Alternative to Sonos Desktop Controller

[Slanski62]

I love Sonos, especially the Desktop Controller app. I dig the way it integrates all of my sources (ripped files, internet radio, sirius, rhapsody) into one easy-to-use interface. But I'm not using Sonos as a multi-room system, which is pretty much its reason for being. Also, I would really like to feed high resolution files via asynchronous USB into Rick Cullen's very fine w4s DAC2. This, Sonos can't do.

 

So I'm contemplating a switch to a mac mini as my digital hub. My question is what apps are comparable to the functionality of Sonos? Any ideas are appreciated.

 

Steve

 

[wgscott]

Ideally what you would want is a full remote display of iTunes (or whatever music player software you would use). OS X isn't a native X11 windowing system (like linux and other unix flavors), so you can't do this.

 

The next best thing is to use a remote display of the whole mini desktop. I do this all the time. The functionality is built into the Finder.app, so you don't have to buy or set up anything (except to activate it in the "sharing" preference pane). For me this is by far the best solution. I can post a screenshot if you want...