ATTENTION Current Mac mini/A+ users: Boot Mavericks from an SD card, load a RAMdisk, dismount your internal SATA drives, and pour a drink for the musicians walking out of your speakers!

[alsterfan]

But what I am really want to know, is this integrity important for SQ?

Maybe I still have not got your point. All I can say is, that it takes quite a time to uninstall some apps to slim down the OS, too long in my case to definitely say that it improved SQ or vice versa. With reducing the number of services it is completely different, fortunately.

Regards,

Uwe

[AnotherSpin]

Maybe I still have not got your point. All I can say is, that it takes quite a time to uninstall some apps to slim down the OS, too long in my case to definitely say that it improved SQ or vice versa. With reducing the number of services it is completely different, fortunately.

Regards,

Uwe

Uwe, Alex words: "But afterwards I discovered that some things I deleted--possibly some apps or some Calendar or Spotlight-related items--cause my slimmed OS to have runaway consumption of CPU by the "disnoted","fontd" and one other process" explain some of my concerns.

[alsterfan]

Uwe, Alex words: "But afterwards I discovered that some things I deleted--possibly some apps or some Calendar or Spotlight-related items--cause my slimmed OS to have runaway consumption of CPU by the "disnoted","fontd" and one other process" explain some of my concerns.

Now I understand, sorry that it took such a long time.

Nothing of what you quoted has happened to me. So if you are interested PN me and I would try to send you details of what I have done.

Regards,

Uwe

[AnotherSpin]

Purchased today second Transcend 16GB 300x card for HQP. As a result I have now both Amarra Symphony and HQP installed on two cards each, Transcend 16GB and SanDisk 32GB. In both cases I prefer the sound from Transcend. Installation and additional features (CAD, etc.) are identical for all 4 cards. I paid for Transcend 16GB 300x approx. 4 times less than for SanDisk 32GB Extreme. Well, cards do sound differently.

[Daudio]

Uwe, Alex words: "But afterwards I discovered that some things I deleted--possibly some apps or some Calendar or Spotlight-related items--cause my slimmed OS to have runaway consumption of CPU by the "disnoted","fontd" and one other process" explain some of my concerns.

 

Don't worry if all you will do with the stripped OS is audio (iTunes, Audirvana+, Pure Music, etc).

 

re: my reply to Alex: "It makes sense to me that some apps are too interwoven to play nice without their friends, but if you kill them all anyway it doesn't matter"

 

Things like the Dictionary, Contacts database, fonts and whatever are shared between various apps/OS components. But we don't need any of that stuff for our purposes, so it is OK to delete them, and then make sure the deletions don't cause any trouble by running the CAD script, which prevents threads that may want any of those deleted resources from running.

 

Hope that makes you feel a little more comfortable with these actions

[Ned Kelly]

With the type of musicians that I listen to, I think I'm probably better off if they don't walk out of my speakers. hehe

 

Are we talking Zappa or Cannibal Corpse ?

[Ned Kelly]

Superdad, I suspect that my expectations were simply too high after quite a few hours stuffing around with SuperDuper etc, but based on the few tracks I've listened to this afternoon I dont know that it's quite 'soil my pants' time. Listening to a small selection (only 4GB on my Mini mandated a 1GB RAMDISK) of rock via Chord Hugo -> Sennheiser HD800s and I suspect I might need to hook the Hugo up to my Marantz speaker amp at some stage - I could also use a few hours sleep prior to my next listening session. It's been an interesting experience but I may have chosen poorly with my 32GB Sandisk SDXC card - OS X seems very sluggish compared to it's normal self from my stock hard drive. I'm also still finding my way around the trial version of A+ - I own Decibel but you were specific about your choice of player so I've tried to replicate your efforts as closely as possible, albeit without connecting to a speaker amp (yet). Thanks for all the hard work you've put into this and I hope to be able to give you better feedback over the weekend - have a good one.

 

Ned

[Jud]

Superdad, I suspect that my expectations were simply too high after quite a few hours stuffing around with SuperDuper etc, but based on the few tracks I've listened to this afternoon I dont know that it's quite 'soil my pants' time.

Ned

 

[AnotherSpin]

There is no reason that 130+ processes (and some 400+ threads) would sound better than 76 (and 300). In my experience, the differences are similar all along this path: Much as RAM disc and SD booting reduce generation of minute ground plane noise and EMI/RFI within the machine (versus running SATA, Firewire, or USB interfaces for real time music file transfer), reducing active processes does the same.

 

 

Returning back to CAD vs. no-CAD issue. After Jussi released 3.4 official build of his wonder-player there is a note on download page which reads:

 

Use of any audiophile system optimization application or script will likely make HQPlayer malfunction or crash and thus any use of such is strongly discouraged.

Well, after I updated 8 beta to official release HQP is not launching at all... Icon is bouncing slightly and nothing happens. Removed CAD script - HQP is working. At the moment I removed from the script launch daemons part. In this case HQP launches and operates ok. I think this stripped script version still makes SQ different.

 

Would be glad to hear opinions on:

- Do we still need script if developer suggests the opposite?

- What part of the script (I guess it is a line or two from launch daemons part) need to be cut to permit HQP launch?

