio output through the headphone jack. In that case you could try it as well and compare it to the USB output.