Apple vs PC for Music System

From experience, I would go for the HTPC. The Blu ray drive is a God sent! Make sure you have a good video card. Something like a Nvidia 8800GT or similar. Also check to make sure the tuner card is HDTV capable. This way you can get HD channels OTA on the PC and record them if you want too.

It cost me $340 (Sony BD drive + Zotac Nvidia 8800GT 256 bit 1Gb video card)total to upgrade my HTPC to Bluray. You can rest assured though, there's not a stand alone Blu ray player on the market that can embarrass it on the picture quality. Definitely not one in the price range. My load times are around 5 seconds..not bad for an almost two year old PC! Some of the stand alone take for ever to load a BR disc. Even on the action packed scenes it runs as smooth as butter. No dragging, chipping or ghosting artifacts.

The cool thing about the PC it will also upsample all the other content you play on it as well(regular DVDs).So no stand alone upconverting player is needed. Oppo need not apply.

Even if you don't use it for video..you'll have it when you want too.

My buddy has a Mac Mini and wanted to do the same thing. Only problem is his Mac Mini isn't capable of 1080P resolution. He has opted for my brother and I too build him a custom HTPC instead.

Oh and don't forget the audio card. Get one that has atleast 7 channel 24 bit /96 khz or better analog output along with the spdif outs. This way you can run uncompressed HD audio out to your preamp or processor..even if it doesn't decode HD formats. I wish I had this..probably my next upgrade.

Good luck..I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

HTPC takes a lot of tweaking to set up correctly. A lot of work around is required. Check out AVS forum for more details. It's very ann

Apple solution is simplier, more expensive and most likely less powerful than most HTPC at the same price point.

Depending on the time factor, if you are willing to spend hours tweaking, HTPC is a perfect hobby. Otherwise, get an Apple.

A PC is the far superior choice for audio for the simple reason that you can order an Auzentech Prelude with a pair of OPA 637SM installed on the front L/R channels for $470 including shipping. There's nothing on an Apple to compete with that. (You ought to get a PC Power and Cooling PS, too).

ATI will give you better colors than Nvidia if you are using a Trinitron or prosumer flat panel.

I forgot about software -

You can by a resampling plugin for Winamp, Audioburst FX. It makes a huge difference.

The Dolby headphone modes on PowerDVD sound far better than on any other implementation of Dolby Headphone I've tried (including Winamp).

PowerDVD even does a good job of playing DVD-Audio. It's got a few quirks but they do it better than WinDVD ever did. WinDVD gave up on the feature.