Mac Mini - 2012 vs New Model? Dual vs. Quad cores?

[Superdad]

Hello Alex,

 

I also have a question (and sorry if this has already been asked and answered before): when you tested all the above alternatives using Audirvana Plus, did you do it with the "Memory Play" option checked or unchecked? And if you tried both, did you hear any difference between them?

 

thanks,

mario

 

Hi Mario:

There is no "Memory Play" option in A+. It always pre-loads two tracks into memory (unless you set its allocation for such really small or to zero; I usually have it set at about 5GB). And whenever I test, I start the track, immediately pause, watch the grey buffer progress bar get to the end of the track (an about 10 seconds beyond to cover the 2nd track buffering) and then press play.

 

As I will reiterate to Rich in a moment, I think it is all about active interfaces as much as about data transfer.

[Superdad]

Very interesting Alex. was that order determined when using a good linear power supply to provide power for the external hard drives? Although limited to a few customers, the feedback I have received from customers using thunderbolt external hard drive (Lacie SSD and std HD types - both newer Thunderbolt 2 drives) that they sounded very good -better than other (FW IIRC) alternatives.

 

Too many possibilities and permutations to consider and test though so it's hard to be completely sure about anything with these systems! :-0 :-) For example, if a internal drive is the better way to go than what about different speed drives (5400rpm vs 70000rpm) or those hybrid internal drives?

 

Hi Rich:

No, at the time, all my OWC externals were powered (one at a time) with a single stock 12V SMPS brick plugged into a house circuit that is entirely separate from my studio's dedicated sub-panel. Only after all my tests were done did I try powering the winning FW400 drive from a linear. And that of course helped a bit. No, I did not go back and repeat the comparison on all the enclosures using the LPS. BTW, for reference, my original report on the whole ordeal is posted here:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/my-deep-dive-media-storage-interfaces-musical-differences-heard-between-chipsets-firewire-400-800-universal-serial-bus-industry-standard-cables-connectors-and-communications-protocols-between-computers-and-electronic-devices-sata-flash-drives-sd-cards-and-network-shares-warning-may-cause-seizures-dbt-crowd-and-flat-earth-naysayers-18108/

 

The Thunderbolt drive that I tried later on was a bus powered Seagate TB adaptor (Amazon.com: Seagate Backup Plus Portable Thunderbolt Adapter: Computers & Accessories) with a laptop SATA drive plugged into it.

 

So yeah, I am sure my rankings could stand updating and some Thunderbolt drives (especially with external PS) would likely fare better--especially against some of the quad-ported enclosures (I have one OWC with eSATA, FW800, FW400, and USB3.0; it is awful when direct connected). Truthfully, once I heard how much better the internal SATA, then the SD card, then RAM disk sounded, I did not rally care much about the externals. Except for the capacity and hassle issue. And that's when I discovered that carefully done (direct connect, good EN cable) shared drives via Ethernet could equal the SD card (as I have noted, they share the same Broadcom controller chip).

 

As for drives themselves sounding different, I agree with Tranz about PS draw and spikes being the issue there (for spinning drives I prefer low power, 1TB, single-platter units). But overriding that is the interface itself.

 

You mention the "hybrid" internal drives, i.e. Apple's Fusion drives. Those are of course a software construct of smart caching between a spinning HD and something faster. Prior to 2014 minis that meant a HD and an SSD, both on the SATA bus. Zeros advantage for sonics AFAIK. With the 2014 mini, a Fusion drive is a HD on the SATA and the 256GB PCIe Flash drive "fused" by s/w. Still not too interesting to me since when booting from SD card I dismount/eject all my SATA HD partitions to shut down the drive and the bus (I'd yank the drive entirely, but I like having those 5 bootable partitions with all manner of OSs).

 

But a 2014 Mac mini ordered with just the PCIe Flash drive and no SATA? That to me is the ticket! Likely to sound just as good as booting from SD card--only vastly faster. I'm just bummed because I think I might miss having a quad-core i7 when running massive SRC/SDM with HQ Player.

