Turn an Intel macmini into a music server

@jgoldrick

I’ve run an RPi 3 B+ for over 4 years now with no noise issue to speak of either on headphones or speakers with the volume turned way up. Maybe you had a defective unit. I use whatever power supply was recommended by Adafruit.

sns

2,484 posts

08-07-2022 at 04:29am 

External lps and internal dc power supplies, in my case Uptone MMK and JS-2. Jitter is only part of the problem with using the usb out, noise on motherboard, especially with stock power supply and no OS optimization.

TL;DR -  in my experience a headless stock M1 Mac mini is superior to a 2012 i7 mini with Uptone JS2 LPS & MMK. 

I had been running a 2012 Mac mini, with Uptone JS2/MMK linear PS and fan mod, with Roon server for years.

I also use HQPlayer as the output renderer for Roon. Back in 2020 I bought an M1 mini to experiment with and tried various combinations including running Roon all-in-one (control/server) and HQPlayer on the M1. I  settled for retaining the 2012 mini as the separate Roon server and running HQPlayer from the M1 mini - both connected to an Uptone Etherregen switch with the 'B' side of the Etherregen going to a Sonore UltraRendu then to my DAC. 

However I did notice that using Roon in any combination of the above was inferior in SQ to streaming direct from the HQPlayer app on the M1 without Roon. The HQP player interface/functionality is vastly inferior to Roon's, so this was a source of frustration for me. 

Anyway, as an experiment I acquired a second M1 mini (cheapest basic config) and substituted it for the 2012 Mini/Uptone combo. The second M1 mini was run headless like the 2012 Mini, using the same generic cat6 ethernet cable into the Uptone Etherregen switch. 

Roon Server running from headless M1 mini, with HQPlayer running on my other M1 mini and both connected to the Etherregen switch, sounds fantastic and indistinguishable from streaming direct via HQPlayer alone. 

Lots of great info here but everyone is missing a couple of key things
If you live in Canada like I do, there is no access to Qobuz. So what do you do if you want a good streaming service with an amazing catalog? You are left with using a Mac computer and Apple Music. It seems no one on this forum is using the service and all I ever read is second hand misinformation. 
I have used a Mac and Apple Music for a couple of years and have been quite happy with the SQ and certainly the catalog. It’s a great place to start into streaming and is inexpensive.

If you live in Canada like I do, there is no access to Qobuz. So what do you do if you want a good streaming service with an amazing catalog? 

What about Tidal? I prefer Qobuz as I'm  not an MQA fan, but I used Tidal for years and it's a mature high quality service  with an expansive  catalog.

I am definitely not an MQA fan. I compared Tidal to Apple Music and it didn't sound as good at all. It really does seem 'compressed' compared to the 24bit Apple tracks.