After being away from audio for awhile, I'm thinking of building a system designed around a Mac Mini.
I've been using Macs for graphic design for over 20 years, so the operating system and iTunes were already familiar to me. I've been ripping CDs into Apple Lossless since 2001. However, there was still a learning curve for me on setting up a Mac Mini music server. I can understand if you bought a Mac Mini just for use as a music server after having only used Windows machines for years and finding it frustrating. Anything new and different will be confusing.
I had initially been running EVERYHING on my main Mac Pro that is primarily used for Photoshop. But having Firefox, iTunes, Quicktime, VLC, InDesign and a giant 58GB Photoshop file open and running at the same time is a recipe for disaster.
A few months ago, I bought an HRT Music Streamer II which is an asynchronous USB DAC which I plugged into my NAD receiver that has become the heart of my computer music system. I noticed right away that having many programs open at the same time, along with 7 or 8 eight hard drives was causing weird sounds to emanate form my NHT speakers. Having not restarted my computer for a few days also didn't help. It was then that I decided to buy a Mac Mini and move web surfing, movie viewing and music playback to a separate computer.
So I bought a Mac Mini and hooked the HRT Music Streamer II to it and liked what I heard. But I've noticed that noisy power supplies and a computer that has been "busy and active" can have a profound affect on playback whether it's an NPR news feed, music or a ripped Blu-ray movie I'm playing through VLC. A restart will cure that. But this realization has convinced me that when I do build my main system again I will do it in this manner. Even on this mid-fi computer system I can hear a difference between the MP3s I downloaded from the iTunes Store and the CDS I ripped with Apple Lossless. Listening through headphones or earbuds from the audio output of an iPhone I can't tell the difference, but through the Music Streamer and my integrated NAD it's quite noticeable.
The Mac Mini will handle music only. I will install an SSD [solid state drive] internally in the free HD slot and put my music there. As I have with my current Mac Mini I bought a 16GB memory kit and will do so for the new unit. I bought an M2Tech USB-SPDIF adapter to connect the Mac Mini to my outboard NOS DAC. I am thinking of using the iPad or iPhone app which remotely controls a Mac so I can turn off the monitor if I choose to. I have downloaded and fooled around with the free music app Audirvana. but quite frankly haven't figured why I need it. Does this work with or in place of iTunes?
I rip all my CDs and movies with my Mac Pro and transfer them to my Mac Mini wirelessly via Airport Extreme WiFi and it's pretty fast. This way I have a copy of my music library on two separate computers even before I create the dedicated music system. On top of that I will back a fourth copy up to a stand alone hard drive.
Also, it is easy to duplicate your iTunes library between two computers via WiFi using the "home sharing" and import/export library" functions in iTunes. It works better than synchronizing Firefox between two computers when you have thousands of bookmarks. Home sharing will even transfer all your preferences such as your playlists to the new computer so you don't have to recreate them.
For file storage I don't use RAID 5 arrays anymore. I've had two separate RAID 5s die on me over the last three years losing tons of work. In theory the 5th drive which is a parity drive should save you, but I've had controllers and power supplies destroy my whole silver box of drives. It's a good thing I had copies of my work on separate single drives and 2-drive RAID 0s and RAID 1 set ups. I now use 6 separate 3TB Seagate single drive units for redundant copies and back up of work, movies and music. On an aside, I don't rely on Time Machine for scheduled back ups. Too many Photoshop crashes over the last 15 years have me in the habit of doing them manually while I work. Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper are good utilities for cloning and creating back ups.
I took a look at a few websites online on how to set up a system using a Mac Mini and even one on a Windows machine. Many audio manufacturers actually have guides online for setting me up. Here are some that are helpful.
http://www.usbdacs.com/Macintosh/Macintosh.html
http://www.monarchyaudio.com/Monarchy_Music_Server.htm
http://www.nuforce.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=387:usbaudiosetupmacwindowsandlinux&Itemid=1093
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63WL3Q7UujI&list=PLF9CB76D61B27C008
With a computer based system, I like that I have access to all songs in one small place. As I continue to transfer CDs to iTunes I will archive them.
I just need to buy a pair of speakers now for the system I'm building.
Back on the audio merry go round again!