2. pc-audio
  3. 1105542684

Mini Mac as audio server?

OK, I've existed in blissful ignorance of the OSX world, being a Windows dude. But, this little miniMac thing might change my world. Small enuf to stick next to the stereo... Cheap enuf too... With DVI and DVD, probably eliminates my DVD player as well. Check it out:

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore/

Sooo, someone wanna educate a non-OSX user on audio via Macs? Right now I'm 70% through ripping over 1K CDs to WAV files. I'm thinking the files will eventually end up on one of the Buffalo Terabyte NAS RAID 5 devices when they become available next month. So... the questions...

- Can I play the WAV files via iTunes?
- Is iTunes smart enuf to recognize that I've dropped the files into /Artist/Album directory format and create tags?
- Anyone using an Edirol UA-1D via USB out of the Mac? Any compatibility issues?
- Anything better to do PCM output from the Mac than the Edirol?
- If I watch a DVD, and output the video to my plasma via the DVI port, will the Apple media software recognize that I want PCM output, not multichannel?

Any help appreciated.
edesilva
edesilva OP
768 posts
 
By iPod mini, do you mean iPod Shuffle? That is the new one--the iPod mini has been out a while..

iPod Shuffle has no display -> no track selection -> :(

Gunbei, RAID 5 is a lot more efficient than mirroring and gets you redundancy... B'sides, given how bloody long its taken me to rip 700+ CDs (I'm about 70% of the way done), I am *not* doing this again. $1K for the new Buffalo thingamajiggie (don't worry Tvad, more computer talk) seems a small price to pay for piece of mind... Hot swappable drives, etc. With the RAID 5, it only nets you 700 GB of storage or so, but it is NAS as well, so I can get at 'em from anywhere on my home ethernet...
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aida_w
308 posts
 
Welcome on (MAC-) board!
--Can I play the WAV files via iTunes? Of course you can.

-- Is iTunes smart enuf to recognize that I've dropped the files into /Artist/Album directory format and create tags?
Yes it is, you can tell iTunes a lot of criteria for sorting which is esp. handy on the iPod.

The limitation for working "as audio server" might be the (small) harddisk (40GB).
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
That's what the one terabyte Firewire drive is for!
c123666
871 posts
 
The Grace unit is leagues beyond the performance of the Edirol and has coax and AES/EBU interfaces as well as analogue outs. I am not sure if it will accept a USB input but that s/b easy enough to find out. Of course, it is a tad more expensive than the Edirol.
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