Upgrading to mountain lion?

[Vpitnt]

Will it make sence upgrading from lion to mountain lion?

[Musicophile]

Yes, both from a system stability and sound quality standpoint. The only argument against I'd see is that 10.9 seems to be in the making and will be released probably this summer, so you may want/have to upgrade again in 3-6 months.

[brucknerdoc]

Yes, Lion is the weak-link in the Apple Cat OS chain...

 

I personally prefer Snow Leopard on my Mac mini, but ML has plenty of supporters.

 

There is no release date for 10.9 yet, so I would along to ML if I were you.

[James1776]

If you have any interest in J-Rivers new music software for MAC, you might note it does not work on Snow Leopard or earlier software. Upgrading from Snow Leopard is dead cheap right now at under $20 and worth it.

[wgscott]

Will it make sence upgrading from lion to mountain lion?

 

From 10.7: Always.

 

From 10.6.8 on hardware released before the travesty of 10.7: Be careful. It was a mixed bag even with my 2010 mini. I keep a 10.6.8 partition on that.

(Sorry, misread your post, but I will keep this line in, in case it might be useful to others.)

[bleedink]

I would either stay with SL for it's stability and the feature set if you like it or skip Lion and go to ML which is much more stable and seems to have some code rewrites that make it a bit snappier than Lion for sure. There are lots of folks who don't like the new stuff in SL/L--it does take the iOSification of OS X to some extremes and if you are using the machine to work on (as opposed to just a music machine) it has some stumbling blocks that make getting things done more difficult. But if you are just using it to play music isn't SL the last integer mode version for certain DACs? I can't stand the twitter facebook iPhone crap. I've tried to turn as much of that off as possible including not entering anything into the iCloud preference to limit the interaction with those services. If you like notifications, that's one thing that seems to take up resources I'd much rather be spent somewhere else, but if you like them they are on ML. I personally found the SSD speed increases and system snappiness in general to be superior on ML which is why I have it installed. But I've seriously considered (to get real work done) going back to SL to have niceties like dual monitor support rather than a stitched linen taking up an entire monitor. Depends on your needs. If you have a track pad or laptop ML is good. I can't imagine using it without the touch pad however.

[Vpitnt]

I have a dedicated macbook pro (i5 beginning 2012), so only sound quality matters to me.

[Musicophile]

I have a dedicated macbook pro (i5 beginning 2012), so only sound quality matters to me.

Then go for ML, you won't regret it vs. Lion.

[jtm]

I can fully agree to bleedinks comments.

 

SL is great to work with, imho the last "real" Mac OSX.

 

ML might sound better with some DACs, so if you're running a dedicated machine for music only and you're into this messaging/sgaring stuff then you might enjoy it.

 

I personally stay away from it ...

[damien78]

I'd strongly suggest to take a look at Mountain Lion, (and if possible with a DAC supporting Integer Mode), it brings much more transparency, sound stage depth, tone accuracy.

Except if you prefer less transparent, warm sound that is SL signature.

 

You can just ignore the iOS stuff...

 

Damien

[audiojim]

Why does Mountian Lion sound better -- was that a design purpose at Apple,?

[Musicophile]

Why does Mountian Lion sound better -- was that a design purpose at Apple,?

I don't think Apple designs an OS with SQ in mind, but overall system stability may have to do with it.

[damien78]

And kernel performance optimizations, especially in the 64bit code, reducing the latencies, thus improving the timings

[jtm]

damien,

 

can you give a clear proof on how this has improved in ML over SL, and explain on the example of the Audirvana implementation how this (can) result in better sound quality ?

 

I understood RAM playback and asynchronous DAC link will be solid enough not to be affected by latencies caused by kernel activities.

 

Pls. correct me if I am wrong; i am not an engineer and try to understand it.

[elcorso]

damien,

 

can you give a clear proof on how this has improved in ML over SL, and explain on the example of the Audirvana implementation how this (can) result in better sound quality ?

 

I understood RAM playback and asynchronous DAC link will be solid enough not to be affected by latencies caused by kernel activities.

 

Pls. correct me if I am wrong; i am not an engineer and try to understand it.

 

Here is some explanation what Damien is talking about, Latency under 64bit code:

 

DPC Latency Checker

 

Computer Audio: Understanding The RAM And CPU Relationship Article By Ryan Mintz of Core Audio Technology

 

Roch

 

PS/ The best proof is by listening

[audiojim]

If I go to ML , I can always go back to Lion right ?

[Musicophile]

If I go to ML , I can always go back to Lion right ?

 

A good backup is your friend. Use CCC or SuperDuper or some other cloning software to clone your main HD so you can just reinstall the system exactly as it was beforehand.

 

I'm just curious, you seem to be terribly nervous making the move to ML, although pretty much everyone here even software developers like Damien tell you it's an improvement over Lion, which really wasn't Apple's greatest work of art. Honestly, the only "downside" i see for ML is the incremental Facebook Twitter etc. integration, which I don't use at all.

[audiojim]

I'll do whatever the consensus is. I keep literally nothing on the Mac mini -- it's for playing music which I keep on external hard drive . I loathe apples gimmicky crap so I guess my main issue will be cutting all that off.

[Musicophile]

I loathe apples gimmicky crap so I guess my main issue will be cutting all that off.