 

Be sure to phone me Rich when you are ready for those nice "other things" to complete your new Mac mini set-up. You know I owe you a complementary MMK.

 

Cheers,

--Alex C.

[udis]

a) Carefully done shared Ethernet drive on another computer (BlueJeans/Belden Cat6a direct no switch); Good NAS setup might rank up here, or direct connection to a new Airport Extreme sharing a HD connected to its USB port;

 

Alex, is there something special about the new Airport Extreme versus say a Linksys E3000 Wireless-N Router (http://www.amazon.com/Linksys-E3000-Cisco-Linksys-Wireless-N-Router/dp/B003B48UQ8)?

[Superdad]

Alex, is there something special about the new Airport Extreme versus say a Linksys E3000 Wireless-N Router (http://www.amazon.com/Linksys-E3000-Cisco-Linksys-Wireless-N-Router/dp/B003B48UQ8)?

 

I don't know. You should try it. And truth be told, I have never even had a chance to pull my Airport Extreme from the living room to hang a USB drive on it and direct connect my music computer. I just know some people have done that with good results.

 

My big thing--which everyone can tell by now--is that I prefer having an Ethernet cable, USB cable to DAC, and DC cable to LPS as my only connections to my music computer.

[RichB]

I don't know. You should try it. And truth be told, I have never even had a chance to pull my Airport Extreme from the living room to hang a USB drive on it and direct connect my music computer. I just know some people have done that with good results.

 

My big thing--which everyone can tell by now--is that I prefer having an Ethernet cable, USB cable to DAC, and DC cable to LPS as my only connections to my music computer.

 

In general . . . Why bother with the Airport Extreme, when the Airport Time Capsule is (from what I can see mentioned in the iFixit site) is a Airport Extreme with a 2 or 3 TB SATA HD inside. I would think keeping the storage directly assessable in the router would work better (faster) than a USB drive hung off the Extreme (which only has a USB2.0 port). I've read that the drive in the TimeCapsule does not need to set as a TimeCapsule HD so it will appear as a network drive to the Mac Mini. The drive inside the Airport TimeCapsule is a Seagate Barracuda apparently.

 

https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/132942/Detailed+Removal+2TB+HD+Plus+Install+4TB+HD+%2B+Formating

 

 

I see the Western Digital MyNet N900 is also a router with built in 1tb or 2tb HD:

 

WD My Net N900 Central review - CNET

[RichB]

Hi Rich:

No, at the time, all my OWC externals were powered (one at a time) with a single stock 12V SMPS brick plugged into a house circuit that is entirely separate from my studio's dedicated sub-panel. Only after all my tests were done did I try powering the winning FW400 drive from a linear. And that of course helped a bit. No, I did not go back and repeat the comparison on all the enclosures using the LPS. BTW, for reference, my original report on the whole ordeal is posted here:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/my-deep-dive-media-storage-interfaces-musical-differences-heard-between-chipsets-firewire-400-800-universal-serial-bus-industry-standard-cables-connectors-and-communications-protocols-between-computers-and-electronic-devices-sata-flash-drives-sd-cards-and-network-shares-warning-may-cause-seizures-dbt-crowd-and-flat-earth-naysayers-18108/

 

The Thunderbolt drive that I tried later on was a bus powered Seagate TB adaptor (Amazon.com: Seagate Backup Plus Portable Thunderbolt Adapter: Computers & Accessories) with a laptop SATA drive plugged into it.

 

So yeah, I am sure my rankings could stand updating and some Thunderbolt drives (especially with external PS) would likely fare better--especially against some of the quad-ported enclosures (I have one OWC with eSATA, FW800, FW400, and USB3.0; it is awful when direct connected). Truthfully, once I heard how much better the internal SATA, then the SD card, then RAM disk sounded, I did not rally care much about the externals. Except for the capacity and hassle issue. And that's when I discovered that carefully done (direct connect, good EN cable) shared drives via Ethernet could equal the SD card (as I have noted, they share the same Broadcom controller chip).

 

As for drives themselves sounding different, I agree with Tranz about PS draw and spikes being the issue there (for spinning drives I prefer low power, 1TB, single-platter units). But overriding that is the interface itself.

