Mac Mini As A Streaming Source

I had used an Apple computer in the distant past as a music server but changed over to a dedicated audio streamer mostly because I believed that a home computer is a device designed to do many things well, including acting as a music source but a dedicated audio streamer is a device designed to do this one thing. It made more sense to choose a music server. Nowadays with better software and chips, I don't know if that argument still holds true??? 

I believe JRiver Media Center for MAC and JRemote (iOS) will do what you want to do. You can try JRiver Media Center free of charge for 30 days. JRemote (iOS) would cost you $9.99. In any case, it wouldn't cost much to try it out. It would take some effort to get it running correctly.

So much bad info here. I’ve been using a Mac mini since 2005 as a music server. From 2012, as a headless music server. 
Most people buy music servers (macs, pcs, Aurender, innuos,Auralic or any other computer based server, yes, all of these servers are pcs underneath running a proprietary OS) and then run them on the same rack with your audio gear then using usb to hook them up to a dac. This is the worst possible setup you can do for sq (ok maybe toslink is worse just because toslink snot rate is sub par).

Yes, up until 2016/2017, I used my Mac in my audio room plugged into my dac using usb. I decided to get a dedicated music server so I auditioned the best models at the time and the best sounding with the best software was the Auralic Aries. I used the Aries to stream my ripped music to my external dac using usb. It was a little better than the Mac setup but convoluted because I had to run minimserver and upnp on the Mac to have Auralic connect to the macs hard disks where the music resided.

After a couple of years with this setup along with trying out all the gimmicks/tweaks to get usb to sound better, I sold all of this and went back and I a headless Mac mini running audirvana (then eventually Roon) connected by Ethernet to the dac (bought the best dac at the time with Ethernet and i2s inputs) and the sound quality was much better. The Mac resides in another room outside of my dedicated audio room so I don’t have to worry about computer noise or the need for any of the usb gimmicks.

Today, m1 Mac mini running Roon to 6 endpoints (1 of them being my dac in my audio room) all controlled by my iPad or iPhone. Even my volume level is controlled by my iPad using roon. The m1 Mac is 1 of the fastest computers on the market only beaten by the newer m2 and the upcoming m3 macs.

I ran Roon on a $50k enterprise Linux server using 256g and f ram and all enterprise class solid state storage (pcie, nvme, and SSD’s) running Linux and the sound quality was no different than the Mac mini.

IMO, the sound quality of a music server boils down to the software you run to retrieve the music, not the hardware and especially not the hardware when using Ethernet to the dac and having the server isolated in another room. I’ve used apples iTunes 18 years ago, then amarra, pure music, audirvana, Auralic lightning DS and Lumins software running the Auralic Aries, and now Roon. I have played with some of the latest versions of audirvana which might be possibly better sounding than Roon but the graphical UI is pretty bad. 
 

As for sound quality, I sold my $14k vinyl equipment, phono preamp, cleaning crap, and all my hundreds of vinyl albums 4 years ago and haven’t missed it for a second. Hires/MQA/DSD sounds better and more enjoyable to use than vinyl.

Computers also introduce noise into your system. You got all the stuff running in the background with a computer, while a dedicated streamer is clean. I ran Mac mini for a time, with audrvarna, then switched to a dedicated streamer with Qobuz. Much higher res, and can play dsd.files.

In the past I have used a 2014 Mac Mini, usually running headless, to run Roon Core and other music-related processes (including HQ Player, BAACH4Mac, and the HD Tracks downloader).  I currently have Roon Core running on a dedicated music server (the sonicTransporter i9).

I have tried running Roon Core both from a separate room (with a WiFi backhaul) and co-located in the same cabinet with all my other HiFi gear.  Either way makes little or no difference to sound quality, but I prefer to avoid the WiFi backhaul.  If I had ethernet cable (or optical fiber)  lines throughout my house, I'd probably put my server in a separate room, just to make my HiFi cabinet a little less crowded.  However, I never notice the sound of the Mac Mini's fan even if it is within 10 ft of my listening position, and especially not with music playing.   

Any concerns about computer system "noise" are overblown, IMO.  However, processes such as Time Machine may hog computing resources and interfere with music playback, so you may want to shut them off if or when you're using the Mini for that purpose.   If you run Roon Core on the Mini, it's easy to control it from an iOS device.  You also can use Screen Sharing to control a headless Mini from another MacOS device.  

Using the sonicTransporter vs the Mini for Roon Core has little or no impact on sound quality, as far as I can tell. Nor does the choice of ethernet vs. USB, per se.  Currently, I run both Roon Core and HQ Player on the sonicTransporter, mainly because it has a faster processor than my aging Mini.  I also prefer a USB connection to ethernet, because I can only use HQ Player with USB.  This pathway allows higher upsampling rates (up to DSD 512) than I can get with Roon via an ethernet connection. 

If I were starting over from scratch and buying all new equipment, I'd seriously consider a new M2 Mac Mini rather than a dedicated music server plus a Mini.  In any case, I wouldn't want to do without the Mini because it is useful for so many music-related tasks.  Also, the Mini tends to be much less expensive than a dedicated server.  Controlling it remotely is pretty easy.  For a simple setup, I suppose you could just connect a Mini via USB to your HiFi rig then play Apple Music using the iTunes Remote app from one or more other devices (though I've never tried exactly this setup myself).  Personally, I like Roon, but you have other options such as Audirvana. Tidal and Qobuz subscription services work beautifully with Roon.  Apple Music does not integrate directly with Roon. Roon can index  and play music from stored files in your iTunes Library, but cannot directly access Apple Music servers for real time playback.