 

You don't really see them in your daily life. And Audirvana switches off non-essential services anyhow during playback.

[elcorso]

If I go to ML , I can always go back to Lion right ?

 

You can have both OS Xs: Make a hard disk partition, in one you stay on Lion, on the other you improve to Mountain Lion.

 

But please remember, Lion looks to me as transition OS X, from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion, since it not stay too much as the official Mac OS X.

 

Roch

[Miki]

Here is some explanation what Damien is talking about, Latency under 64bit code:

 

DPC Latency Checker

 

Computer Audio: Understanding The RAM And CPU Relationship Article By Ryan Mintz of Core Audio Technology

 

Roch

 

PS/ The best proof is by listening

 

This might be OT but I would issue a serious health warning against the second reference from Core Audio. That article ticked me off more than anything else I have read related to computer audio. The first part gives some useful references on RAM/CPU but that can be found on any decent gaming site that teaches you how to overclock your system. The latter part that claims that we need nothing but a supercomputer to listen to high-end audio is simply preposterous. I will stop here before Chris bans me for being indecent.

[elcorso]

This might be OT but I would issue a serious health warning against the second reference from Core Audio. That article ticked me off more than anything else I have read related to computer audio. The first part gives some useful references on RAM/CPU but that can be found on any decent gaming site that teaches you how to overclock your system. The latter part that claims that we need nothing but a supercomputer to listen to high-end audio is simply preposterous. I will stop here before Chris bans me for being indecent.

 

I 'guess' the people form Core Audio Technology is trying to sell you an expensive music server. Where in Mac it's no strictly necessary, since it's Linux based, on a lot Windows based music players they ask you for this. I cited this article trying to explain Latency for those who didn't know what this means, and is for ordinary people (like me). I don't have any business connection with this company.

 

Roch

[Miki]

I 'guess' the people form Core Audio Technology is trying to sell you an expensive music server. Where in Mac it's no strictly necessary, since it's Linux based, on a lot Windows based music players they ask you for this. I cited this article trying to explain Latency for those who didn't know what this means, and is for ordinary people (like me). I don't have any business connection with this company.

 

Roch

 

Roch,

 

My note was not directed against you or your post in any way. If this is how it came accross, I appologize but I just had to vent my frustration against Core Audio and their so called "experts". Those couple of articles they have on their site and echoed on some other computer audio related sites are nothing but missleading. That is pretty much why I want nothing to do even with their PSUs that in fact might not be bad at all but by far overpriced.

 

Huh, feel better now.

[joveral]

I have been sitting on the fence to upgrade from SL to L or ML. Last month I have upgraded my MM with dual drive HDD and running the OSX on SSD while I bum up the RAM to 8GB max. There was a huge leap in performance even running in SL with these DYI upgrades and only last night I took the plunge into ML.

 

The transition of both my MM (Music Server) and MBA (Remote) were pretty smooth sailing. It was only after the installation I had some hiccups on the MBA particularly with Desktop and Screensharing functions where I found some solutions rectifying it after doing some research online. Surprisingly the MM had no issue whatsoever and that is because I had a very clean SL OS with very minimal software installed since its purely for music server only.

 

Indeed ML is a hungry beast. On SL the 8GB was simply idling in there and occasionally a quarter of it would be utilised but on ML as much as half would be eaten up! I had to turn off several background functions using Terminal and remove any frills that is unnecessary to operate as a music server. After some tweaks I got it down to a little more then a quarter or memory were used during playback.

 

I have tested ML on PM / Amarra / A+ and had no issues with exception with PM where I had to say bye bye to native integer playback. All three sounds good and in fact they seems to sound more alike in ML versus SL. I will need more in depth listening but interestingly ML does sound different and for the better. Running on 64 Bit does makes a different and my immediate notes were:

 

1) Less glare and musical

2) Able to push volume higher

3) A touch warmer and smooth midrange

4) A wider and deeper soundstage

5) Not as sparkly as SL

6) Better separation

 

Overall I would say its a very cost effective upgrade similar to inserting a different DAC but you pay MUCH less for it. However, if you have a system that leans towards the warmer scale of neutral ML may or may not suits you.

 

Cheers~

[elcorso]

I have been sitting on the fence to upgrade from SL to L or ML. Last month I have upgraded my MM with dual drive HDD and running the OSX on SSD while I bum up the RAM to 8GB max. There was a huge leap in performance even running in SL with these DYI upgrades and only last night I took the plunge into ML.

 

------------

 

1) Less glare and musical

2) Able to push volume higher

3) A touch warmer and smooth midrange

4) A wider and deeper soundstage

5) Not as sparkly as SL

6) Better separation

 

Overall I would say its a very cost effective upgrade similar to inserting a different DAC but you pay MUCH less for it. However, if you have a system that leans towards the warmer scale of neutral ML may or may not suits you.

 

Cheers~

 

I agree with your findings under ML.

 

But if you want to "harden" or "sweeten" your SQ under Audirvana Plus: Playing on Integer Mode 1, iZotope at 2X: Moving the Pre-Ringing slider to "Linear" I get more hardness, but to "Min. Phase" the SQ goes to sweeten. In my case the 0.6 setting is OK, but it's DAC dependent (and music also).

 

Cheers!

 

Roch