Mac Mini vs. Macbook Pro as a server

I have a 2011 Mac Mini running on battery with a SSD hard drive. It is very very good. I have not done an A-B comparison between the current Mac Book Pro and my Mac Mini. I would think that the Mac Mini would sound better because of not having a voltage DC to DC converter to power the screen. I have also found that the type of battery used has a direct effect on the sound of the Mac Mini. I have developed a battery for my battery powered Mac Mini that sounds better than the current crop of AGM batteries everybody else uses. There is one linear power supply that sound pretty good. It is available from Balance Power Technology. I have recently been playing with other types of music servers other than the Mac Mini and I am finding better results with some of these other type server systems. I am evaluating an Olive 06HD, an Aurnder S10, and the Yamaha NP 2000 network player. I received the Olive 06HD on Wednesday for evaluation and it has broken in quite nicely. Sonically speaking it is much better than my highly modified Mac Mini and it is a hell of a lot easier to use. I received the Aurender S10 Thursday after work and that out of the box sounded better than the Olive 06HD but was a little more complex in its set up. I brought the Yamaha NP 2000 network player home from RMAF and set it up Monday night. It was the most difficult to set up it required that I set up a network drive but its ease of use is great. I was not expecting the Yamaha to sound as good as it does. At $2000.00 it is a bargain. Sonically speaking it is as good as the Olive 06HD. The nice thing about these music server set ups is that we are on the cusp of huge leaps in performance over the current computer based music servers and will not be required to purchase batteries and chargers and having to worry every time there is a software update whether you still have your software optimization.

I am borrowing a Audio Research DAC 8. The Yamaha and olive have their own DACS built in however they both have high end Burr Brown DAC Chips like DAC 8 and I will add they sounded better than my modified Mac Mini using using the Audio Research DAC 8. But when I put on the Olive 06HD, then the Aurender S10 and the Yamaha NP 2000 on the AR DAC 8 it is pure magic. All three the Olive the Yamaha and especially the Aurender S10. I found out quickly how bad the Mac Mini was by comparison. I suspect that the week link is the USB interface and the software i.e music player (Pure Music, Amara.) The fact that you can use your Mac Mini to write a term paper and balance your check book and listen to music might also have something to do with the difference in sound quality. I found that the Mac Mini with a music streamer pro is very good, and as good as you will need with the limitations of the Mac Mini. The Mac Mini is not world class. For the price the Mac Mini is not bad but if you are going to spend money on modifying your Mac Mini you would be better suited buying the the middle Olive or the Yamaha NP 2000 and a good DAC outside of USB.

I have developed a 20AH Lithium type battery for the Mac Mini. It is big improvement. I do not wish to market it at this time due to the liability of such batteries.

I have an I7 Mac Mini with 8Gigs of Ram using Amarra. The Mini is optimized for music. I have as much stuff turned off as possible. Herman my point is very valid the Audio Research DAC accepts USB in fact it has one of the best USB input receiver of any DAC. Its performance is one of the best I have tried in my system. I have tried so many DACS look at my prior post. You have so much stuff going on in a computer that you cannot see. All that stuff running down in the operating system uses resources that take away from the sound. To get off a personal computer based music server will be a huge step in the right direction. The price will soon drop on dedicated music playback systems and the Mac Mini will not be the answer. At this point the Yamaha NP 2000 sounds much better than my Highly Modified Mac Mini with out having to buy a DAC with a USB input. I tried the Mac Mini with the best I could find USB cable and with the good optical cable for my comparison. The other inputs I used SPDIF coaxile and AES balanced. My system is very resolving and it will tell you if something is not right. The Mac Mini is very good but it is not world class like my Turntable or the other music servers I have tried as of recent. I just bought a Krell CD player the S350A at $2500.00 Retail it blows the doors of my Mac Mini. I bought the CD player for clients that come over with CDs just for the quick and easy demo. I found much more air and presence around the instruments and the voices to be more correct than with my Mac Mini. I cannot wait for the newer music players to come down in price and increase their performance.

I now have a better turntable and I have upped the performance of my system by a good bit with upgrades. Also keep in what happens with technology and time? I think technology gets better and these new music servers have been developed for a specific purpose and that is what happens with technology. I hope that continuing strides in performance continue to happen. To me it sounds like you are attached to you Mac Mini. Being attached to equipment is not good because you are then putting an emotional attachment to a specific item in your system that might not be the performance you could have if you were to try something new. Do not get me wrong I am assuming that you use Pure Vinyl for ripping your records and that cannot be done with all the other music servers I mentioned above than the Mac Mini with Pure Vinyl. They all have a purpose but what I am hearing right now is what I said is better. So Herman do think that technology does not change over time? I did not even know about the Aurender S10 and the Yamaha NP 2000 until I got to RMAF last week.