Better music player alternative to Mac Air / laptop
I am currently using Apple Macbook Air and/or Ms. Window based laptop as the hardware player, and pairing either “Foobar 2000” or “VLC” with the Mac/laptop for music playing. I prefer Mac Air to laptop because it has no fan. I collect lawful 16/24 bits, 44.1/88.2 khz flac and good recordings from Youtube and store them in a solid state drive as the source.
Although I felt the noise floor from this combination is quite dark and satisfactory, I am open to a possibly “cleaner” music player alternative/device (with display preferrably) than my current Apple Mac/laptop that the audiophiles continuously claim to be “dirty.” The “player” may include both hardware and software because the software I am currently using may not be able to run on the new device. I heard Mac Mini is a good choice so please share your experience if you had it. I do not stream and I do not intend to invest in the streamer in the near future. Thank you.
If you're using an external DAC with the Macbook then there's no reason to switch to something else.
If you're using the onboard audio and are considering a Mac mini, you might want to get a late 2014 model. The latest M1 based model doesn't support any sampling rate besides 48 kHz. See this link for more details. |
You don’t need to spend anything to try out streaming. You can install the free Kodi app on your Mac - link. It has add-ons for popular streaming services like Qobuz and Tidal. It also turns your Mac into a UPnP server and renderer so your music library can be accessed by external streamers (assuming your music collection is on your Mac). You can control music playback via the web client or through an app called Yatse (if you have an Android phone). I’ve also streamed YouTube Music from my Android phone to Kodi using an app called BubbleUPnP. On my iOS devices, I use mconnect. |
Yes, as mentioned, I was using the Mac Air with external DAC but wonder if the circuitry inside the Mac / laptop is "dirty" as claimed and switching to cleaner streamer/player will render better SQ. So, are you saying that switching to streamer as the player won’t render better SQ based on your experience? Please confirm. I was using the old (2013) Mac Air that has the option for higher sampling rates but you need to change it every time. Also you need to switch it to highest rate in order to accommodate all the high-res. PCM files I had. So it means some of the lower sampling-rate audio music will be over-sampled. I heard the Asio plug-in in foobar 2000 could get around the issue but I do not have luck to get it working yet. While I was done with replying your first msg, your 2nd msg pops up. I will try that. Sound exciting although I am not tech savy. |
Thanks, @ghdprentice. Thanks to this fellow’s review on Aurender N150 and the comparison with the Mac Air as the player, I was finally convinced thru my ears that noticeable part of spatial / SS information was indeed missing from using Mac Air as the music player. So, Aurender costs $3500 and can only be considered as a mid-tier performer, I am not sure if I have deep pockets for that kind of money to refine my system. My current system is worth only two-third of price for single component. I may choose to give up because I will end up with chasing my own tail with incremental upgrades.
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