Mac Mini versus PC sonic differences, why?

When upgrading the PS for the MM where does one find/buy the power cable from the new PS to the MM? Do you use the same one that is supply with the original PS?

And then there is the subject of converting the CD to a computer audio file. This is where I have found most of my problems. I live for the day when I have 4000-5000 CDs all ripped 100% bit perfect and double backed up on external storage. I think the DVD ROM drives of today fail in terms of accuracy. It's true that most of the error recovery takes care of drive innaccuracy but extracting BIT PERFECT audio copies is a whole different problem. I would think a company could put out a 16X CD ROM drive designed to rip a music CD to a computer file. Beef it up and sell it at a premium. Bring back the Plextor 16X SCSI drives of yore.

Then there are the surface scatches on the CD itself that cause errors ... Yet another source of problems.

Bottom line ... what a lot of people think is bit perfect ... really isnt. Too many variables to pin down. I have it down pretty well now but it can take a long time to rip a CD that has surface issues.

OS wise ... I work in Information Technology at a college. We have about 600 macs and 3000 PC's over the last 10 years I have messed with sound and music extraction. I have heard good, mediocre and bad sound come out of computers but I have never linked it to a specific OS. I think there needs to be a more stable way of getting those "pits stamped or burned" into an exact bit stream a computer can read and store. The file is sacred. Garbage in ... garbage out.

That being said ; I am looking at a Mac mini to play with this winter after 20 years playing with Linux and Windows. I have installed, configured and played with OS X and I really like it for it's simplicity and efficiency. Will it make a sonic difference? I'm thinking no ... but I have a open mind.

Glory,

I desolder the power cable from a stock SMPS OR I buy the one off of mp3car. It tends to be cheaper to buy a supply off ebay and steal the cable from it. I built my own DC cable on my last supply using the wire we use in Mojo Audio power cables. I just stole the connector off of the original cable. The DC connectors themselves aren't sold OEM unfortunately.

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I agree that having 4gigs of RAM is a necessity on the Mac Mini. If you buy one with less RAM it's fairly easy to upgrade. A SSD helps the performance of the system, but I didn't hear much audible benefit by adding one. Though it wasn't non-existent.
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Surface scratches on a CD actually don't damage the content of the CD. The plastic cover is usually what is scratched and it's fairly easy for the computer to read around the scratches unless the disk had a wire brush taken to it. CDs are buffered and rebuffered while being copied. If you RIP them to a lossless format at a high bitrate they will be bit perfect on the computer. The issue more so is outputting that file to the DAC. That's why Pure Music and Amarra have been getting popular. I found they they both sound different, it'll be a personal preference as to which you prefer. I use Pure Music.

Eric,

Correct. If you plan to use multiple external hard drives in order to have plenty of storage space and a backup drive, you can use firewire attached drives. This gets your disk I/O off of the USB bus. Then use a USB DAC and you have the disk I/O and the DAC I/O on separate buses. I can't say if it makes a sonic difference, but it would seem to make logical sense considering the firewire bus is there to use. BTW, the Iomega MiniMax hard drives are a cosmetic match for a MAC Mini. Very cool....

Also, if you use a bluetooth keyboard (with touchpad) you also get the keyboard I/O off of the USB bus. Also the bluetooth keyboard/touchpad is cool because you can have it in your lap on the sofa/listening chair.

Totally agree on the wireless keyboard. I use a Logitech DiNovo Edge bluetooth keyboard and it's great.

I also use an iPad with LogMeIn Ignition installed so that I can use a wireless touch monitor (which works incredibly well). Then I don't even need the keyboard at all.