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!

[Tand]

I had à Transcend 95mb/s and move to a lexar same speed.

sounds à little better so i try the lexar 2000 (300mb/s) and it sounds even better.

some micro details apear.

not à lot, of course but it is a small nice improvment.

 

Finally bought the Lexar Pro 2000x 32gb today. It sounds really good compared to my Sandisc Extreme Pro 95mb. More details and not so digital. Wonder why...?

[jamesg11]

How many are still using the sd card boot method? Hands up please ...

 

- /& has anyone done some serious El Capitan slimming?

[Pascal64]

How many are still using the sd card boot method? Hands up please ...

 

me !

and probably a dozen of french guys on this thread

Optimisations pour Mac Audiophile

[Superdad]

How many are still using the sd card boot method? Hands up please ...

 

- /& has anyone done some serious El Capitan slimming?

 

 

Absolutely still key to getting the best SQ from a Mac mini. Important to also dismount/eject any internal drives (shutting off the SATA bus).

 

I am still on Mavericks, and part way through slimming an El Capitan install for cloning to a SD for boot. There are a few others here at CA who have slimmed El Cap to about 80-100 processes. I've only gotten down to 120 so far--versus the 70 of my Mavericks build. I find that about every 10 processes shaved off I can hear a subtle improvement.

 

Don't bother trying to slim Sierra. It starts off with some massive amount of stuff running and the two passes I took at slimming it just made hang, be unresponsive, or not allow CoreAudio to work.

[jamesg11]

Thanks Alex, is it going to be possible for you to log the slimmed processes?

Yuh know, with all that spare time ...

 

& btw, I only have the macmini for mac os, so slimming el cap will be in situ only!

[Le Concombre Masqué]

call me a traitor but I repeat : go Windows 2012 ; quite easy (bootcamp) and as uncluttered as possible

 

And so much better

[Tand]

I am using SD card/Lexan 2000X 300 mb/s (hds dismonted), JS-2 & MMF, directly connected over ethernet to my Rednet 16. I am very pleased with the sound!

 

Is it possible to use SD card with Windows 2012? I guess Screen Share does not work with my Macbook?

[Tand]

Is it possible to use SD card with Windows 2012? I guess Screen Share does not work with my Macbook?

 

Guess not:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204384

Can I use an SD, SDHC, or SDXC card to install Windows on my Mac?SD, SDHC, or SDXC cards cannot be used to install Boot Camp software on Macs with an SD or SDXC card slot.

 

 

SD, SDHC, or SDXC cards cannot be used to install Boot Camp software on Macs with an SD or SDXC card slot.

 

 

 

 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

what matters is the end result : if W2012 on ssd beats osx on sd, then W2012 is preferable. I think there's a screen share equivalent. Only things I miss are tags and custom folders which icons are the records covers. On the other hand access to my remote files (including files on a Time capsule) is so much faster...

[Superdad]

call me a traitor but I repeat : go Windows 2012 ; quite easy (bootcamp) and as uncluttered as possible

 

And so much better

 

Okay my friend, you have made your point several times--in several Mac OS X threads. It's getting to be a bit like a Chevy enthusiast crashing a Ford gathering to rave about their brand being better. (Or Porsche fan going to Audi club or whatever there in Europe ).

 

There are many people who are not interested in the expense (license to Server is $500) and trouble of Windows (all of Microsoft's built in spyware with Win10), or giving up OS X applications.

 

Regards,

 

--Alex C.

[jamesg11]

Anyone for El Capitan slimming list, suggestions, ...?

[Le Concombre Masqué]

I'm probably wrong to think others are as slow as I am but it took me sooo long to quit my first job and accept that the world was truly greener elsewhere, and it took me such a while to dig EuroDriver et al's positive opinion about W2012 and just give it a try that I felt like sharing once more my unbiased satisfaction to run a much more stable (HQP & Corning) and better sounding system.

 

Nevertheless if I was to purchase a new machine it would still be a Mac and I would still use OSX for anything but music.

 

I wish you to whom I owe my awareness of the importance of OS and OS tweaks would report about relative SQ regardless of expense considerations. W2012 has a 180 trial period : plenty of time to decide if the expense should be added to or made in lieu de buying accessories

Regards,

Le Concombre

 

Okay my friend, you have made your point several times--in several Mac OS X threads. It's getting to be a bit like a Chevy enthusiast crashing a Ford gathering to rave about their brand being better. (Or Porsche fan going to Audi club or whatever there in Europe ).

 

There are many people who are not interested in the expense (license to Server is $500) and trouble of Windows (all of Microsoft's built in spyware with Win10), or giving up OS X applications.

 

Regards,

 

--Alex C.

[markvandepas]

On 2017-3-12 at 0:47 AM, jamesg11 said:

How many are still using the sd card boot method? Hands up please ...

 

- /& has anyone done some serious El Capitan slimming?

 

I use it. Since one week.  

 

It exactly gives the sound quality improvement as you describe !! Thank you for this post.

 

To my ears unmounting the internal Samsung SATA SSD in my Mac Mini only gives half the potential sound quality improvement.

 

I unmounted the Samsung SATA SSD disk from terminal with: diskutil unmount diskXX. XX = 0 in my Mac Mini.

