Mac Mini vs. MacBook for music server

Mikem53

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I’m using a mid 2012 Macbook pro, which I loaded my most listened to music on the built in SSD. Using Jriver to play locally. This MBP sound better than my newer MBA for some reason.
I have thunderbolt to Ethernet gigabit adapter for my network, USB out to the DAC. Keeping the data flow one way and on different buses.
I didn’t bother with LPS since I can run the MBP right off the built in battery ! In fact everything goes thru the battery, so I’m not sure an LPS has any effect, and I just pull the MagSafe connector when playing.
Also streaming thru MBP using std modem and router but with a shorter path from my main router.
I do keep it in clamshell mode and using VNC on an old iPad to control the MBP avoiding the use of the built in display.. Sounds great !! thinking about the new M1 apple mini.. I hear it also has a new and improved USB chipset, which might help lower noise, etc...
 

matthias

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thinking about the new M1 apple mini.. I hear it also has a new and improved USB chipset, which might help lower noise, etc...

They seem to have USB chipsets from ASMedia, the latest JCAT USB XE uses also one for example.

Matt
 
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kennyb123

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I’m using a mid 2012 Macbook pro, which I loaded my most listened to music on the built in SSD. Using Jriver to play locally. This MBP sound better than my newer MBA for some reason.
I have thunderbolt to Ethernet gigabit adapter for my network, USB out to the DAC. Keeping the data flow one way and on different buses.
I didn’t bother with LPS since I can run the MBP right off the built in battery ! In fact everything goes thru the battery, so I’m not sure an LPS has any effect, and I just pull the MagSafe connector when playing.
Also streaming thru MBP using std modem and router but with a shorter path from my main router.

Digital circuits respond really well to low impedance power supplies. The lower the impedance the better the supply is able to meet instantaneous current demands. This can have the net effect of reducing the kind of noise generated within the computer that is harmful to audio.

The MBP battery isn't anywhere near as capable of meeting instantaneous current demands as a good LPS. Thus despite the fact that running off the battery isolates it from noise on your AC mains, you are still left with a noisy computer that's actually doing more harm to the music than the harm caused by your AC.

An excellent low impedance supply can have a profound impact on sound quality from a Mac. Read the many forum posts about Uptone's MMK/JS-2 solution. I had converted a Mac mini and one time and I was stunned at the magnitude of the difference. This is just the starting point though as far as having a decent music server. It gets a lot better once one makes the move to a purpose-built music server.
 
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matthias

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The MBP battery isn't anywhere near as capable of meeting instantaneous current demands as a good LPS. Thus despite the fact that running off the battery isolates it from noise on your AC mains, you are still left with a noisy computer that's actually doing more harm to the music than the harm caused by your AC.

Does the external PS for a MBP provide instantaneous current demands in the understanding that it does bypass the battery or does it only load the battery so the MBP gets always power direct from the battery?
Can you please shed some light on this?
Thanks

Matt
 

kennyb123

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Does the external PS for a MBP provide instantaneous current demands in the understanding that it does bypass the battery or does it only load the battery so the MBP gets always power direct from the battery?
Can you please shed some light on this?
Thanks

Matt

Let's look at this on a scale from 1-10 with 10 being the best.

MBP on battery: 1.05
MBP on external supply: 1.0

Mac mini with MMK and JS-2: 3
Mac mini with MMK and JS-2 but as a core only that is streaming to a purpose-built endpoint directly connected to the DAC: 4-6 (depending on endpoint)

I do this simply to illustrate that the magnitude of differences. There can be subtle differences between a MBP running on it's external supply or running on its battery, but it's still a turd either way. My personal feeling is that a Mac should not be directly connected to a DAC. It's far too noisy. And the best results will be achieved when it's not involved at all.
 

Mikem53

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The MBP battery isn't anywhere near as capable of meeting instantaneous current demands as a good LPS. Thus despite the fact that running off the battery isolates it from noise on your AC mains, you are still left with a noisy computer that's actually doing more harm to the music than the harm caused by your AC.

An excellent low impedance supply can have a profound impact on sound quality from a Mac. Read the many forum posts about Uptone's MMK/JS-2 solution. I had converted a Mac mini and one time and I was stunned at the magnitude of the difference. This is just the starting point though as far as having a decent music server. It gets a lot better once one makes the move to a purpose-built music server.
What instantaneous current demands ? We are not Talking about analog output here.. Pure digital , no peak demands, the Li battery is proven more than capable to meet the demands of heavy graphics and cpu, which I am hardly utilizing.
The Mac mini would benefit by an Lps, but not by much.. The oem PS is actually a very high freq switcher.. not much neg effects, especially considering all the other high frequency clocks and regulators buzzing along inside the computer.
The folks at Manley are using SMPS in their high end recording equipment, they swear by the LOWER noise of the SMPS over the LPS. Bruno Putzey designed it for audio and it measures better in every way.. So technology marches on...
I still prefer a well designed LPS in audio..
 
