Macbook Pro Repurpose?

[marksas3]

So i've have my previous 2011 Macbook Pro sitting in my office collecting dust for a year now, been meaning to sell it on the old eBay, but got to thinking this morning if i should try and repurpose it as a music server.

The specs of this are:

Late 2011, 13 inch

2.8 GHz Intel Core i7

16GB 1333 MHz DDR3

Intel HD Graphics 3000 512MB

750 GB internal drive (Toshiba) (Not SSD)

OSX 10.7.5 Lion

 

Currently my system resides in a living room on the 1st floor, consisting of a Peachtree Nova integrated, a micromega mydac, and the MicroRendu. The rendu is connected via FMC's/fiber optic coming from the 2nd floor office where my Airport Extreme router is and my Mac Mini. The Mac Mini is multipurpose not a music server. It has Roon Core installed on it and is always controlled either by iOS apps or from an android tablet. Sources are ALAC files or Tidal, in fact i probably use Tidal 75% of the time. The media library for now is stored on an external usb drive connected to the Mac Mini.

 

One thing i am interested in, is trying HQPlayer with Roon but have not done so yet since the current Mac Mini is a multi use machine running various programs and processes. I also have Audirvana + and could potentially use that as well in System Optimized mode. There seem to be several options for the Macbook as it could be setup upstairs permanently like the Mini or it could be utilized in the living room and used wirelessly or physically connected directly to the system.

 

So many options and ways to go about this, looking for suggestions and thoughts...

 

Thanks

[jmdesignz2]

I'm using my early 2011 Macbook pro for audio. Check my sig.

Only drawback is sometimes there is fan noise. I've not compared it to anything else for SQ though.

[zackthedog]

For grins (and maybe big smiles) try Daphile. You should be able to boot from a USB stick. I'm getting awfully fond of Daphile on a mini-PC.

[marksas3]

For grins (and maybe big smiles) try Daphile. You should be able to boot from a USB stick. I'm getting awfully fond of Daphile on a mini-PC.

 

I'll look into that, thanks

[twluke]

One thing i am interested in, is trying HQPlayer with Roon but have not done so yet since the current Mac Mini is a multi use machine running various programs and processes.

 

Here I have a 13-inch MBP of Mid 2012 with 2.5GHz Intel Core i5 and 16GB/1600Mhz DDR3, on which Roon Core and HQ player are both running (and also A+ occasionally), providing noise- and stutter-free play of upsampled DSD256 sources via a Linux-based NAA (debian stretch with Botic driver on a BBB (beaglebone black)). This NAA is then i2s-connected to an ES9018 Dac (Buffalo 3SE from Twisted Pear Audio) via an LVDS (Teleporter from the same TPA). Sound is superb. Just FYI.