 

You mention the "hybrid" internal drives, i.e. Apple's Fusion drives. Those are of course a software construct of smart caching between a spinning HD and something faster. Prior to 2014 minis that meant a HD and an SSD, both on the SATA bus. Zeros advantage for sonics AFAIK. With the 2014 mini, a Fusion drive is a HD on the SATA and the 256GB PCIe Flash drive "fused" by s/w. Still not too interesting to me since when booting from SD card I dismount/eject all my SATA HD partitions to shut down the drive and the bus (I'd yank the drive entirely, but I like having those 5 bootable partitions with all manner of OSs).

 

But a 2014 Mac mini ordered with just the PCIe Flash drive and no SATA? That to me is the ticket! Likely to sound just as good as booting from SD card--only vastly faster. I'm just bummed because I think I might miss having a quad-core i7 when running massive SRC/SDM with HQ Player.

 

Be sure to phone me Rich when you are ready for those nice "other things" to complete your new Mac mini set-up. You know I owe you a complementary MMK.

 

Cheers,

--Alex C.

 

Looks like I have some reading to do :-) . . .

 

Alex... you now have me thinking about adding a internal "upper" SATA HD for music storage in the mac mini (another 2012 Core i7 machine) I am building for a customer of mine as a alternative to the external Lacie Thunderbolt SSD so that the customer can try both and use what sounds best for his set-up. Can always dismount it when not in use. More possibilities and more fun!

 

When I was talking about hyrbrid drives, was not referring to the apple fusion drives, but actually this all in one hybrid drive:

[h=1]Seagate Hybrid Drives ST1000LM014 1TB MLC/8GB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s NCQ 2.5" Laptop SSHD [/h]Seagate Solid State Hybrid ST1000LM014 1TB Laptop Hard Drive - Newegg.com

[Superdad]

In general . . . Why bother with the Airport Extreme, when the Airport Time Capsule is (from what I can see mentioned in the iFixit site) is a Airport Extreme with a 2 or 3 TB SATA HD inside. I would think keeping the storage directly assessable in the router would work better (faster) than a USB drive hung off the Extreme (which only has a USB2.0 port). I've read that the drive in the TimeCapsule does not need to set as a TimeCapsule HD so it will appear as a network drive to the Mac Mini. The drive inside the Airport TimeCapsule is a Seagate Barracuda apparently.

 

Excellent Rich. I did not even realize that Time Capsule still existed as a flavor of the new Extreme form factor. For some reason I thought they left it behind with the flat ones. Very cool.

 

Now I am wondering how to get that little SATA flat cable harness so I can put a hard drive into my Airport Extreme. Not that I'll be using it for music in my studio. I use our new Extreme in the living room as wifi router (and wired network extender for all the TV stuff: ATV, Dish DVR, wife's computer) for the house. I'd be thrilled to move all our ripped movie files closer to the TV and to free up one of my desktop OWC drives.

[rockitdoc]

Thought some folks here may want to know about this... I just picked up one of these a week or two ago... I think it is a good deal and they still have them in stock:

 

Apple Mac mini Desktop Computer with OS X Server MD389LL/A B&H

 

2012 Mac mini Server - brand new for $850>

 

• 2.3GHz Intel Core i7 Quad-Core
  
• 4GB of DDR3 RAM
  
• 2 x 1TB 5400rpm HDD
  
• Integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000
  
• SDXC Media Card Reader
  
• Thunderbolt, FireWire 800, USB 3.0, HDMI
  
• 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet
  
• 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
  
• Compact Form Factor
  
• Mac OS X Server
  

 

Going to make it into our new music server for the main listening room. As I understand it, its the same mini as the std 2012 2.3GHz i7 mini, except with two 1 TB drives and OSX Server (Mavericks) loaded onto it. Have already reformatted the HD's and loaded up non-server version of Mavericks and have upgraded the memory to 8Gb (for now - 16GB later probably). Will be insitalling SSD to replace one the OSX HD. Right now I'm using a 2010mini (2.5Ghz Core 2 unit) which the machine will replace.

