First off, thanks everyone for the great replies..keep 'em coming.
Pabelson: I'm pretty confident that the Benchmark is a great DAC (I've always felt the sony's only problem was it's redbook DAC, which was still pretty great). The only other DAC I'm looking at is the Stello DA220 MKII which has a USB in. Has anyone used the Stello (either MK I or MK II) and can comment on its quality? I read it's pretty great so I should probably go take a listen. As for HD redundancy, I agree, it's totally necessary.
Eastein:
Thanks, I wasn't aware of the apogee. I can't find much more about it's sound quality: what other DACs did you audtion?
Sfar:
Do you experience any of the interference using the AE that Pabelson said might occur? I don't use a cordless phone in my listening room, and the microwave isn't used frequently, but I can locate the mini near my rig if I want to, but then I'll have to have the drive there as well, which could be noisy.
Spiritualized:
The Wavelength brick looks interesting but at that price tag i'm wondering if it might not make more sense to go with something like the Stello, which would allow me to route other devies through my DAC. The reviews of the wavelength that I found are good, but the one on 6 moons (and I take all of these with a grain of salt) made me a little nervous.
Edesilva:
Thanks for putting me onto those drives. I think that's def. the way I'll go. The Yellow machine is very cool looking and love the features but their website says you need a PC for setup. Any idea on the noise factor from the fans? There's a company (Next Generation, or something like that) which makes fanless drives with heatsinks that are the same size as the mac mini up to 750 gigs, and those seemed interesting. The thing that makes me nervous about the 1 TB solutions, besides the noise, is that they connect with ethernet. Now, I'm pretty computer savy so forgive me if this question appears ignorant (I haven't taken the time to research if this will be a problem) but will the data quality, and hence the sound quality, be as dependable going from the 1TB RAID drive to the mac mini and then to my DAC as it would using a firewire drive?
Snipes: I'm definitely curious to hear your impressions of the sound quality using AE to stream from your Server (which server is it, btw?) to your DAC. I know that I can get .7 TB using Raid as edsilva noted, but that doesn't ensure back up of the entire colleciton, right? I mean, as far as I understand, the only way to backup my entire collection would be to have another drive the same size. I mean, at the point when my collection goes past 50% of the real capacity of the 1TB drive, then I'm out of luck, right? So if I can get two 500 gig drives for the same price as 1TB drive, is that a good solution? I don't plan on leaving anything running 24/7 (power concious) anyway so it doesn't need to be industrial.
THANKS AGAIN!
Matt
Pabelson: I'm pretty confident that the Benchmark is a great DAC (I've always felt the sony's only problem was it's redbook DAC, which was still pretty great). The only other DAC I'm looking at is the Stello DA220 MKII which has a USB in. Has anyone used the Stello (either MK I or MK II) and can comment on its quality? I read it's pretty great so I should probably go take a listen. As for HD redundancy, I agree, it's totally necessary.
Eastein:
Thanks, I wasn't aware of the apogee. I can't find much more about it's sound quality: what other DACs did you audtion?
Sfar:
Do you experience any of the interference using the AE that Pabelson said might occur? I don't use a cordless phone in my listening room, and the microwave isn't used frequently, but I can locate the mini near my rig if I want to, but then I'll have to have the drive there as well, which could be noisy.
Spiritualized:
The Wavelength brick looks interesting but at that price tag i'm wondering if it might not make more sense to go with something like the Stello, which would allow me to route other devies through my DAC. The reviews of the wavelength that I found are good, but the one on 6 moons (and I take all of these with a grain of salt) made me a little nervous.
Edesilva:
Thanks for putting me onto those drives. I think that's def. the way I'll go. The Yellow machine is very cool looking and love the features but their website says you need a PC for setup. Any idea on the noise factor from the fans? There's a company (Next Generation, or something like that) which makes fanless drives with heatsinks that are the same size as the mac mini up to 750 gigs, and those seemed interesting. The thing that makes me nervous about the 1 TB solutions, besides the noise, is that they connect with ethernet. Now, I'm pretty computer savy so forgive me if this question appears ignorant (I haven't taken the time to research if this will be a problem) but will the data quality, and hence the sound quality, be as dependable going from the 1TB RAID drive to the mac mini and then to my DAC as it would using a firewire drive?
Snipes: I'm definitely curious to hear your impressions of the sound quality using AE to stream from your Server (which server is it, btw?) to your DAC. I know that I can get .7 TB using Raid as edsilva noted, but that doesn't ensure back up of the entire colleciton, right? I mean, as far as I understand, the only way to backup my entire collection would be to have another drive the same size. I mean, at the point when my collection goes past 50% of the real capacity of the 1TB drive, then I'm out of luck, right? So if I can get two 500 gig drives for the same price as 1TB drive, is that a good solution? I don't plan on leaving anything running 24/7 (power concious) anyway so it doesn't need to be industrial.
THANKS AGAIN!
Matt