Article: Audiophile Reference Music Servers

[cmason16]

Chris,<br />

<br />

I have two Apple engineers visiting. Any questions other than iTunes sample rate? Cannot be assured of any solutions or information, but I do get to ask questions.<br />

<br />

Chuck

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Chuck - Yes, I have a great one for you. According to Apple's own documentation the optical output in MacBooks supports up to 24/192 ( http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1562 ). However, nobody at Apple has ever been able to show me how to get this working. Visits to the Apple Stores and calls to Apple Care have lead nowhere.<br />

<br />

<a href="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/MacBook%20External%20Port.pdf">Here is a PDF</a> of the page as well just incase it is removed later :~)<br />

<br />

<br />

<i>"Headphone/optical digital audio out port <br />

<br />

Connect external speakers, headphones, or optical digital audio equipment. The headphone / line output jack accommodates optical digital audio output, analog audio output with a 24-bit, 44.1-192 kHz D/A converter, digital audio output up to 24-bit stereo and 44.1-192 kHz sampling rate and supporting encoded digital audio output (AC3 and DTS). For analog headphone / line output a standard audio cable with 3.5mm metal plug should be used. For digital audio, a standard toslink cable with a toslink mini-plug adapter can be used."</i>

[audiozorro]

1. When will iTunes on Macs support 24bit/192kHz resolutions via the toslink optical connections?<br />

2. When will iTunes on Macs support automatic resolution sample rate adjustments to match the source audio file played?<br />

3. Will Apple consider a bigger Mac Mini, just big enough to hold 1 PCI card and 1 PCIe card, and definitely much a smaller than the Mac Pro?<br />

4. Is Apple committed to firewire connectivity in future Mac computers planned for 2010 or later?<br />

5. When will Macs have Blu-ray drives in support of home theater and audio media entertainment servers?<br />

[cmason16]

Chris,<br />

<br />

I will pass along all the questions I get up the visit day. <br />

<br />

Chuck

[audiozorro]

Chuck, has your meeting with Apple occurred? If not, I have a few more questions.<br />

<br />

1. Why such a measly hard drive in the Mac Mini? The other new offerings from Apple are:<br />

<br />

a) The Mac Pro with options from the 640 GB standard drive up to two 1 TB drives<br />

b) The iMac with options for either a 320 GB, 640 GB or 1 TB drive<br />

<br />

The small 120 GB drive is what is prompting Apple customers to pry open the Mac Mini and install a larger drive. Even the iPod Classic has a 120 GB drive and one would think a larger Mac Mini that is also a computer would have a larger capacity drive.<br />

<br />

2. Speaking of the iPod, why not an iPod model that provides digital output? The iPod may be the only Apple product that has an internal DAC but no option for digital output. Do Apple customers have to rely on third party solutions or mods that cost more than the iPod itself? It may be good for the Apple partners but it comes at a much higher than necessary price tag to Apple customers.<br />

<br />

3. Apple obviously has the resources and talent to enable FLAC playback in iTunes. This is what many iTunes customers want, even at a nominal price, if necessary. Does Apple have any plans to be more responsive to customer wants and incorporate FLAC, one of the industry standard audio formats, into iTunes?

[kevinfisher]

I am considering abandoning the mac mini idea and going to the pro. I see that it has room for 4 internal drives and they sell a raid controller for $750. If fan noise is not an issue, (the pro would be in the office, not the music room). what would be the advantage of a separate NAS. I imagine hot swapping, but how often do you need to swap out the drives anyway?

[idfixe]

Hi guys,<br />

<br />

Really interesting post, I was on the verge of buying a cd player but this tread is changing my mind. Ideally, in my current set-up, I would need the PC to be in a different room than my audio system. Which is not a problem as far as connecting things goes.<br />

<br />

My question is in regards of the selection of songs in the Mac set-up? Do you have to have a computer screen? I'Ve also read the CA01 to CA04 set-up which I liked a lot - especially the fact that you could browse songs without requiring a monitor.<br />

<br />

Can anyone help me on this please?<br />

<br />

Thanks

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi idfixe - You can use an iPod Touch or iPhone to browse songs. It's quite a good remote control. No computer screen is necessary for anything other than setup.