 

Question is where to store the music??? on the spare internal 1TB HD or a external Thunderbolt drive is the question I am pondering right now.

 

Not $850 anymore. $949.

[Superdad]

Not $850 anymore. $949.

 

Quad-core i7 Mac minis: The first computer in history to appreciate in value? (unless you have an original Apple I motherboard to auction at Sotheby's).

[nomad33fw]

I use a 2012 MM i7 quad and love it. I did add a PeachTree Audio X1 to the system. The X1 nicely bypasses the sound chip of the MM via USB the outputs a clean 192/24 via coax into my Denon. The Denon DAC is decent, the X1 just gets the signal into it cleanly.

[alsterfan]

But a 2014 Mac mini ordered with just the PCIe Flash drive and no SATA? That to me is the ticket! Likely to sound just as good as booting from SD card--only vastly faster.

 

After my unsatisfactory tests with the new Mac Book 12´´ I got a Mac Mini late 2014 configured in the way Alex C. proposed:

256 GB PCIe bound flash storage, 16GB soldered RAM, 3,0GHz CPU.

Since a Mac Mini late 2012, 16GB RAM, Core i5 processor sounded clearly better than my iMac late 2012 (Core i7 3,1 GHz, 16 GB RAM) I compared the 2 MMs.

First of all I listened using my SD card with a prepared OS X 10.10.3. . It was easy to discern the differences:

1. Everything sounds more "tightly". An acoustic bass becomes even more of a pleasure to listen to.

2. Many more details can be heard with the musical flow remaining highly enjoyable.

3. The instruments now keep their places. Beforehand when an instrument changed from playing high to low frequencies, a change of its place could happen.

The next and dull work was to prepare the OS X installed on the flash card in the same way as I did with my SD card.

In the end having deleted the Safe Sleep file and 29 services and after activating the CAD script V. 1.3 I can say:

 

Alex you were right with your above quoted assumption.

Listening to the native OS X with only the CAD script activated the SD card still "sounded" a bit better. But now a thin veil has disappeared and both solutions are on a par, with the advantage of the flash storage to react more quickly.

Of course I could have deleted even more services but I did not want to prolong booting. It seems to me this happens when certain services (which?) were deleted causing the boot process to stop for a while and "look" for them.

For me I have successfully reached a higher level. If someone is looking for an excellent solution, I would again go for a Mac Mini late 2014 with PCIe bound flash storage 16 GB RAM und 3,0 GHZ CPU.

Now it´s up to you, dear Alex, to do the same a n d to tell us what happens, if you put your MMK into it and power it with your JS-2. Egoistically I do hope we won´t have to wait too long...

 

Best wishes,

Uwe

[alsterfan]

The next and dull work was to prepare the OS X installed on the flash card in the same way as I did with my SD card.

P.S. It was not wise - what I did at first hand - to copy (restore) my SD card to flash storage. I could boot but then the system froze in, so it didn´t react any ore.

Activity monitor shows that when using an iMac certain services are loaded that don´t appear using a Mac Mini. As my SD card was prepared using my iMac this might explain its freezing in when copied to the PCIe flash storage.

[Superdad]

After my unsatisfactory tests with the new Mac Book 12´´ I got a Mac Mini late 2014 configured in the way Alex C. proposed:

256 GB PCIe bound flash storage, 16GB soldered RAM, 3,0GHz CPU.

…..

Now it´s up to you, dear Alex, to do the same a n d to tell us what happens, if you put your MMK into it and power it with your JS-2. Egoistically I do hope we won´t have to wait too long...

 

Nice report Uwe. Just to be clear, I don't recall promoting that people opt for the upgraded 3.0GHz processor--unless one is planning to use HQ Player for high rate SRC/SDM--but I am sure it can't hurt. It is the SATA-less PCIe Flash option (no Fusion drive please) that I suspected would be the hot ticket to rival SD-card booting for SQ. Very happy to know that is the case.

 

As for the Mac mini DC-conversion/Linear Fan Controller Kit (MMK): It is already fully compatible with the 2014 minis (even the included toolkit now has the correct Torx T6 "security" version screwdriver). Now that you have moved over to a mini Uwe, the MMK is the final step for your music server hardware-wise.