But OSX still reads meta-data from the Samsung SSD which means the SATA connection is still active.

 

So I decided too fiscally unplug the power and SATA connecters from the SSD (see picture). For this one only has too the WIFI-antenna has be removed. I left the SSD inside the Mac mini because it too much work removing it.

I covered the power and SATA connecters with some tape, too prevent I making accidental contact.

 

Although the placebo-effect could fool me: too my ears the power and SATA connecters need too be unplugged for maximum effect.

[savjam]

On 3/11/2017 at 9:22 PM, Superdad said:

 

 

Absolutely still key to getting the best SQ from a Mac mini. Important to also dismount/eject any internal drives (shutting off the SATA bus).

 

I am still on Mavericks, and part way through slimming an El Capitan install for cloning to a SD for boot. There are a few others here at CA who have slimmed El Cap to about 80-100 processes. I've only gotten down to 120 so far--versus the 70 of my Mavericks build. I find that about every 10 processes shaved off I can hear a subtle improvement.

 

Don't bother trying to slim Sierra. It starts off with some massive amount of stuff running and the two passes I took at slimming it just made hang, be unresponsive, or not allow CoreAudio to work.

 

On 3/11/2017 at 6:47 PM, jamesg11 said:

How many are still using the sd card boot method? Hands up please ...

 

- /& has anyone done some serious El Capitan slimming?

I just did yesterday.  I installed both Mac High Sierra and Roon onto the SD card and unmoumted the internal HDD.  This combination along with the MMK conversion kit and the JS-2 has netted the best sound quality I have obtained from the Mac Mini so far.   I will try Superdad’s suggestion for loading the music files to a Ram Disk next.

[HardrockInMiniMac]

Quick questions: Which is the best USB port on the Mac Mini 2014? 

Thx

Chris

[Superdad]

3 hours ago, HardrockInMiniMac said:

Quick questions: Which is the best USB port on the Mac Mini 2014? 

Thx

Chris

 

I have not personally compared the 2014 USB ports, but on the 2011 and 2012 models that came just before, the best sounding ports were clearly #1 and #3.

(#1 being the one furthest to the outside edge of the computer and #4 being the one closest to the center.)

Try it and hear--and let us know.  In my system (with a 2012 mini), I can say with certainty that ports 2 and 4 sound a lot worse than 1 and 3.

[AudioDoctor]

2 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

I have not personally compared the 2014 USB ports, but on the 2011 and 2012 models that came just before, the best sounding ports were clearly #1 and #3.

(#1 being the one furthest to the outside edge of the computer and #4 being the one closest to the center.)

Try it and hear--and let us know.  In my system (with a 2012 mini), I can say with certainty that ports 2 and 4 sound a lot worse than 1 and 3.

 

Now that is interesting.  I had only made sure that my DAC wasn't plugged into the same USB Controller as the Bluetooth Controller.

[EMMM]

On my 3 Mac Minis (all Late 2012 models), I found that USB port #1 (the outermost port away from the power connector) sounded the best when connected to my DACs (Schiit Modi Multibit and Denafrips Ares).

[Pascal64]

Hi there, 

still on USB port #3 on Mac mini Late 2012

(and OS X Maverick with Audirvana 2.6.8 and CAD scripts)

[Superdad]

1 hour ago, Pascal64 said:

Hi there, 

still on USB port #3 on Mac mini Late 2012

(and OS X Maverick with Audirvana 2.6.8 and CAD scripts)

 

Yes, I think ports 1 and 3 sound the same.  Ports 2 and 4 are the ones to be avoided! It is crazy how apparent the difference is. 

 

 

[Ralf11]

what are the differences among the 4 ports?

 

is it the layout on the PCBs?  or some other thing?

[Ralf11]

and what about Firewire?

 

my Aug. 2012 Mini has Firewire, which I've heard is a 'better' audio interface than USB somewhere on here...  but it is pretty hard to find a good DAC with Firewire inputs these days

[Superdad]

31 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

what are the differences among the 4 ports?

 

is it the layout on the PCBs?  or some other thing?

 

Well the SMSC/Microchip USB2512B hub controller that the Mac mini uses can be configured in a number of ways.  And since it supports dynamic port mapping, there may be some internal devices (Bluetooth or other things) that always end up sharing power or something with the jacks that always sound poorer.  While I've looked at dozens of Mac mini boards with a loupe, its a 6 or 8 layer board so there is no telling what else could be going on in one of those planes that results in the consistent reporting of ports 1 and 3 sounding markedly better. 

[Advieira]

When you use SMS200-ultra as endpoint, all these mac mini mods keeps improving the SQ?

I´m already to make the mods: MMK, Hdplex 200w, SDcard 300mb/s.

[Superdad]

On 2/27/2018 at 3:26 PM, Advieira said:

When you use SMS200-ultra as endpoint, all these mac mini mods keeps improving the SQ?

I´m already to make the mods: MMK, Hdplex 200w, SDcard 300mb/s.

 

Strangely they do.  I used to discourage JS-2/MMK buyers who were using their computers just to feed their network renderers (Rendus, sMS-200, etc.), but so many have bought anyways and reported terrific results.