MacBook Pro or Mac Mini as music server

In response to Onhwy61 the mach2 mac mini is the best transport I have ever owned. I have had tried over 32 different CD set ups over the years from DCS to highly modified Marantz SACD players and I currently own a HRT Music Streamer Pro. I have had hooked up the many different DACS with a standard Mac Mini and with the Mach2 the big bang for your dollar is the very front end before it gets the DAC. I have tried the following DACs; 1)Wyred For Sound DAC-2, 2)The Zodiac,3) Ayre QB 9, 4) the Audio Research DAC 8, 5) Benchmark, 6) Berkeley, 7) Arcam rdac, 8) PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC & Transport, 9)Cambridge Dac Magic 10) The Burson, 11)Music Streamer II+ and 12) Music Streamer Pro. I kept the cryo treated music streamer pro. If I where to rank these DACS I have tried in my system. I would say they all do different things but the keep in mind the Music Streamer Pro that is dual differential balanced with asynchronous USB input using the highly regarded Texas Instruments Burr Brown PCM 1794 and additionally gets its power from the Mach2 mini which is battery powered which kills the other DACS. But to be clear the Mach2 Mini even with the using only the headphone jack as an output did somethings better the standard mac mini with the most of DACS on the list. The output was a little lower but it for surely had better tonal balance and deep and wide sound stage. The sad thing is I can have any digital front end I want and I think what currently I have in my system is the best I have heard in my system. Is it better than my vinyl rig? It is scary to say this but now it comes down more to the recording than the format. With all the previous digital setups a so so vinyl recording recordings always sounded better than my previous digital set ups, but now I have some recordings that can sound better either way depending on mastering of the recording. Do not get me wrong when Two of the same quality pressing and recording on CD or Vinyl, vinyl still sounds better to me.

I use Amara Pro and Pure Music. The Amara sounds a little better than the Pure Music. I have tried as many music players as I could get and those two sound the best. Pure Music is a bit more stable and not buggy like Amara.

Between the amarra and puremusic, i feel the amarra is more fuller sounding, amarra is more lively. Although amarra is placed on macbook pro while the puremusic on a normal macbook.. whats your take ?

if you are setting up a music server, you will need 2 large drives. i have 2 external 2TB disks linked to my mac mini using firewire. also, when you rip cd's to this server, you need to use xld or max, much better than itunes. why 2 drives? because you will need a backup of the 1st drive. i actually use 3 disks. the 3rd disk is a copy of all my macs in the house including the music server. every qtr i back all the machines up to this disk, then store the disk in a vault so if something happens to my house (fire, etc...), i have all of my info on my 3rd disk.

also, you will not hear any difference in sound using ssd. i deal with ssd's everyday and they are mainly used for speed and you don't need this kind of speed for music. plus, the ssd drives for PC/macs are of the cheaper set.

i have setup pure music to play the song from memory so it takes a few seconds for pure music to load the song in memory before playing the song.
good luck

When setting up the Mac-Mini as headless, do you guys leave it on standbye when not in use ?
At somepoint, especially in initial setting up, is monitor needed ?
Considering that route rather than going w/ a Macbook PRO.
If you are using the MacMini as a server, how does one disable the other functions not useful for music making ?
Also, is it possible to have Amarra and Puresound on the same computer ? Doesn't it conflict w/ each other ?
Thanks again..... its been an interesting thread !