 

BTW, one can get the benefits of the linear fan controller portion of the MMK even if the external PS chosen is another SMPS. Sounds crazy, but a young man in Singapore who is saving for a JS-2 asked me about this. So I picked out and ordered for him a nice 90W Mean Well (GS90A12-P1M) for $40. Sure a great LPS will sound better, but the MMK still does its best trick of ridding the machine of the high-current PWM pulses between the fan and motherboard. Very audible.

[alsterfan]

I don't recall promoting that people opt for the upgraded 3.0GHz processor...

Alex, your mentioning the importance of L3 Cache brought me to opt for 3,0 GHz.

[Superdad]

Alex, your mentioning the importance of L3 Cache brought me to opt for 3,0 GHz.

 

Oh, okay. I forgot. The extra cache of the i7 should be good.

No harm in going for the i7. As many Mac mini year sonic comparisons as I have done, I've never had 2 units from the same year with everything the same except for one being i5 and the other i7.

[alsterfan]

Now that you have moved over to a mini Uwe, the MMK is the final step for your music server hardware-wise...a nice 90W Mean Well (GS90A12-P1M)

 

Dear Alex,

not the final step but maybe last but two:

1. MMK Fan Kit powered by Mean Well PSU

2. later on feeling a growing wish for the JS2 (?)

Did you hear any humming noise from the Mean Well PSU you bought for your customer?

 

Best wishes,

Uwe

[Superdad]

Did you hear any humming noise from the Mean Well PSU you bought for your customer?

 

None that I recall.

[alsterfan]

not the final step but maybe the last but two:

 

Necessary update

 

For quite a long time I am now listening using a Mac mini late 2014 with MMK fan kit and JS-2 external power supply.

This once again was a big step forward as to SQ. But, as things often go, the better the equipment the more acoustic „mistakes“ are revealed. In my case tones of higher frequencies were no longer embedded in the musical flow. They sort of jumped at my ears making listening to my music a bit of a strain.

Enjoyment was displaced by frustration as I had no idea for a remedy. In the middle of a search for a used Mac mini late 2012 Alex´s SD card trick came back to my mind. So via Apple´s App Store I copied Yosemite to a Transcend 32 GB SD card (SDHC I 90MB/s 600x).

After having prepared it (deleting some services, Launch Daemons and Agents, removing Spotlight, Spaces and Safe Sleep file) my Music OS booted in about 45 s. Having created 2 RAM discs (500 MB for iTunes, 8 GB for music) it became obvious at once that the musical flow was as it should be.

So I ordered a Sony SF32N4 Class 4 Standard 32GB SDHC card and put Yosemite on that one too. And once again (as I did before my PCIe flash adventure) I could hear a clear sonic advantage to the Transcend card. I am still convinced that the polished contacts that boast the Sony SD cards are the reason for that. However class 4 is rather slow. One can live with that but 3 minutes booting time may be a bit long for some of us. So a Sony SF16UX Class10 32GB SDHC is on the way that hopefully will boot in a decent time and keep the sonic qualities of its slower sibling.

 

As the built-in PCIe flash storage is no longer used it perhaps could make sense to take it out of the Mm. Alex C. pointed out that there might be an advantage to do this instead of just deactivating it, as deactivation does not mean to shut off currency.

Has anybody done this to be able to tell something about sonic differences?

 

Uwe

 

P.S. Unlike Alex I could not use Mavericks. It worked ok. with my iMac late 2012 but with my Mm late 2014 booting from a SD card with Mavericks on it ended up in a loop.

[miguelito]

lol... did you make any upgrades to the power supply? a la - http://www.coreaudiotechnology.com/products/music-servers/mac-mini-music-server/

 

jriver vs. audirvana?

Yes, Uptone JS-2. Regen and RUR help as well (I am currently using RUR and prefer it over Regen in my setup). Check my system specs in my sig, lots of detail.

 

Audirvana+ is the best sounding player thus far, but I actually use Roon+HQPlayer which sounds about as good - I do not use anything that does not involve Roon!