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kennyb123

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What instantaneous current demands ? We are not Talking about analog output here.. Pure digital , no peak demands, the Li battery is proven more than capable to meet the demands of heavy graphics and cpu, which I am hardly utilizing.
The Mac mini would benefit by an Lps, but not by much.. The oem PS is actually a very high freq switcher.. not much neg effects, especially considering all the other high frequency clocks and regulators buzzing along inside the computer.
The folks at Manley are using SMPS in their high end recording equipment, they swear by the LOWER noise of the SMPS over the LPS. Bruno Putzey designed it for audio and it measures better in every way.. So technology marches on...
I still prefer a well designed LPS in audio..
First off, not all SMPS are the same. Do you really think the SMPS which Apple provides is similar to what Manley is using?

Note in this post that Emile mentions that an “SMPS can have benefits as long as the high frequency switching residuals are dealt with appropriately”. Dealing with it “appropriately” isn‘t something Apple would have done.

Heavy demands of graphics isn’t the same as music reproduction. Timing is critical for music reproduction - and noise can impact timing. Instantaneous mean instantaneous. It has to be there exactly at the moment it’s needed. Any sag in getting it there could cause jitter that your ears can pick up on. The same real-time sensitivity isn’t required for other computing tasks.

Ultimately what matters here is how far one wants to take things in terms of sound quality. If your Mac makes music enjoyable to you then I am happy for you. I only interjected here as your reason for not trying a LPS only covered one aspect of the advantage a better power supply would provide. I had that same misunderstanding for far too long and wish someone would have opened my eyes sooner.
 
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kennyb123

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The Mac mini would benefit by an Lps, but not by much..

But you haven‘t heard it for yourself, right?

You have a very nice system, by the way. I bet the Athenas sound amazing driven by the XA25.
 

matthias

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IMO, there will be upcoming audiophile SMPS with ultra high switching frequency which will outperform the best audiophile LPS.

All who are currently running to buy audiophile LPS will then replace them with these SMPS :cool:

Matt
 
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Mikem53

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Oct 1, 2020
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The MBP battery isn't anywhere near as capable of meeting instantaneous current demands as a good LPS. Thus despite the fact that running off the battery isolates it from noise on your AC mains, you are still left with a noisy computer that's actually doing more harm to the music than the harm caused by your AC.

An excellent low impedance supply can have a profound impact on sound quality from a Mac. Read the many forum posts about Uptone's MMK/JS-2 solution. I had converted a Mac mini and one time and I was stunned at the magnitude of the difference. This is just the starting point though as far as having a decent music server. It gets a lot better once one makes the move to a purpose-built music server.
What instantaneous current demands ? We are not Talking about analog output here.. Pure digital , no peak demands, the Li battery is proven more than capable to meet the demands of heavy graphics and cpu, which I am hardly utilizing.
The Mac mini would benefit by an Lps, but not by much.. The oem PS is actually a very high freq switcher.. not much neg effects, especially considering all the other high frequency clocks and regulators buzzing along inside the computer.
The folks at Manley are using SMPS in their high end recording equipment, they swear by the LOWER noise than LPS. Bruno Putzey designed it for audio and it measures better in every way.. So technology marches ahead..
I still prefer LPS in audio, but am using a smPS
But you haven‘t heard it for yourself, right?

You have a very nice system, by the way. I bet the Athenas sound amazing driven by the XA25.
Good morning Kenny,
I have a Pass ACA amp I built that came with a Meanwell SMPS. The first thing I did was get out an old LPS I built for a headphone amp I had used some years ago. it has a 24v secondary winding in addition to the 12v tap I was using. I wired it up and listened, it was big and bulky and without a proper housing.. but I rigged it to work with the amp.. It wasn’t pretty, but I made it work.. after it fell off the table When I snagged some wires, I put the SMPS in its place for the time being so I could finish up the LPS.. I listened for days, then weeks, still months later, the SMPS is still in place. I sent Nelson Pass a note exclaiming my surprise about the SMPS sounding as good.. He replied that the SMPS by meanwell he researched and chosen had a better peak to peak output with nearly unmeasurable noise than most PS. This SE class A amp is very revealing with only 2 stages, and it sounds Really good, I can’t tell a difference sonically and it’s cool running, a slim covered SMPS lays on the floor out of sight..
So as you stated, I don’t have any experience with the Mac mini, but a similar experience with another component. I think we tend to miss out on improvements on other technologies as time moves along and we keep our non updated prejudices alive.. It sure surprised me, I was almost ashamed to use it when I showed it off to a friend.. lol. But it’s a new age..

Thanks for the comment on my system.. After I downsized and sold off my big rig and moved, I started over again and went for something ”smaller” yet still very capable. the Daedalus are easy to live with And setup compared to the Vonschweikert’s I had.. I also gave up my tube equipment for SS.. All sand now.. Something I never thought I would have owned.. but the Pass gear is pretty good stuff and I don’t miss the tube hassles I was having.. it’s also simpler, but not too simple.. Enjoy the music !
 

Heckyman

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Oct 22, 2020
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In the early 2010’s purpose designed servers were starting to sound better than stock MBPs or Mac minis. Hence the PSUs and mods for the Mini.

