My disappointment was with the low computational power of the mac mini. Using a VNC connection (VNC server capability built in to the Mac Mini - use something on a laptop like GTK VNC Viewer on Linux, or Chicken of the VNC on an apple laptop as the client) the response is b.a.d.
You have to be patient. Give a command and wait.
I have also switched to Clementine as the music server as it allows me to point to media locations rather than a single library. This way I can plug in multiple USB drives and point to them all and they all show up in my music library.
If using a DAC from your MAC Mini - I can't recommend enough the sonic benefit of a USB to SPDIF converter and then plug in to your DAC's SPDIF input instead of the USB. There is too much they've screwed up on the USB interface of DACs to allow that in between.
The benefit of creating a playlist (genre=jazz for instance) and having the player on shuffle is fantastic. Allows you to listen to all your stuff randomly and you will be surprised at stuff you like but didn't know you had. My buddy ripped all his 2000 CDs and gave them all away.
BE SURE TO RIP TO LOSSLESS FORMAT!!! FLAC best, ALAC OK but a pain for the rest of the computer world.
Windows seems to have the best high sample rate players (for free to boot). Wish there were on Linux. If they were - I'd put Linux on my mac server and be done with Apple's BS.
You have to be patient. Give a command and wait.
I have also switched to Clementine as the music server as it allows me to point to media locations rather than a single library. This way I can plug in multiple USB drives and point to them all and they all show up in my music library.
If using a DAC from your MAC Mini - I can't recommend enough the sonic benefit of a USB to SPDIF converter and then plug in to your DAC's SPDIF input instead of the USB. There is too much they've screwed up on the USB interface of DACs to allow that in between.
The benefit of creating a playlist (genre=jazz for instance) and having the player on shuffle is fantastic. Allows you to listen to all your stuff randomly and you will be surprised at stuff you like but didn't know you had. My buddy ripped all his 2000 CDs and gave them all away.
BE SURE TO RIP TO LOSSLESS FORMAT!!! FLAC best, ALAC OK but a pain for the rest of the computer world.
Windows seems to have the best high sample rate players (for free to boot). Wish there were on Linux. If they were - I'd put Linux on my mac server and be done with Apple's BS.