 

Thanks.

[Superdad]

AnotherSpin:

 

I'll have to try the new, full release version on my i7 music mini (with Mavericks SD boot and CAD script). The betas worked fine. One important trick with all downloaded apps when using CAD script, is that you need launch them for the first time on a machine that does not have the CAD unloads. Then you can either copy the app to a machine that is booted with CAD unloads, or, if you had reset the script you can then rerun it. You know how OS X alway asks you for approval the first time you "Attempt to Launch an App Downloaded from the Internet?" That monitor and function is disabled by the CAD script--that's why you can't get HQP to launch. Enabling the opening of .dmg files has been covered elsewhere.

 

HQP sounds better when run with an NAA. After I got that working with my Macs, that's how I prefer to use it. And NAA boots Linux and requires nothing after boot. I will have a LOT to say on this topic and the results of my experiments with NAA (on CuBox-i4Pro versus i7 Mac mini), but I need to check in with Miska on a couple of points before my report, and I will start a new thread for it.

 

Cheers,

--Alex C.

 

P.S. First 15 of my Mac mini DC-conversion/Linear Fan Controller Kits shipped out today! I'm pretty excited about them finally going...

[AnotherSpin]

Alex,

I guess you're right. I was trying to reset and run script several times first with no success, after that I copied script content from other place, run script again, and - HQP is launching...) At the same time, I was downloading and launching previous betas (7,8) to already CAD optimised system and it was launching without any issues. Anyway, HQP 3.4 is working with full non-stripped script now. I run it from sd card, with ram disks, everything works fine.

[Pol]

Hello all,

did it today.

My MacMini-Reflink-Totaldac has jumped in another league.

Impossible to go back.

 

 

Un Grand Merci à SUPERDAD.

 

It's one of my best Upgrade this year.

[Superdad]

Hello all,

did it today.

My MacMini-Reflink-Totaldac has jumped in another league.

Impossible to go back.

 

Un Grand Merci à SUPERDAD.

 

It's one of my best Upgrade this year.

 

So glad you are enjoying the tricks. I just sent you a private message through ComputerAudiophile message system.

--Alex C.

[jabbr]

Curious about the preference for SD over SATA/SSD. On the mac, the SD reader seems to be on the USB bus for laptops and the PCIe bus for desktops: About the SD and SDXC card slot .

 

I've got a few lying around that I'd like to use for NAA. I'm assuming you run Audirvana/iTunes on the mini and use screen sharing to control it?

[Superdad]

Curious about the preference for SD over SATA/SSD. On the mac, the SD reader seems to be on the USB bus for laptops and the PCIe bus for desktops: About the SD and SDXC card slot .

 

I've got a few lying around that I'd like to use for NAA. I'm assuming you run Audirvana/iTunes on the mini and use screen sharing to control it?

 

That is not entirely correct. All Macs (laptop or desktop) with an SDXC card slot have it controlled by a Broadcom PCIe controller chip (and for the minis, I know for certain that the same chip is used as the Ethernet controller). The machines--mostly the older laptops--where the card slot is on the USB bus, are always specified as just having an SD slot (not SDXC). Oddly, the Apple document you linked to is incorrect with regards to the 2010 Mac mini. That model--which is what I had in my music system when I started this thread (I now have a 2012 i7) was absolutely equipped with an SDXC slot on the PCIe bus.

 

You are correct that I have mostly been heedlessly controlling Audirvana Plus, but I am now also using the i7 mini as an NAA for HQ Player (the player/processing app running on my desktop/work i7 mini). The results are very interesting. I will have much more to say about that in a new thread I'll start in a few days. I'm still clearing a few things with Miska, and I don't want to spill the beans just yet.

 

Since you mention the SD slot and NAA in the same post, I should at least say good luck with getting a Linux image to boot a Mac from and SD. USB flash no problem, but I wasted a lot of time trying to get a Linux NAA boot (tried all the usual suspect utilities for that, plus a lot of terminal copying, though I am not particularly EFI and Linux savvy). However, if you truly know the secret, please share.

As for a Linux OS and NAA configuration to boot, I am using one that Miska made special, but which he is not publicly distributing (due to both support and Internet host bandwidth issues).

 

Regards,

--Alex C.

[jabbr]

...

 

Since you mention the SD slot and NAA in the same post, I should at least say good luck with getting a Linux image to boot a Mac from and SD. USB flash no problem, but I wasted a lot of time trying to get a Linux NAA boot (tried all the usual suspect utilities for that, plus a lot of terminal copying, though I am not particularly EFI and Linux savvy). However, if you truly know the secret, please share.

As for a Linux OS and NAA configuration to boot, I am using one that Miska made special, but which he is not publicly distributing (due to both support and Internet host bandwidth issues).

 

Regards,

--Alex C.

 

Curious. Assuming it works with USB flash it should be possible with SD. I've got lots and lots of experience getting OS X to run on various non Apple hardware using EFI and side by side with Windows and Linux (using Clover EFI). ... got some tricks that might work... one approach would be to let the OS X install format the SD drive and add its own special EFI partition. It would then install OS X onto another partition on the SD drive. I'd use that partition and overwrite the OS X install with Linux ... sort of like having bootcamp without the OS X.