Eventually a lot of people gave up on the Mac as a music server, myself included.

I wonder how many of these people have revisited the Mac and tried a much more recent machine? Or a desktop Mac? The i9 iMac surprised me and now I’m curious how it performs vs the alternatives and how much it could be improved.
 
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Mikem53

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In the early 2010’s purpose designed servers were starting to sound better than stock MBPs or Mac minis. Hence the PSUs and mods for the Mini.

Eventually a lot of people gave up on the Mac as a music server, myself included.

I wonder how many of these people have revisited the Mac and tried a much more recent machine? Or a desktop Mac? The i9 iMac surprised me and now I’m curious how it performs vs the alternatives and how much it could be improved.
I’m giving the new M1 mini some time to work out the bugs, I read they’re using a new USB controller with their new ARM CPU. I’m tempted to try my PC rig for music, but I hate MS windows With a passion. Maybe I should dual boot Ubuntu and try it, but then stuck for streaming..
I also use a newer MBA, but my older i7 MBP sounds better especially music off the built in SSD using Jrivers.
what a hobby..
 

Heckyman

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...I recently picked up a Sony XPeria 5 ii phone, it has one of the newest Snapdragon processors and, gasp, a headphone jack! The sound was surprisingly good (compared to what you'd expect from "consumer" gear), so I decided to plump for an M1 Mac mini, based on the hunch that perhaps there is something fundamentally good about these 5nm "SoC" architectures compared to old Intel systems.

All I can say is that it's on a different level than the Intel Macs. The headphone jack is good too if you use a good interconnect, and that's how I'm currently using it! Only thing is that it's limited to 32/96.

Very interesting reading over on the Taiko thread about USB interfaces, I would love something like a JCat card (Thunderbolt 3/PCI) with a great analogue output, surely that must be an even more awesome way to use this amazing machine!
 
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Heckyman

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IMO, there will be upcoming audiophile SMPS with ultra high switching frequency which will outperform the best audiophile LPS.

All who are currently running to buy audiophile LPS will then replace them with these SMPS :cool:
My system is now all built-in SMPS (Mac mini + amp) and my boutique aftermarket LPS's are lying around unused ;-)
 
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matthias

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All I can say is that it's on a different level than the Intel Macs.

Please, can you elaborate a little bit further, how does it compare to your i9 iMac?
Thanks

Matt
 
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matthias

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Very interesting reading over on the Taiko thread about USB interfaces, I would love something like a JCat card (Thunderbolt 3/PCI) with a great analogue output, surely that must be an even more awesome way to use this amazing machine!

+1
My dream machine would be the Taiko Extreme with a Taiko designed PCIe DAC, so a one box UHQ server/DAC. :)

Matt
 
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Heckyman

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Please, can you elaborate a little bit further, how does it compare to your Intel based iMac?
Thanks

Matt
I'm afraid I couldn't do a meaningful direct comparison. I had already sold my DAC when the Mac mini arrived.

Although my plan was to use the Mac mini as a digital source with a new DAC, after hearing nothing wrong with the analogue out I decided not to bother with a standalone DAC (at least for a while, pending the next round of developments in this area).

In contrast, the iMac analogue out is something I would not particularly enjoy using to listen to music with, it's only fine for Skype etc.

Whether the overall sound I'm enjoying is due to the digital, the analogue or the lack of cabling/interfaces between the two, it's very hard to say. However, I think we all know what digital harshness/muddiness sounds like and I'm simply no longer able to hear it.

The Mac mini and Sony smartphone analogue outs are close. The mini just edges it, a tad more dynamic and detailed. Still, I use the phone directly for things like internet radio, it's fine for background and nice to use the native apps.

I would love someone else to have a listen and tell me I'm not crazy. Or even better, that they have found an even more awesome sounding set up at a similar level of cost/convenience.
 
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matthias

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Very interesting reading over on the Taiko thread about USB interfaces, I would love something like a JCat card (Thunderbolt 3/PCI) with a great analogue output, surely that must be an even more awesome way to use this amazing machine!

I did a Google search for audiophile PCIe DACs and found nothing.
IMO, a Taiko PCIe DAC for the Extreme might be a great solution for people who want to enjoy the Extreme as start and maybe want to go for a more expensive external DAC later.
I see these SQ advantages and cost savings in comparison to an external DAC:

>>no USB host, no USB cable, no USB receiver
>>great RFI protection by placing inside the Extreme
>>powered by the superb Extreme power supply

The Taiko team is extremely busy with the Extreme, TAS, the upcoming Taiko USB card and the upcoming Taiko switch.

But I really hope that they will eventually launch such a PCIe DAC card for the Extreme :)

Edit:
An alternative to a Taiko PCIe DAC could be a Taiko USB-DAC, Vbus powered from their upcoming USB card.

Matt
 
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matthias

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Hi gents,
I am just curious, did someone compare the 60W Apple SMPS to the 85W version with a MBP?
Does the 85W version offer a better SQ?
Thx

Matt
 

matthias

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Very interesting comparison:


Conclusion:
The winner was Audirvana on Mac :cool:

Matt
 

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