[idfixe]

Hi Chris,<br />

<br />

Thanks for your pompt response!<br />

<br />

So just to recap, a possible set-up would be to have a NAS containing all songs (I aleady have a Lynksis NAS which I believe would work wuite well), linked to a MAC that has iTunes. The Mac would be connected to the DAC through the PCI card able to produce 24bits/192htz quality and the DAC connected to my amp.<br />

<br />

I was in the process to buy a Pathos Endorphin (which I believe is one of the best CD payer I've heard...) I know CD is going down but I have a killer deal. I have a couple of questions:<br />

<br />

1- My NAS is currently formatted to work with a windows PC, can I partition portions of it for my music server?<br />

<br />

2- This Berkeley DAC, have you ever had the chance to compare it to a MBL DAC or the Endorphin? (my dealer keeps talking to me about the Berkeley but kees selling them before they are able to unpack them in the shop<br />

<br />

3- Is it still true that the PC card that can produce 24/192 can only be plugged into a Mac Pro?<br />

<br />

4- Has iTunes auto-sampling rate been solved (actually is this aproblem if I only use this for stereo Cds<br />

<br />

5- How would this set-up compare to the audiophile music servers sold at crazy prices (such as the one sold by McIntosh?)<br />

<br />

Thanks again for your help!

[Forehaven]

Hi Chris,<br />

<br />

Awhile back, this thread addressed the Lynx AES16e card for the Mac G5:<br />

<br />

Chris:<br />

<br />

Great post as always. I am learning so much from this site. You mention that the Mac Pro is the only mac that accepts PCIe cards. According to the specs on my Power Mac G5 dual core it has 2 4 lane and 1 8 lane PCI Express slots. Is there something in the configuration of the Lynx card that will only work with a Intel based Mac?<br />

<br />

Also, is there any benefit to the Lynx card that has the SRC option to it?<br />

<br />

Cheers to all and thanks for a great site.<br />

<br />

Craig<br />

<br />

reply flag this<br />

Mon, 08/18/2008 - 19:56 — The Computer Au...<br />

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Posts: 4655<br />

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<br />

Hi Craig - Thanks for the<br />

Hi Craig - Thanks for the kind words about the site. You are 100% correct about the Power Mac G5 supporting PCIe. The Lynx card will certainly work in the G5. I should have been a little more specific, but I was talking about current Macs one could purchase today. My slip-up. There is no advantage to the SRC option and in fact it may add some unneeded features that cause more harm than good. Don't quote me on that, but it's possible.<br />

<br />

So Chris,<br />

Does this card use the 4 or 8 lane pci-e slot?<br />

<br />

Thanks<br />

Chris <br />

<br />

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Chris - I believe the card can use any PCIe slot (x1,x2,x4,x8,x16).

[Zero-Equals-Infinity]

I am going to build a server to drive music and perhaps video. The DAC/AMP to be driven is the NAD M2 digital amplifier, which apparently resamples and reclocks to a very low jitter level. This may make the jitter considerations of the server less critical than noise and heat dissipation. I want to be able to provide up to 24/192 through the AES/EBU input, and that means that a card such as the Lynx AES16 is a given, (though which version to use is another question.)<br />

<br />

I am looking at a Nexus edge case, Seasonic X650 PSU, Noctua NH-U12P SE2 cooler, 3 x Smart Drive NEO-QQ HDD enclosures and 3 x Western Digital Green Power 1000GB for a Raid 5 configuration. I will either get a heatsinked video card (e.g. Gigabyte Radeon HD 4550 Video Card PCI-Express 2.0, DVI, HDMI) or use onboard video with an appropriate MB (e.g. ASUS P5Q Pro with Q9400 chip), 4GB of Kingston HyperX T1 memory, LG CH08LS10 Black 8x/Blu-ray drive, Lynx AES16e soundcard, Windows XP Pro/64-bit or Windows 7 Pro/64 bit, and mediamonkey with waveout for upsampling.<br />

<br />

If I am making any serious mistakes, please let me know. The raid architecture is to preserve files should there be an oops.

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[david_blo]

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