[Hailey]

Necessary update

 

For quite a long time I am now listening using a Mac mini late 2014 with MMK fan kit and JS-2 external power supply.

This once again was a big step forward as to SQ. But, as things often go, the better the equipment the more acoustic „mistakes“ are revealed. In my case tones of higher frequencies were no longer embedded in the musical flow. They sort of jumped at my ears making listening to my music a bit of a strain.

Enjoyment was displaced by frustration as I had no idea for a remedy. In the middle of a search for a used Mac mini late 2012 Alex´s SD card trick came back to my mind. So via Apple´s App Store I copied Yosemite to a Transcend 32 GB SD card (SDHC I 90MB/s 600x).

After having prepared it (deleting some services, Launch Daemons and Agents, removing Spotlight, Spaces and Safe Sleep file) my Music OS booted in about 45 s. Having created 2 RAM discs (500 MB for iTunes, 8 GB for music) it became obvious at once that the musical flow was as it should be.

So I ordered a Sony SF32N4 Class 4 Standard 32GB SDHC card and put Yosemite on that one too. And once again (as I did before my PCIe flash adventure) I could hear a clear sonic advantage to the Transcend card. I am still convinced that the polished contacts that boast the Sony SD cards are the reason for that. However class 4 is rather slow. One can live with that but 3 minutes booting time may be a bit long for some of us. So a Sony SF16UX Class10 32GB SDHC is on the way that hopefully will boot in a decent time and keep the sonic qualities of its slower sibling.

 

As the built-in PCIe flash storage is no longer used it perhaps could make sense to take it out of the Mm. Alex C. pointed out that there might be an advantage to do this instead of just deactivating it, as deactivation does not mean to shut off currency.

Has anybody done this to be able to tell something about sonic differences?

 

Uwe

 

P.S. Unlike Alex I could not use Mavericks. It worked ok. with my iMac late 2012 but with my Mm late 2014 booting from a SD card with Mavericks on it ended up in a loop.

 

I would love to do this but I cannot follow it to save my life.

 

The challenge of computer audio: Some of us just aren't quite smart enough.

[Superdad]

Necessary update

 

P.S. Unlike Alex I could not use Mavericks. It worked ok. with my iMac late 2012 but with my Mm late 2014 booting from a SD card with Mavericks on it ended up in a loop.

 

Hi Uwe:

 

Thanks for your reports. Just to be clear, I have never been able to run Mavericks on a 2014 Mac mini. Don't think it is possible. I still boot it--a very slimmed version, about 70 processes/300 threads--from an SD card on my 2012 mini. When I have time (next year?), I will create a slimmed version of El Capitan on a fast Toshiba Exceria SDHC card to compare.

[alsterfan]

I have never been able to run Mavericks on a 2014 Mac mini.

Hi Alex,

Since Mavericks ran on my iMac late 2012 I am convinced that the new hardware of the Mm late 2014 excludes Mavericks from being a suitable OS X.

Best wishes,

Uwe

[Hailey]

As soon as you start powering the drives externally with an lpsu as opposed to using the mobo the differences become much smaller. And for extra comfort you can try the SoTM SATA filters

 

How does one fit a SoTM SATA filter into a Mac Mini?

[tranz]

How does one fit a SoTM SATA filter into a Mac Mini?

 

Hi Hailey,

 

I ripped the mini apart and used different enclosures. There is room

for a 2nd drive in the mini shell so it could possibly hold the filter, but I do not know if the angles will allow for it.

 

Details can be found here:

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f10-music-servers/mac-mini-version-computer-audiophile-pocket-server-music-server-step-step-17666/

[Hailey]

Hi Hailey,

 

I ripped the mini apart and used different enclosures. There is room

for a 2nd drive in the mini shell so it could possibly hold the filter, but I do not know if the angles will allow for it.

 

Details can be found here:

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f10-music-servers/mac-mini-version-computer-audiophile-pocket-server-music-server-step-step-17666/

 

Thanks. Interesting, so you actually moved the internal HDD out of the chassis?