[jabbr]

Apparently some of the issues have been fixed with recent Ubuntu: Installation Guide for Linux Mint / Ubuntu on Apple Mac mini (late 2012) | The Red

[Superdad]

Curious. Assuming it works with USB flash it should be possible with SD.

 

Thanks for the ideas jabber. I've tried most of them previously. I wasted a week last month. Certainly was able to install Linux on a HD partition. And USB stick is probably doable too. SD card not so much. I'm pretty done fussing with Linux except for the custom NAA I pried out of Miska many months ago and which is now happily working on a USB stick.

 

But this is an are where we Linux novices would love some focus help. Most of the EFI utilities take one round and round and although some Linux variants no longer require uNetbootin, etc. I still don't find any of it to be a walk in the park.

 

So if you do find AND test a foolproof method applicable to those here wanting to boot into a very minimal, non-GUI Linux from a USB or SD, then please share that, along with detailed tips. The devil is in the details and I find most of the guides online assume that reader knows Linux.

 

On the other front, you mentioned Hackintoshes! That is an area of some interest to me. I've spent a bunch of time in the past reading the Tonymacx86 site, plus the Multibeast stuff, etc. But from what I have seen, the motherboards that work well as Hackintoshes are not the sort that have the minimalist, low TDP architecture that we audio-pc folks are looking for. Have you found any that fall in the sweet spot? i5/i7 performance level--even if not Intel; ability to run fan-less; relatively easy OS X install. I know that last criteria is like easy Linux, simple networking, or Middle-east peace. But a guy can dream…

 

Cheers,

AJC

[jabbr]

I would start by installing Linux side by side with OS X using rEFIit as a boot loader.

 

Once you've got that working I would copy the Linux partition to the SD card.

 

Once you can boot from that I would then copy the EFI partition to the SD card (you'll need to put the EFI partition first etc.)

 

You could also copy the entire disk image to the SD card and ensure that you can also boot into OS X from the SD card using rEFIit.

 

insanelymac.com is a far better resource for installing os x on non-apple hardware. I've installed OS X on lots of machines including an Asus x202e laptop I bought for my son ... of course I'm now replacing the cracked touchscreen ... kids. i5/i7 no problem. Probably could be installed on Atom ... looks like there's a guide for installing mavericks on the surface pro: [Guide] SurfacePro 1 & 2 Osx-Android-Windows multiboot - Installation Guides - InsanelyMac Forum

 

Installing on AMD machines is a bit of black magic.

 

I don't think ARM would work.

[NotRick]

I would start by installing Linux side by side with OS X using rEFIit as a boot loader.

 

Once you've got that working I would copy the Linux partition to the SD card.

 

Once you can boot from that I would then copy the EFI partition to the SD card (you'll need to put the EFI partition first etc.)

 

You could also copy the entire disk image to the SD card and ensure that you can also boot into OS X from the SD card using rEFIit.

 

insanelymac.com is a far better resource for installing os x on non-apple hardware. I've installed OS X on lots of machines including an Asus x202e laptop I bought for my son ... of course I'm now replacing the cracked touchscreen ... kids. i5/i7 no problem. Probably could be installed on Atom ... looks like there's a guide for installing mavericks on the surface pro: [Guide] SurfacePro 1 & 2 Osx-Android-Windows multiboot - Installation Guides - InsanelyMac Forum

 

Installing on AMD machines is a bit of black magic.

 

I don't think ARM would work.

 

Oddly enough I've been looking into that. At the moment I'm leaning toward Gentoo, which I'll probably have to build on the mac with the gcc cross compiler - but it's designed to create minimal distributions as a base then add what's needed - and it's set up to boot from an SD card and it's supposed to be compatible with CuBox

 

Gentoo Linux -- About Gentoo

[JohanJ]

Probably the dumbest question ever in here: Can anybody tell me what A+ is?

[BobL]

Probably the dumbest question ever in here: Can anybody tell me what A+ is?

 

Not dumb at all. How could you know if you don't use it? It's what we lazy people call Audirvana+.

[JohanJ]

Not dumb at all. How could you know if you don't use it? It's what we lazy people call Audirvana+.

Thank you Bob for your answer... what a relief... I thought I missed out on essential software I guess you all changed A+ for HQP?

Johan

[Jud]

Thank you Bob for your answer... what a relief... I thought I missed out on essential software I guess you all changed A+ for HQP?

Johan

 

Don't know about anyone else - I use both, A+ more. I do offline upsampling with the Audio Inventory converter, which sounds better to me than online conversion with A+ or HQP. I asked Miska (HQP) about possibly offering his filters in offline converter form, but he thought it would create a fair amount of additional work for him that he was not eager to undertake.

[AnotherSpin]

Thank you Bob for your answer... what a relief... I thought I missed out on essential software I guess you all changed A+ for HQP?

Johan

Johan, be silent. You can not laugh on A+ here, it is not welcomed. You will be named troll, whatever... Yes, everybody who tried better software use A+ only as a reference. I like it for fast non-critical listening of non-important material.