MacBook Pro or Mac Mini as music server


Currently have apple extreme server. Also using the Olive Media Olive 4HD and Olive 2.
Thinking of adding either the latest Macbook pro or the mac mini as a music server for my cd collection.
Which of the two would be better suited to my task ?
I'm leaning towards the macbook pro 13" with 2.3 GHZ but then at almost half the price the Macbook min 2.4 is a steel but i wouldhave to add keyboard, a monitor and a mouse so cost would be close to the macbook pro.
Anything else am missing here ?
For the Dac, i plan to use either an I-Nova or a Bel canto designs dac 2.5. An esoteric D-07 is also not far fetch.
Would greatly appreciate some advice as i'm just starting out on this hobby (computer audio) just now.
Thanks guys-
nolitan

Showing 1 response by tgrisham

I was very nervous about "headless" until I tried it. I still bought a monitor and keyboard/mouse. I have an itouch, but an ipad or iphone will do the same. I took the itouch and went to apple's store and search for VNC. I got Chicken on the VNC for free. You have to have your itouch and mini on the same network. When you log into the network with both your itouch will appear under the apple itunes on the left side. When you click on it you will have to input the numeric code that shows up into both devices. Then they are "married" to each other. Then turn on the VNC by doubleclicking it. You will see your mini screen on the portable device and can control it from there. Alternatively, on the portable device go to the itune's store and search for the "remote" app. Download it and when you connect it your mini itunes will show up. Then you can control your mini itunes from your portable device.

I tried Amarra and Pure Music and thought the sound was slightly better but a pain to get it to play on the systems remotely connected in the other rooms. Also, Pure music gets alittle better with each upgrade so I am waiting for all the bugs to be worked out. Same with Fidelia. I tried Amarra and think its over priced.